Post 900 Hike #36: Wet Bottoms, Abrams Creek, Hatcher Mtn., & Cooper Rd

Because of rain Wed. we changed our hike to Thursday; the weather was nice. Cecil Rowe picked up John Hutsenpiller and me at Lakeside Market at 07:30. At 8:40 we arrived at Cooper Rd. Trailhead on the Cades Cove loop. After 0.2 mi. we came to the Wet Bottoms Trailhead and proceeded on it. The latter trail is somewhat of an enigma if you follow The Brown Book that can get you on the horse trail as well as other manways (see my initial report); however, one can also avoid this and pass the Elijah Oliver Place. We did the latter went into the house as well as looking over the other buildings. We arrived at the Abrams Falls Trailhead at 9:10.

We went to Abrams Falls (this was John’s first view of it); we then proceeded on the trail to the point of our planned crossing of Abrams Creek. The water was perhaps even higher than on my solo first crossing a couple of years ago in which I was a little scared; however, last fall in the dry spell it was so low that I rock hopped it. We donned our water shoes and looked for places to cross; the current was exceptionally swift. After we had each tried to cross (I tried two different spots and John broke one of his poles on his attempt), we decided that it was too dangerous and that we should do an alternate hike. (We had originally planned to cross the creek, do Hannah Mtn Trail to its junction with Rabbit Creek Trail, and then come in on the latter to the Abrams Creek parking area. That is sort of what I did on my solo hike a couple of years ago; however, I did Cooper Rd. and Hatcher Mtn trails, and then after Rabbit Creek spent an exceedingly long time on the 1.0 mi. Wet Bottoms Trail.) Since Cecil had done everything else in the area for his Geezer Map, I suggested that we do Hatcher Mtn Trail (2.6 mi.) over to Cooper Rd Trail and then do its 5.5 mi. section which would take us back to Cecil’s van. Although this increased our hike a little bit, all the trail miles would be new for John.

Hatcher Mtn Trail is kind of pretty does have a few ups. Cooper Rd Trail got sort of boring by the time we finished it. At 14:45 had hiked ~13.2 miles and had arrived at Cecil’s Van. There was a bit of traffic on the way out of the Cove; tourists get so excited about deer.