For various reasons, most of our recent hikes have been relatively short, in the 2-4 mile range. On a recent weekend, however, we were feeling ambitious. There is an upcoming 10-mile hike on the storied Fiery Gizzard Trail that had piqued Ruth’s interest, so we decided that we needed to do a shakedown hike to see if we could cover the mileage, in similar terrain and weather. After considering options, I suggested we hike part of a segment of the Cumberland Trail near Dayton, TN. We’ve done a couple of segments of the CT and like it very much. Furthermore, a former co-worker of Ruth’s had recommended the North Chickamauga Creek segment as a challenging, but beautiful walk to a campsite next to a roaring waterfall.
There were a couple of red flags for this hike, though. The first was that the parking at the southern trailhead, where we planned to start, closed at 7 pm (Eastern). If your vehicle is there after they lock the gate, you can call the Sheriff’s Office, and they’ll be happy to drive out and open the gate for you after issuing you a citation. A second cause for concern was the weather forecast, with a 40% chance of rain and a high of 88 in Huntsville. That’s actually relatively cool, especially since we thought it would be cooler in the mountains, but we packed extra water and a cooler with drinks and fruit to leave in the car.
Unfortunately, we got about a 30-minute late start, but otherwise had no trouble driving to the trailhead on Montlake Road in Soddy-Daisy, TN. We didn’t even have the usual traffic tie-ups in Chattanooga, and after about two hours arrived at the spacious gravel parking lot. We didn’t have trouble finding parking, but this trailhead also accesses several swimming holes along North Chickamauga Creek so I would imagine it stays pretty busy all summer. The trailhead is on the north end of the parking lot, and a kiosk is visible from the edge of the parking lot.
The kiosk had a bit of distressing news for us, though — a sign there said the distance to the Stevenson Branch campsite was 4.5 miles. From reading the Cumberland Trails Conference description of the North Chickamauga Creek segment, I had reached the conclusion that the distance to the campsite from the south trailhead was 3.8 miles. It could have been a moot point, as we knew we’d have to set a turnaround time regardless of where we were, because of the 7 pm deadline to leave the parking area. Still, we were hoping we could do a 7.6 mile hike to the campsite and back, so finding out that this would actually be 9 miles was a bit daunting. Still, if we set a decent pace and were up to covering the distance, it was still feasible that we might make it.
The trail headed north on an old mining road, fairly wide and mostly level, passing a picnic table on the left shortly before arriving at a split. The Lower Hogskin Loop continued straight, along the creek, but since we had some miles to cover we opted to turn right onto Upper Hogskin Loop, and began an ascent. The white-blazed trail was much narrower and obviously far less used than the trail along the creek. The climb was relatively gentle, though there was a tree down on the trail and several places had rock stairs to climb particularly tricky bits. Several late summer wildflowers were on bloom on this section: ashy hydrangea, healall, hearts-a-bustin, naked flowered tick trefoil, and sweet Joe Pye weed, just to name a few.
We made relatively quick work of the ascent, and at .4 miles we reached another old mining road. The trail continues to the left (northwest), A right turn leads to private property. We followed the sign to continue on Hogskin Branch Upper Loop and made our way along the wide road for another .2 miles, making a small stream crossing just before reaching the other end of the Lower Loop trail. 
At the stream crossing, a small trickly waterfall, marked on some maps as Stripmine Falls, is visible to the right (northeast). This portion of the trail had several points of interest: crushed tile found in the footbed for most of its length, views of impressive cliffs on the other side of the gorge, impressive rock overhangs, and even more wildflowers: St. Andrew’s cross, blackberries (with some ripe ones!), some variety of mountain mint, and horse nettle, just to name a few. The tile was quite a surprise — apparently the Soddy-Daisy area had several pottery and tile kilns during the coal mining days. It must have been a common practice to use broken pieces in lieu of gravel for mining roads in the area.
I mentioned earlier that the Cumberland Trails Conference’s description of this segment is a little misleading. When we reached the junction with the Lower Loop Trail, it became more evident that the description is clearly not up to date. The website warns that the intersection is easy to miss, which simply doesn’t match the ground truth now. Signage is present and in good condition. Also, signage back at the kiosk seemed to suggest that Stripmine Falls was 1.3 miles from the kiosk, but our GPS track seemed to suggest it was only .65 miles from the kiosk.
The next half mile of the trail along the old mining road was a gradual incline past more wildflowers (tall ironweed, false Solomon’s seal, pokeweed, fringed loosestrife, and goldenrod among them) and rock outcroppings. As we climbed along the ridge, the tile in the footbed gave way to flecks of coal, and at 1.1 miles we came to the foundation of what was once a coal tipple, which was used to separate coal by size. The tipple is long gone, as the mines closed in the 1930s.
After the tipple, the trail had a short ascent before crossing a creek flowing down from a little hollow to the right. A small cascade is visible at the end of the hollow, with a little cave disappearing into the rocks to the right. Shortly after this, the trail resumes and at 1.2 miles passes an abandoned coal mine. We didn’t go in, and the CTC page says the mine is closed to protect bats from white nose syndrome, but we had a look at the entrance, which looked to be about 6 ft tall at best.
