The Smoky Mountains Hiking Club rarely offers trips into the Cherokee National Forest. It’s not a conscious decision on the club’s part, but more the result of higher popularity of hikes in the Smokies, or in other areas close to Knoxville. But in the early 2010’s Mark Shipley led a series of hikes into the northern CNF on trails he had first hiked growing up in Greenville. The first of these was a loop hike across the Sampson Mountain Wilderness from Horse Creek to Rocky Fork. He was joined by Mary Ann, who family owned a cabin on an inholding near Horse Creek. Mark, Steven Miller, and I had done an epic bike ride in the newly acquired Rocky Fork area the year before and I was eager to see more of this beautiful area.
Trails in the northern CNF tend to be poorly, if at all, signed, blazed, or maintained, so this was regarded as an off trail hike. We started at the Horse Creek Campground, went up Middle Springs Ridge to crest of Rich Mtn. in Rocky Fork, then west on the Appalachian Trail, and finally down the Sarvis Cove Trail back to Horse Creek for a total of 11.8 miles. We were looking for a route to connect the newly acquired Rocky Fork Tract and the Sampson Mountain Wilderness, and Mark had suggested the loop.
Outside the Cabin.
The
trail started as an old road to the Hoskin Cabin, where Mary Ann gave us a
brief tour. Beyond the cabin we would see no trail signs where the Squibb Creek
and Turkeypen trails split off. However, we did find the Middle Springs Trail to
be well cleared, with recently cut blow downs, to the forest boundary. At
almost 8,000 acres, Sampson Mtn. was then the third largest wilderness in
Tennessee. But the entire wilderness had only three short trails on the western
edge, and so is much less used than the larger Citico Creek and Big Frog
wildernesses in the southern CNF.
Fording Squibb Creek.
Around
3800’ we entered the Rocky Fork Tract and followed faint trails south on Middle
Spring Ridge to intersect our old mountain bike route on the crest of what I
assume was still called Rich Mtn.
View from Buzzard Rock.
On
the crest we turned west and popped up a pair of switchbacks to Buzzard Rock Overlook
where Mary Ann placed a small monument to her father while the rest of enjoyed
our wide open views from the rock. From the overlook we hiked through an open
bald on Ball Ground to intersect the Appalachian Trail at the summit of Big
Butt. Just to the west is another great overlook at Big Rocks where we finally
stopped for lunch. The collection of rocky overlooks and open balds here is
surpassed only by Roan Mountain in TN ,and matches the Spence and Russell Field
area in the Smokies. Steve, an avid geocacher, found the first of his two
caches for the day.
Crossing Ball Ground.
After
lunch we headed west on the AT past the top of the Horse Creek Road, and did a
short side trip out to another small bald on Coldspring Mountain. Then, as I
might have expected for one of Mark’s hikes, things got steep, and the trail
hard to follow, on the top of our
descent down the Sarvis Cove Trail. But at least we were still in a beautiful
cove with abundant cascades and small falls.
Falls on Sarvis Cove.
We
spotted the junction with the Popular Cove Trail, but the trail didn’t improve
much below there. I was able to GPS the start of the Petes Branch Falls Trail,
but we did not take the side trip to the falls. Finally, we hit the Horse Cove
Road, which appeared to get plenty of ATV traffic. There were then three
potential fords of Horse Creek back to the trailhead, but we all found rocks or
logs to use for dry crossings.
Matt, Hiram, Mark, Steven.
Despite
the beauty of the area, and its obvious potential for some great exploring it
would be over a decade before I would be back here with Mark. By then the
Wilderness would be greatly expanded on the east side to the Clarks Creek Road,
the heart of the Rocky Fork Tract converted to a Tennessee State Park, and the
rest of the Rocky Fork Tract now part of the CNF. Will Skelton and the Harvey
Broome Group of the Sierra Club were working on a third edition of their
Cherokee National Forest trail guide, and Mark had volunteered to update the
Sampson Mountain Section. Mark and I scouted the route to Buckeye Falls,
rumored to be the highest waterfall in the eastern US. Here
James
had volunteered to write up the new CNF and State Park trails at Rocky Fork and
I was able to join him for tremendous loop that connected Rocky Fork and Flint
Creek via the AT and Rich Mountain. Here
and Here
As
an update, the current (2022) CNF map shows the Middle Spring Ridge Trail
ending at its upper (south) intersection with the Turkeypen Cove Trail. The CNF
map does not show any of the trails existing in the Rocky Fork Tract, but does
show the Horse Creek Road and Sarvis Cove Trail both climbing all the way to
the AT. The complete trails system will be described in the upcoming third
edition of the Cherokee National Forest Trail Guide.
