Long Bunk Trail - Little Cataloochee trail

Date: 12/19/13
Distance: 11.4mi


Today I hiked the Long Bunk trail in the Cataloochee area of the park.  Getting to the trail isn't easy in this part of the park.  I exited I-40 at the Waterville exit and followed the Mt Sterling Road to where the Little Cataloochee trail meets the road.   Mt Sterling road isn't paved and was more than 10 miles long, so the trip up the mountain was pretty slow and tedious.  I went out in the other direction and the road seemed even worse.

The trail was nice though.  After the 1st mile on Little Cataloochee, I turned right onto Long Bunk.  Little Cataloochee is an old gravel road, so it is wide and smooth, but a little hilly.  Long Bunk starts out as a road, but turns into a single track after a mile or so.

 The Hannah Cemetery was a few tenths of a mile up the Long Branch trail.  It had graves as new as 2000.

Along the trail there are several locations where you can get a view of Mt Sterling.  The tower was visible from the location in this picture.  Its hard to see in the small photo.

When the trail reaches the Mt. Sterling trail, there were also some nice views in both directions.

I turned around at the Mt. Sterling trail and headed back down the mountain.  I hadn't noticed the small water feature on the way up.

 Back at the Little Cataloochee trail, I turned right to hike a bit longer.  When I started the day, I intended to hike the entire trail, but the long travel time caused time to be short.  I decided to hike down to the baptist church and then turn back.  A short distance down the trail, the Hannah Cabin was up in the woods.

The cabin was a nice 1 room with a loft.

About 1 mile from Long Bunk, sits the Little Cataloochee Baptist Church.

The climb up had about 1300' of elevation gain with a few rolling hills along the way.  The trail was a little muddy in spots and there were a few small stream crossings.  It was a very nice walk in the woods.