Thomas Divide - Sunkota Ridge - Martins Gap - Indian Creek - Deeplow Gap - Loop - Deep Creek - Deep Creek Horse

Date: 11/7/15
Distance: 19.4

On this somewhat rainy day, the GSHAG group organized another bus hike to transport hikers from Deep Creek and the Tunnel to Nowhere back to Clingmons Dome.  There were 4 or 5 hikes to choose from.  I opted to hike with JD, Annie and Sam.   We met at Newfound Gap and everyone piled into my car for the short drive down to the Thomas Divide Trail.

We were very happy that the rain slackened and practically stopped by the time we got ready to hike.  Thomas Divide is an awesome trail that spends most of its time on the ridge allowing views off of both sides of the trail.  The leaves were gone, or there may have been no views.

Surprisingly, there is quite a bit of uphill on Thomas Divide even though it starts very high.  There are several 500' climbs that seem much higher than that.  After 4.6 miles on Thomas Divide, we turned right on Sunkota Ridge Trail.

Sunkota is also along a ridge and is as equally beautiful with many views through the trees.

After 4.9 miles on Sunkota, we arrived at the Martins Gap Trail where we had lunch before we turned left toward Indian Creek Trail.  Martins Gap is a rather steep, but we were going down, so the hiking wasn't too difficult.

Down near the bottom of Martins Gap, there were a few very nice creek crossings with bridges.

Inidian Creek is an old gravel road, so the hiking wasn't much fun.  After 0.7 miles on Indian Creek, we turned on Deeplow Gap and hiked 0.4 miles up to the Indian Creek Motor trail before turning around and returning to Indian Creek.  Map marking makes you do silly things!

We stayed on Indian Creek another 2.2 miles down the the Loop Trail.  The original plan had been to continue down Indian Creek and exit the park, but we had plenty of time, so I lobbied and begged and whined until everyone decided to hike the loop trail.  The Loop Trial climbs steeply up to the bottom of Sunkota, but it was just 0.5 miles.  We continued on the Loop trail losing all of the elevation over 0.6 miles.  It ends at Deep Creek which is another gravel road.  We hiked 1 mile on Deep Creek before arriving at the Deep Creek Horse Trail.

With some more cajoling, I got everyone to take the horse trail.  It covers about 2 miles over to the Noland Divide Trail.  It does climb a few hundred feet which seemed tough late in the day.

The Horse Trail goes right by Juney Whank Falls Trail, so I got all of the bits and pieces of it as well before finishing up.

The rain was falling pretty good by the end and there was a wedding in the pavilion, so we waited for the bus down at the store.  The bus was a bit early which was great and it dropped us back at Newfound Gap about 5:00.

The weather looked awful, but we had 24 hikers who refused to just sit on the couch, so they had a great day in the woods.