After passing the mine, the character of the trail changes. The mining road is no more, and instead the trail meanders along the base of an escarpment. The rock overhangs are massive, pockmarked in places with round basins that may have been formed by ancient mudpots. The views over the North Chickamauga Gorge are impressive, too. The going was a bit slower here, with quite a few elevation undulations and the trail became quite overgrown in places.
After about 1.7 miles, the trail passes through a squeeze and continues through even more overgrowth, to the point that the footbed is not visible. There’s quite a dropoff on one side, so we slowed down quite a bit and made liberal use of our hiking poles. The trail is not particularly narrow, though, so it wasn’t as nerve-wracking as you might think. There’s a house with what must be a spectacular view along the ridgeline. A few examples of small-headed blazing star clung to the edge of the path.
At approximately 1.9 miles, the trail reached a massive wooden stairway that climbs nearly to the top of the ridge. By now we were beginning to feel the heat and the effects of the elevation changes, so climbing the stairs was a bit of a quad buster. After finishing the stairs, we continued on the trail past a hydrangea just busting with bumblebees, who paid us not the slightest bit of attention. Buzzy bois! Just past the bees, the trail widens at the Boston Branch Overlook, a vantage point over tributaries to North Chickamauga Creek. The views are terrific, and one lobe of the overlook has one of the best basking rocks around (Ruth is somewhat of an expert).
Over the next half mile, the trail wound past some fire-damaged trees before continuing along another old mining road at the top of the ridge. Unlike the roads from earlier, this portion of the trail had a very narrow footbed, eventually losing even that as the trail became massively overgrown. We battled past briars to reach a better defined stretch in a patch of woods, eventually reaching an incongruously paved stretch where there used to be mining equipment. A small stream crossed the trail here, with a very slippery approach, as Ruth later found out the hard way.
For the next half mile, the trail continued past at least one old mining site on an embankment made of slag, with more bits of coal in the footbed. Views down into the gorge were opening up, and we could hear the roar of the water even though we were hundreds of feet above it. A few stands of one of my favorite wildflowers, rose pink, brightened the way. We met a group of hikers along this stretch, only the second such group we saw on the trail that day. At mile 3.05, the trail splits, marked with a rock cairn. The official Cumberland Trail heads to the left here, though a future planned reroute will probably link up to the trail branching to the right. There’s also a small waterfall here.
From this point, the trail description on the CTC page departs markedly from the ground truth, to the point that I surmise there must have been a major reroute. The CTC page describes descending into the gorge, crossing a creek, climbing down a ladder, and winding past several large rockhouses. What actually happens is that after a short descent, another massive wooden staircase leads down to a 20-foot waterfall with a decent-sized plunge pool.
After the waterfall, the trail skirts the bluffline before veering toward the creek flowing from the waterfall. At this point, though, the trail just gives up any pretense of having a footbed, and instead just steeply descends through a jumble of tilted rocks. Our progress slowed to almost a crawl. The “trail” consisted of making our way from one blazed tree to another, balancing on our hiking poles and trying not to fall down the steep slope. The pitch is not unlike the steeper parts of the Walls of Jericho, for those of you who have hiked those trails.
Though we had made good time earlier in the hike, the combination of our late start and the extreme difficulty of this portion of the trail put us in a dilemma. We had reached our turnaround time. Though we were probably only about .4 miles from the campsite, it was clear that those .4 miles would be very, very slow, and would also require us to make that .4 miles climb back up the slope. Though it was disappointing not to reach our planned destination, there was really no other option but to turn back.
There was another more pressing reason to turn back. Though it wasn’t as hot as it has been lately, it was still hot and extremely humid. We had rationed water, but quickly realized we had not packed nearly enough. The combination of the heat, dehydration, and physical exertion was taking a toll on both of us, and in fact we were both showing symptoms of heat exhaustion (excessive sweating, dizziness, nausea, rapid heartbeat). The return trip was brutal, my friends, especially so since we had to keep up the pace so we wouldn’t get locked in. We made frequent rest stops, rationed the water we had, and even stuck our heads in the plunge pool of the waterfall to cool down. I filled the empty water bottles with cool water from the streams so we could wet ourselves down (even if we had carried water treatment, drinking stream water in this area is not advised due to contamination from mining). We would even lie down on shaded rocks to try to dissipate some of our body heat.
We somehow made it over the challenging portions of the trail, and even had a rain shower pop up for the last .2 miles of our return trip (the rain felt good, but it made the trail slippery). It was a very good thing that we made a commitment to turn around at a given time, and we stuck to it, because we made it back to the car at 6:50. After gulping down the cold drinks in the cooler we were revived enough to start the trip back home. The fruit was a particularly inspired choice by Ruth!
So in the end, what did we learn? (1) Bring more water! (2) If you have a turnaround time, stick to it! (3) Use bug spray! We had some but didn’t use it since we weren’t bothered by gnats or mosquitoes. We are paying the price now since apparently our wading through overgrowth or lying on rocks resulted in some very itchy chigger bites. Looks like it’s time to retreat our hiking togs with permethrin. And most important, (4) we aren’t ready for a 10-mile hike at this time. Our GPS conked out before we finished our return leg, but it looks like our total mileage was around 6.8. But it’s a beautiful hike, and we’d try it again if we got an earlier start, during a cooler part of the year. And for now, Fiery Gizzard is just going to have to wait.
Woodlands and Waters 
Found this blog while doing research on another hike. Great info !! I have it saved as a favorite.
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