Gold Mine - Cooper Rd - Cane Creek - Beard Cane - Ace Gap

Date: 5/13/15
Distance: 17.2

Today I did a key swap hike with the GSHAG meetup group.  We met at Food Lion at 7:00am and traded cars.  I went with JD, Jenn, Steven, and Teresa to the Gold Mine Trail while the rest of the group took a car to Rich Mountain where the Ace Gap trail terminates.  The Gold Mine trail comes very close to the Top of the World Estates.  JD knew where to park and where to hike into the park.  We parked directly across the road from the trail on Steffner Circle.

We started on the access trail for about 0.25 miles before we reached the Gold Mine Trail.  Gold Mine drops elevation quickly for about 0.8 miles before terminating on Cooper Road.  We turned left on Cooper and walked 0.4 easy miles to Cane Creek Trail. On this section of the trail, there was some very nice Mountain Laurel and a few Pink Lady Slippers.

 Cane Creek isn't the most fun to hike.  It is an old road that goes through a bunch of mushy areas and has many creek crossings.  There is a Cemetery on the trail which his probably the only reason this trail exists.

 2.1 miles down the trail, you arrive at a Posted sign, where we turned around and headed back to Cooper Road.

 Back on Cooper, we once again turned left and hiked 1.8 miles out to Beard Cane.  There were a few spots with a few views on this section.

 Beard Cane is a pretty awful trail.  It passes through a valley that was torn up by the tornadoes a few years ago.  Today it was really overgrown with lots of briers and grass.  Jenn saw a snake in the grass that was a bit scary as well.

 Campsite 11 is now closed, but it was invisible due to the growth in the damaged area.

 Beard Cane also had many small creek crossings.  At times the trail and the creek became one as well.

 On this day, we rock hopped them all.  No boot removal was necessary.  The last time I hiked this trail, we had to wade this crossing.

 Beard eventually improved as it climbed up to Ace Gap.  After 4.2 miles, Beard Cane arrived at Ace Gap.   At Ace Gap, we turned right (the only way to stay in the park) and headed for the car.  Ace Gap had lots of Mountain Laurel, a few Flame Azaleas and a number of other wildflowers that JD recognized.

 Ace Gap was 5.6 miles.  The elevation graph looks as if it is rolling, but it felt like we went up more than down.

This set of trails are only trails that a Map Marker can appreciate, but it was still super nice to get out in the woods and go a long way.

Mileage Summary
Access to Goldmine Trail .25
Goldmine .8
Cooper Road .4
Cane Creek 2.1 Out and Back (OAB) = 4.2 miles optional
Cooper Road 1.8
Beard Cane 4.2
Ace Gap 5.6
Total with Cane Creek OAB 17.25

Ace Gap - Beard Cane - Hatcher Mountain - Little Bottoms

Date: 3/31/14
Distance: approx 16

Having just returned from 2 weeks of business travel, I was ready to get out in the woods, so I elected to not work on this beautiful Monday and go hiking instead.  Fortunately my hiking friend Roger elected to do the same, so we hiked from Rich Mountain to Abrams Creek Campground as a shuttle hike.

The hike began on the Ace Gap Trail which I hiked about 1.5 years ago with the meetup group.  Roger tried to find a place to park a car up on the edge of the park to avoid this section but was unsuccessful, so the 1st 5.6 miles was on a trail that we'd already covered.  Ace Gap is a pretty easy trail to hike and the weather was perfect, so it made for a nice morning.

After stopping for a snack at the Beard Cane sign, we headed down the mountain on Beard Cane.

 Beard Cane has multiple creek crossings.  We lost count at 15.  The 1st 2 required removal of the boots and wading.  It was less the knee deep, but there wasn't a good place to rock hop it.

 There were even a couple spots where the trail was a creek.  This only lasted about 30 yards.

About 2/3rds of the way down Beard Cane, we entered the area that had been damaged by tornadoes a few years ago.  The damage was awesome and widespread. 

The 4.2 miles of Beard Cane felt longer than that and the GPS was indicating more like 5 miles.  This was probably just due to all of the wondering around at the stream crossings, but it was far enough over that we thought we had missed the sign for the Hatcher Mountain Trail.

Hatcher Mountain was more of the same with lots of tornado damage.  This meant very little shade and the day was hot.  I was anxious to get back in the forest, yet it didn't happen till we were most of the way down Little Bottoms.

 At the Little Bottoms trail, I dropped the pack and jogged down to the Abrams Falls Trail to get the very short section between Little Bottoms and Abrams.  It was only a couple of tenths, but the elevation dropped a couple hundred feet.  The jog back up wasn't much fun.

Little Bottoms was mostly on the side of a mountain which had been wiped out by the tornado.  After 15 miles of hiking, it had more elevation gain than we expected, so it was a struggle.

Finally it dropped down to the edge of the creek for a nice walk back to the campground.