Cataloochee Divide 4.6n & 4.6pd

I picked up John Kennerly at 8:00 at Tyson Park; in ~45 min. we arrived at Shoneys in Newport and picked up Dennis McAdams. We then got back on I 40 and got off at Exit 20 in NC. We took Cove Creek Rd.; the latter is for the most part a paved road that has two 5 mph switchbacks. The latter portion of this road that we covered is gravel and it brought us to Cove Creek Gap; this is the Northern end of the 4.6 mi. of Cataloochee Divide trail that I needed; I had done the Southern 1.8 miles on two previous hikes.

We started on Cataloochee Divide at 9:55 with a temperature of ~22 F; John and I had done ~0.5 mi. of this 4.6 mi. section previously (see 12-23-06 hike). We decided to take the Manway to Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center (AHSLC) and arrived there at 11:45 (see pic). Besides wandering the grounds and taking pictures, we ate lunch; by this time it had warmed up considerably.

We departed the AHSLC at 12:15. Unfortunately we took the wrong Manway and ended up a bit further South on the Cataloochee Divide Trail than we had planned (i.e., South of the McKee Branch trailhead). Two good points can be raised relative to this, namely (1) I was not leading this time and (2) since I now have done the entire Cataloochee Divide Trail twice, this is an additional trail that I can add to my second map should I choose to repeat all 900 miles of trails a second time. We left McKee Branch at 12:30 and arrived at my vehicle (a distance of 4.6 mi.) at 2:00.