Miles: 12.2
I decided about 11:00 on this fine Friday that I was in need of 1/2 of a day off and a little hiking, so I headed for the mountains about 11:40. After a quick stop at Subway, I arrived at Abrams Campground about 1:00 and prepared for a warm walk in the woods. The temperatures were in the 90's today and these trails are at low elevation.
The Hiking parking area is actually about 0.5 miles away from the campground, so the 1st 0.5 miles was on the gravel road between the ranger station and the campground. Cooper Road Trail leaves from the back of the campground and terminates at Cades Cove. On this day, I only hiked 5 miles on Cooper over to the Hatcher Mountain Trail. Cooper is an old road. The road is in decent shape. It is mostly a steady climb from 1100' up to about 1900'. There were a couple of ridges that it crosses but nothing too steep.
After 5 miles (5.5 including the road), Hatcher Mountain Trail leaves off to the right. Much of Hatcher is on the ridge which limits the tree cover. In addition this area was damaged by tornadoes a few years ago, which destroyed even more of the canopy. The result is that much time is spent out in the sun. It made for a really hot hike. This hike is probably best saved for the winter months, There were a few views along the trail.
After 2.6 miles of mostly downhill hiking, I arrived at the Little Bottoms Trail. Instead of taking it immediately, I continued another 0.2 miles to the Abrams Falls Trail to finish off Hatcher. At Abrams, I enjoyed some time at the creek. It was nice to dunk my head and shirt in the creek and to replenish my water supply. I then backtracked 0.2 miles to start Little Bottoms.
Little Bottoms follows Abrams Creek back to Cooper Road. The trail starts by climbing up on the side of the gorge, so there were some steep sections. In addition, there was still no tree canopy, so it wasn't very pleasant on this day.
I made good time today covering 12 miles in 3 hours and 35 minutes. I made it back to the house about 5:50.
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