Palmer Creek - Balsam Mtn

Date: 1/1/15
Distance: 15.6
New Map Miles: 6.4
Total Map Miles: 737.2

On this fine New Years Day, I started it off right by marking off the last of the Map Miles in Cataloochee. Today I met with Bill at exit 417 at 8:00.  He drove over and we hit the trail at 9:40.  We started the day on Pretty Hollow Gap Trail which leaves from Cataloochee just beyond the bathrooms and just before the big fields.

Pretty Hollow was an easy hike, but there were lots of other hikers on the trail.  ELK!!  We probably saw 10-12 and many of them were on the trail and we had to make noise to get them to move on.

 The Elk were distracting enough that the 1st 0.8 miles flew by bringing us to the Little Cataloochee Trail intersection. We continued anther 0.8 mile to where the Palmer Creek Trail leaves off to the left over a very nice foot bridge.

Pretty Hollow was an old road, but Palmer was the classic single track Smokies Trail.  Palmer climbs about 1800' over its 3.3 mile length.

There was one creek crossing on Palmer that we had a hard time with because the rocks were ice covered.  

Once we reached the end of Palmer, we turned right on the Balsam Mtn Road and walked about 0.6 miles on the road to the Balsam Mtn Trail.

Balsam Mtn was a little tougher than we expected.  It climbed another 700' or so, but had several downhill sections.  A few of the climbs felt worse than the 700' would indicate.  After 2.3 miles we reached the end and turned around to retrace our steps to the car.

 There were a few views through the trees along Balsam and Palmer

The hike was a moderate hike.  The trail was in pretty good shape.  It was a very nice day in the woods.