Low Gap - AT - Snake Den Ridge - Cosby Campground Trails

Date: 11/28/15
Distance: 15.8 miles

One benefit of running into Russ yesterday was that we were able to plan a hike for today as well.  Today we went to the opposite end of the park to hike in Cosby.  We began our hike on Low Gap which is tough.  It climbs about 2000' in 2.9 miles (from the Hiker Parking area).  We covered it in good time arriving at the gap after about 1 hour of hiking.

After a short rest, we turned to the right and began our hike on the AT.

 The AT climbs another 500' or so before it peaks.  At the top the trail is right on the ridge which gives some nice views off of each side.

 The trail then loses about 400' before it arrives at Camel Gap after 2.4 miles on the AT.  From that point the AT climbs about 1000' over 2.3 miles to the Snake Den ridge Trail.  This climb was tough after the big climb earlier in the hike.

We stopped for lunch at the Snake Den Ridge intersection.  After a 15 minute rest, we started the big down hill drop on Snake Den Ridge.  The top of this trail is very rocky which slowed progress, but it does improve as you get lower.  There are a few views off of the side of this trail as well.

There was also a small waterfall.

 There was also a very long footbridge near the bottom.

 After 5.3 miles and a drop of about 3500', we arrived at the Cosby Campground.

 One of the silly things that Map Markers do is hike all of the Cosby Campground trails.  At this point in the hike, we had only covered about 13 miles and we had some time, so we backtracked up Snake Den 0.2 miles to the connector to Low Gap and hiked it along with all of the other arcs and stubs around the campground.  We continued this over to the Horse Trail which we hiked down to the road and then back up the road to do the same on the connector between Gabes and Snake Den.

In all we figure we hiked 15.8 miles.  It was another really nice day in the park.