Twentymile Loop - Lost Cove

Date: 6/4/2014
Distance: 15.8
New Map Miles: 7.5
Total Map Miles: 406.4

Today I hiked Solo in the Twentymile section of the park.  The goal was to pickup the Twentymile Loop Trail, the portion of Twentymile from the loop trail to the AT and if I had enough energy, the Lost Cove Trail.

The hike started on the Twentymile trail which appears to be an old road.  It is wide and easy to walk with very wide substantial bridges that cross the creek.  I happened upon a very large black snake on the edge of the trail, but other than that the walk was uneventful. After 0.5 miles, I took a left on the Wolf Ridge Trail.  I had hike the entirety of this trail back on New Years.  After 1.1 miles on this trail, the Twentymile Loop Trail leaves to the Right.  This trail is a classic single track path through the woods.  At places the undergrowth was encroaching into the trail, but for the most part the hike was pleasant.  At one of those overgrown areas, I bear was on the trail.  It took off into the woods, and I just held my ground and waited.  He was out of sight quickly and I continued down the trail.

 The loop trail climbed up to 2600' and then lost several hundred feet before returning to 2500' at the end.

 At this point, I rejoined the Twentymile trail and headed for the AT.  This was a steady climb up to 3600'.

 The trail had some nice orange azalea trees along the way.

 At the AT, the wind was howling through the gap.  It felt great as I had done lots of sweating on the way up.  It was blowing hard enough that I was afraid that a storm was approaching.

At this point, I had to decide if I had an additional 5.4 miles in me to go down the Lost Cove Trail and then backtrack to this point.  I decided to go for it, but quickly began to wonder if it was a good idea.  The Lost Cove Trail was very steep dropping quickly off of the ridge.  I was regretting the hike back up the entire way down.  This hike is probably best taken as a shuttle with a car at Fontana.

Half way down the mountain, I found another snake.

The last 0.5 miles of the trail had about 4 or 5 large stream crossings that I was able to hop rock with some effort, but I could imagine they would require boot removal during a wetter time.

 At the end of Lost Cove, I turned around and headed back up the mountain.  The end of the trail was at an elevation of 1800'.

I had seen this small reddish toad on the way down the mountain.  Surprisingly he or his brother were still sitting on the trail on the way back.

The hike back up to the AT was brutal.  At times I was stopping every few hundred yards because the climb was so steep.  The last mile was the worst.

Back at the AT, I sat down for a short while and noticed this ominous sign on the back of the trail marker.

 The hike back down Twentymile was a steady 5 mile descent to the parking area.  I had checked the elevation plots before the hike, but I hadn't really thought too much about the total.  By my calculation, I climbed about 4500' in the 3 big ascents.  Taking the heat into account (>85F), it was quite a workout.