Gregory Bald - Gregory Ridge

Date: 10/16/15
Distance: 13.3

This year the GSHAG meetup group scheduled the fall camp out at Cades Cove for this weekend.  It also happens to be my Birthday Weekend, so I made the most of the opportunity.  I began the weekend by taking Friday off to get an early start on the fun.  After a frustrating drive around the loop road (30 minutes to go 6 miles), I arrived at the Gregory Ridge Trail.

I decided to walk Parsons Branch Road down to the Gregory Bald Trail.  It is about 3 miles and has several ups and downs.  The Gregory Bald trailhead is about 700' above the Gregory Ridge Trailhead, so there is a bit of a climb.  There was also one spot where the creek runs over the road.  It was only about 1" deep, and no rocks were about to hop on.

 A few cars passed me.  If I had been bold, I probably could have hitchhiked, but since I wasn't hiking far today I just hoofed it.

Last time I went up Gregory Bald Trail, it was a mess.  It had rained hard and the horses had destroyed the trail.  Today, the trail was dry and the hiking was great.  The leaves are changing, so there were some really nice views.

 The trail climbs about 2200' over the 4.5 miles to the bald.  The day was just awesome.

 I continued on the Gregory Bald trail over the bald.  The trail drops steeply off of the bald for about 0.5 miles before it reaches the Gregory Ridge Trail.  I turned left onto that trail and continued the steep drop back down to Cades Cove.

 The Gregory Ridge Trail is 5 miles long and drops 2500'.  The elevation graph below doesn't include the road walk as my phone refused to lock on the satellites until I reached the opening in the trees at the Gregory Bald Trailhead.  Total hiking time was about 4.5 hours

 After the hike, I had another long drive (30 minutes) to the campground where I setup for the night.  Two good sized bucks were roaming around the site.