Gregory Bald Trail

Date:  6/28/14
Distance: 14.6 miles
New Map Miles: 6.1
Total Map Miles: 412.5

Today I set out to hike the Gregory Bald Trail all of the way to the AT.  The new miles for me were from the Parsons Branch Road to the Wolf Ridge intersection and then the 2 miles from the Long Hungry Ridge Trail out to the AT.

I dropped off my son at the airport at 11:40 and then headed for Cades Cove.  It was an omen for the day when I drove through a pouring rain to get to Cades Cove.  At the Cove, I was reminded of why I hate the loop road.  The drive on the loop was very frustrating.  I should have saved this hike for a weekday!  I was happy to get to the Parsons Branch Road because I got out of all of that traffic.  The road was in decent shape with some very pretty rhododendron along the way.  I finally got on the trail at 1:34.

I had seen on the web that the trail wasn't in great shape, so I was expecting the worst.  I was pleasantly surprised that the 1st few miles were pretty nice even though it was raining pretty hard on a couple of occasions.  The last miles though were much worse than expected.  The trail was very muddy.  I had to hike on the edge of the trail and often slid back an inch or two on each step up the mountain.

At 4.1 miles on the map, but only 4 on the sign, I reached the Wolf Ridge Intersection.  I turned left and headed for Gregory Bald.  The trail wasn't much better on this 0.5 miles to the bald.

Most of the azaleas had already lost their blooms on the bald, but there were a few nice blooms left.

I went straight over the bald and headed down the other side toward the AT.  At a bit over 3 hours of hiking I reached the end of the Gregory Bald Trail.  The 2 miles out to the AT were in much better condition than the hike up the mountain.   At the AT I turned around and headed for the car.

 I was pretty tired at the end of the hike with a pretty sore knee.  Fighting the mud made this hike more difficult than expected.