Low Gap - AT - Mt Cammerer - Lower Mt Cammerer

Date: 10/24/15
Distance 15.9

Today's hike was just spectacular.  The colors in the mountain were better than I can ever remember.  I went with the GSHAG group to Mt. Cammerer on this glorious fall day.  We had a group of 16 (eventually) that shared the beautiful day.

We left the parking area at Cosby Campground on the Low Gap Trail.  Low Gap is a tough climb up the mountain gaining 2000' in only 2.5 miles.  The trail is in good shape but it is steep.  The group spread out a bit on the way up, so we waited for most of the crowd at low gap to get ourselves reorganized.  From Low Gap, we took a left on the AT toward Mt Cammerer.  The AT climbs another 700', but not as steeply as Low Gap.  The hike on the AT gave us hints as to what was coming at the fire tower.  We started getting views of some of the beautiful trees in the valley below.

 After 2.1 miles on the AT and then another 0.6 on the Mt Cammerer Trail, we reached the tower.  The tower views were just great.

 This gorgeous mountain was towards I-40.  It had the most variety of colors.

 The view towards North Carolina had more yellows.  The pic doesn't do it justice.

 After spending about 1 hour at the tower, the group split in half.  Some of the group returned the way we came up while the rest of us (JD, Ahmad, Heather, Sarah, Laura)  headed back to the AT and continued on it toward Lower Mount Cammerer (towards Davenport Gap).  This section of the AT loses lots of elevation very quickly.  It has a large number of steps built into the trail and is steep in places.  It was 2.3 miles to the Lower Mt Cammerer trail intersection.  At that intersection we regrouped and turned left once again onto Lower Mt Cammerer trail.

It turned out that the Lower Mt Cammerer made its way through the very colorful mountain that we observed from Cammerer, so there were many cool trees and even more views along the trail.

 It seemed that every few minutes, we would round a turn in the trail to see another beautiful scene.

 Laura and I went up to the overlook that was 6 miles or so down the trail for a few more photos.

 Lower Mt Cammerer loses the rest of the elevation, but very gradually.  It is 7.4 miles long, but only drops about 1000' over that interval.  The trail is super well maintained.  It seemed that there was hardly a rock or root in the path for most of the hike.  Today was a day to remember in the woods.