Thomas Divide - Deeplow Gap - Indian Creek Motor - Stonepile Gap

Date: 12/12/15
Distance: 13.4

Today I got up very early and joined the Meetup group for a good map marking hike over in the Deep Creek area of the park.  I left the house about 5:50 for our 7:15 meetup time.  We drove to the Thomas Divide Trailhead in Deep Creek and shuttled a couple of cars down to Deep Creek before we got started hiking at 8:45.

Today the weather was incredible.  The highs were greater than 60 and close to 70 even though it is the middle of December.  I was hiking in short sleeves and shorts by the time the day was over.  Previously, I hiked this same hike solo about a year ago http://rustyhikes.blogspot.com/2014/11/thomas-divide-deeplow-gap-indian-creek.html

It was really nice to have company this time (JD, Ahmad, Anoria, Laura, Lynn K, Marie, Suzanne, Keith).  The hike starts with a relatively large climb (about 2000') over the 1st 5 miles.  The 1st 3.2 miles was on an old road bed, so the trail is wide.  A more classic trail turns off to the right after 3.2 miles, but it is still Thomas divide.  There were a few views through the trees, but for the most part, this hike is just a walk in the woods.

 After 5.6 miles on Thomas Divide, we turned left onto Deeplow Gap.  We lost 1600' by the time we reached the Indian Creek Motor trail.

 After some lunch at the Indian Creek Trail intersection, we turned left on Indian Creek Motor trail.

 The Indian Creek Motor trail is actually the same "road" that we were on when we started the hike on Thomas Divide.  It climbs about 900' back to the Thomas Divide trail,

 We took Thomas Divide back down to Stone Pile Gap where we turned right and followed the trail over to the Indian Creek Trail. At Indian Creek we turned left toward Deep Creek.

Indian Creek Falls was really pretty today.

 We hiked 0.5 miles on Indian Creek before we took Deep Creek the final 0.7 miles to the car.  There was another nice falls (Tom Branch) on this section of the trail.

While this trail didn't have any spectacular vistas, it was a really nice walk in the woods with a decent climb and a couple of nice waterfalls to finish it off.