The 10,000 acre Rocky Fork tract is located along the
boundary of Tennessee’s Cherokee National Forest and North Carolina’s Pisgah NF,
and is bordered on the west side by the Appalachian Trail. The property was
bought from a forestry company in 2008 by a coalition of conservation groups to
protect it from development, and to preserve the spectacular hiking, mountain
biking and fishing opportunities. At the time Rocky Fork was considered one of
the largest contiguous tracts of private forest land left in the eastern United
States.
The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, which had leased
the land for the last 50 years, had kept the lone gate to the property closed,
yielding a well kept and outstandingly beautiful area waiting to be explored. At
the time of our ride the Forest Service had purchased the western third of the property
and the Conservation Fund had acquired the rest. The middle portion of 4000
acres were expected to be bought by the State of Tennessee, and the eastern 3,000
acre block by the Forest Service. Tennessee eventually was not able to acquire
all of the central block, and those other lands are now managed by the forest
service. The property was designated a Tennessee State Park in October 2012,
and officially opened in May 2015.
I had read about the land project but had not thought to
visit the area until I saw an article in Blue Ridge Outdoors that described
thee area as one of the best mountain biking areas in the Blue Ridge. The
article stated that the guys whom they had interviewed were exploring the area,
and were working on a map of the trails. I dug around and found a useful map on
the web site for the Northeast Tennessee Mountain Bike Club. My friend Mark was
familiar with Rocky Fork Tract having grown up in nearby Greenville, TN and was
especially eager to visit now that the property had been protected. Our friend Steven
was also hot to ride the area, so we headed up on the fourth of July for an
exploring ride. The drive took 2:20 from
Knoxville to Johnson City, and then south down Interstate 26.
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| The Original Rocky Fork Bike Map |
The mountain bike map was a savior. The existing road
systems didn’t match well with the topo or other published maps. The MB map was
accurate and did a great job of distinguishing the ridable stuff from the old
overgrown roads. Most of the roads in Rocky Fork were probably built originally
for logging, but by then had degraded to old two track roads. Beyond the
trailhead there were no signs. There was very little evidence of any use by
vehicles or bikes, so the tread was pretty solid. We saw some horse poop,
though there were also “no horse signs” posted.
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| Rocky Fork Trailhead |
The trailhead had a tiny parking area with room for only 3-4
cars. We crossed the gate to enter the area on a well-groomed gravel road. From
the parking area we started a long grunt up to Higgins Ridge. Mark immediately
sped off leaving Steven and I to trundle slowly upward, mostly pedaling, but
with a few hike-a bike sections. The climb was a 90 minute, 5 mile 2,000-foot
effort. Our ascent route followed what are now the Rocky Fork, White Oak Flats,
and Birchfield Camp trails, all of which are still open to mountain bikes.
We reached the end of the climb at a small saddle on Higgins
Ridge at a point that is now outside of the state park, but within the Cherokee
National Forest. We made a side loop east to the lake on Birchfield Camp Branch,
but that was a bit of a letdown. You could see the lake but there was no place
to hang out there. From the lake we completed the side loop and then turned
west and rode along the north slope of Higgins Ridge. The current (2020) Rocky
Fork SP map shows these trails in the CNF, but does not show the names,
numbers, or give any idea of their condition.
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| Mark and Steven at Birchfield Camp Lake |
After about 9.5 miles we reached a small saddle and hiked up
a faint trail to the open summit of Wilson Knob. Beyond a huge field of
stinging nettle, there is not much to see from the top. Next up was a rolling
section of old two track road heading west along Rich Mountain. Here Mark’s
local knowledge paid off. At around 12.5 miles we decided to take the one mile
side trip to Buzzard Rock Overlook on the Squibb Creek Trail in the Sampson
Mountain Wilderness. After ditching the bikes temporarily, we finally got some
great views of most of our route including Rich Mountain and the upper Rocky Fork
Valley.
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| View from Buzzard Roost |
Finally, we had a fun three mile descent down to, and
alongside, Rocky Fork. We could have continued ahead about a mile ahead on what
is now the Headwaters Trail to close our loop and reach the trailhead in
another two miles. But since it was still early in the day, we decided to
explore the routes shown in the Blockstand and Flint Creek drainages. This route
is now the upper part of the Blockstand Creek Trail. Here we made one wrong
turn (our fault, not the maps), and started riding further west into some overgrown
trail before retreating. Back on Blockstand things weren’t too bad until we decided
to drop off the side of Snakeden Ridge down to Flint Creek on what is now the
Blockstand Creek Access Hiking Trail. That route turned out to be choked with
blowdowns, stinging nettle, and boulders. Mostly we were dragging our bikes
downhill. The route was rated moderate on the map, but we figured it had to
have been ridden in winter when the vegetation had died back.
Upper Flint Creek turned out to be just a boulder field and
was also unridable. Lower Flint Creek is really nice, once the valley opened up.
The Flint Creek Trail is now also hiker only. From the end of it we had only 0.7
mile back to our cars at the trailhead. We had seen no people or vehicles all
day long. This is a beautiful area of mature forest and excellent bear habitat.
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| Our route shown in blue |
We spent about 7 hours riding about 27 miles (including a
lot of map reading time, our hiking side trip, and some long breaks during the
initial climb). Our GPS estimate of
5,500’ of climb is almost certainly too high. If you liked exploring, and didn’t
mind some huge climbs, this may indeed have been one of the best rides in the
area. The area is flat out beautiful.
As of 2020, the 2,000 acre core of Rocky Fork is now a state
park, renamed in 2019 for Senator Lamar Alexander. Some of the trails we rode
back in 2010 are now hiker only, and since I have not been back to ride since,
the status of the trails in the adjacent CNF on he north side of the loop are
unknown. With current management the Birchfield Camp Trail may now be
restricted to an out and back ride. Part of Blockstand Creek Trail is open to
bikes, but the lower sections that we found so rough are now open to hikers
only. It appears that the only option for a long loop would be to ride up
Birchfield Camp, west to Rich Mountain, descend to Rocky Fork and finish on the
Headwaters, White Oak Flats and Rocky Fork trails. The part web site states
that 15 miles of bike trails provide access to 8,000 acres, and that there are
20 miles of hiking trails.
