I
had volunteered to lead the Obed River section of the Cumberland Trail with
Mark Shipley for the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club as part of their 2016
schedule. I had last hiked this section of the CT in 2006, and suspected I’d
need to scout it again. I also was trying to build up my running conditioning
at the time and thought it might be fun to try the trail as a run. With
sweeping duties for the Barkley Fall Classic 50K coming up the following week,
I needed to get a good workout in without totally exhausting myself. Mark
wasn’t able to come, but I was able to corral my go to guy for key swap hikes/runs,
Brian Williams. Brian is a fun guy to be around, but he is far too fast for me
to run with. Consequently, we’d paired up for several key swaps where we ended
up driving each other’s car to opposite ends of a trail ,and swapping off the
keys as we passed on the trail.
Brian
would be running with his friend William, and I’d assembled Leonard, DK, and
Tony from our Haw Ridge Tuesday Group. The pictures I have from the run are
from one of them, most likely Tony, as I was too busy trying to navigate and
keep up while we were on the trail. My group drove Brian’s car to the Rock
Creek Trailhead and hiked east to west to Daddy’s Creek aka Devils Breakfast
Table Trailhead.
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| The Obed River from the Cumberland Trail. |
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| Leonard on the trail. |
Our
section started on the Obed Wild and Scenic River, managed by the NPS. Though I’d been hearing stories of poor
trail conditions, including impassable trail sections, the start was in pretty
good shape, mostly because the trail was in an old forest where little light
was getting to the understory. We were able to run most of the NPS section to
Alley Ford and much of the plateau
section past Breakaway Bluff, though I missed the side trail to the bluff. But
beyond that in the Catoosa WMA, going down into the gorge and through it was
very technical with plenty of rocks, roots, twists, and turns. The descent down
to Anvil Rock at the end of the plateau section was particularly steep.
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| Rock Steps. |
Just
past Anvil Rock we encountered Brian and William and swapped our keys. They
mentioned they had run little to that point because of rough footing. We found
the trail along the river to be mostly rocky, uneven old railroad grade with
the ties long since rotted out. Once we climbed out of the gorge bottom, we
reached a band of cliffs where there were several rock houses and a rock
passage. Back up on the rim we checked out all the overlooks, and Rain House.
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Trail in the gorge.
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| Overlook above the gorge. |
We
walked the final section into the Daddy’s Creek Trailhead in roughly six hours
for the 14 miles, which didn’t bode well for a quick SMHC trip. We’d seen no
other people on the hike, and little sign of any other recent hikers, but DK
and Tony did see a sounder of five wild hogs. On the drive back I noted that
the gravel WMA roads were completely unsigned, and that I’d need to make sure
all the drivers had maps to the trailheads for the club trip. Still, the roads
are well maintained and good for mountain biking. Catoosa Mountain Bike
Blog  |
| The CT thru the Obed and Catoosa. |
The
SMHC trip that followed the next May could have gone better. My group from Rock
Creek to Daddy’s Creek was a little slow working through all the rocks and
poison ivy. Mark had been unable to scout his route beforehand, and wore out
some of his group with 40 minutes of bushwhacking just trying to find the start
of the trail, before they finally gave up and bushwhacked to it. When the two
groups met, my group was well past halfway and so we picked up one tired hiker
from Mark’s group. |
| Jean on the SMHC trip. |
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| View from the CT to the Obed River. |
