Big Creek--5.1, Swallow Fork--4.0, & Pretty Hollow--5.6 (14.7 mi)

Today’s hike was at Cataloochee; all trails were new for me. In part because I was the only one from Blount Co. making the hike, I drove to Cracker Barrel at Strawberry Planes on I-40 to meet the 5 Knoxville people making the hike (K-hikers often meet there rather than Food Lion in Maryville). Because John Kennerly told me that it would take ~1 hour to get there, I left at 6:30. Much to my surprise I arrive there in 20-25 min.; Bill Broome was having breakfast and I had a cup of coffee with him and the others arrived shortly.

John and I went in Cecil Rowe’s car, parked it at the N-end (Big Creek Campground area) and we hiked the trails in the order given above. Cecil drove my car, with Bill Broome, Bill Woodrick, and Lowell Reid as passengers; they parked it at Southern terminus of the hike described above and went North (their overall altitude gain was ~900 ft. less than ours). John and I met the others after we finished Swallow Fork and they had finished Pretty Hollow (in ~3.5 hours); we made pretty good time for we both are relatively fast hikers. At this point we swapped car keys and I had mine again; this is also where I took a picture of my hiking buddies.

Pretty Hollow trail was not as much fun because you are going downhill and often having to step on loose rock. We finished the total hike in ~6 hours. We then got in my car and I let John drive while I iced my knee; this is the area where the elk are and much to our surprise 6 were adjacent to the road. John stopped my car and I took this picture as well as a few others. I then dropped John off at Cracker Barrel ~5:15; rather than face the Knoxville traffic I decided to eat there. My car miles from home to Cataloochee and back to home were 219; although all 14.7 miles of trails hiked were new (no repeats), I would like to backpack in this area since it truly requires a long drive.