AT - Goshen Prong - Little River - Huskey Gap

Date: 11/11/15
Distance: 15.2

I was fortunate this week in that I was able to take some time off on Wednesday to go hiking with JD and the Wednesday Hiking group.  We started the day bright and early with a 7:00am meeting time at the Sugarlands Visitor Center.  JD drove to Huskey Gap Trail on 441 and Howard picked us up and drove us to Clingmans Dome.  6 members of the group drove cars to Elkmont and 10 of us started at Clingmans.  Most of the group hiked the AT to Goshen to Little River  to Elkmont.  The uphill group took the same route in the opposite direction.  JD and I hiked the downhill version, but we turned up Huskey Gap off of Little River.  I hiked this exact route previously and it is described in this blog post.

http://rustyhikes.blogspot.com/2014/11/clingmans-dome-at-goshen-prong-little.html

It was breezy and cold at the Dome but once we started up the Bypass Trail, we warmed up nicely.  The views were off of the charts today.

The Bypass trail was 0.5 miles long and the AT was another 1.9 before we reached the Goshen Prong Trail.  The AT had a few climbs but nothing too difficult.  Goshen turns steeply downhill losing 4000' in 7.7 miles.  Much of the trail is right next to the creek which had many small cascades.

There is a very large nice bridge right at the end of the trail.  However, there were 2 smaller crossings earlier that had no bridge.  I was able to rock hop the 1st, but I had to remove my boots for the 2nd.

Goshen ends at the Little River Trail.  We ate a bit of lunch and then hiked 1 mile on the Little River Trail toward Elkmont. Cindy and Ramsay had caught up during lunch, so we had a nice walk and talk with them down to the Huskey Gap Trail.

We turned on the Huskey Gap Trail for the final 4.1 miles to the car.  Huskey Gap climbs up and over a ridge gaining about 500' before losing 1000' as it returns to 441.

Nearly every tree was bare on our hike today, but this nice specimen was on the Huskey Gap Trail.

It sure was nice to spend this awesome day outdoors instead of in the office.