Fireflies at Elkmont - Day 2 (Metcalf Bottoms – Little Brier Gap – Little Greenbrier – Roundtop)

Date: 6/6/15
Distance: 11.6

Day 2 started with "odds and ends" breakfast out of my trail food box.  I packed up Stephanie and sent her on her way towards Pigeon Forge, and I met up with the Meetup group for a hike.

We started by driving to the Wye and leaving a few cars before shuttling back to Metcalf bottoms.  The hike started on the Metcalf Bottoms trail which covers 0.7 miles before terminating at the old school house and cemetery.

 We continued the hike on the Little Brier Gap trail which is just a gravel road.  About 1 mile down this trail is the side trail to the Walker Sisters Cabin.  The story of the Walker Sisters is well described on Wikipedia.  The basic idea is that 5 spinster sisters lived off the land well after the park was formed.  The last sister died in the 60's and she was still living off the land at the cabin.

 After backtracking the 0.1 miles to the trail, we continued up the mountain on Little Brier Gap.  There were some rare wildflowers along the way.

Little Brier Gap terminates at Little Greenbrier after covering 1.5 miles.  We took a left on Little Greenbrier and followed it for 1.9 miles until it reached the road that connects Wears Valley to Metcalf Bottoms.  At the road, we turned left and walked 100 yards down the road to the Roundtop Trailhead.  Roundtop is a neat trail as it spends lots of time up on the ridge, so there are some nice views of the valley below.

 I believe this wildflower is pipsissewa.

 This one is spreading pagonia.

 I believe this one is Dolls Eyes.

At the end of the hike, we waded the river at the Wye to get back to the cars for the ride home.  It felt like we climbed more than we actually did.

For dinner, I attended the GSHAG potluck.  There was some really good cowboy stew and grilled corn that made dinner great after a long day on the trail.

For the 2nd night of fireflies, I wandered up to the cemetary up above the K loop of the campground.  The bugs once again did a great job.

Once again I slept sparingly.

Metcalf Bottoms - Little Brier - Little Greenbrier - Roundtop - Little River crossing

Date: 8/3/13
Distance: 12 miles

I hiked with the Meetup group today from Metcalf Bottoms to the Townsend Y.  The hike was a shuttle hike where we met at the Y and took a few cars up to Metcalf Bottoms to begin the hike.  The hike began on the Metcalf bottoms trail that leaves the picnic area and ends at the Little Greenbrier School.  There was also a cemetery at the school.

A gravel road leaves the school and eventually reaches the 5 sisters cabin.  The cabin is a cool place to visit.  It is very scenic with a Cabin, a spring house and a building that looked like a feed house.

We probably spent 20 minutes milling around the cabin.  The story from the people who knew about the cabin was that the sisters refused to sell when the park was started, but eventually agreed that the park could have the land once all the sisters had died.  One of the sisters lived in the cabin up until 1964.  The gravel road got close to the cabin, but not all of the way.  It would have been a rustic life.

The Little Brier Gap trail leaves the gravel road just above the cabin and terminates at the Little Greenbrier Trail.  This intersection is about 2.5 miles from the Metcalf parking lot.  We took the left fork of the Little Greenbrier Trail towards Townsend.  The trail hugged the edge of the park with several trails that headed down the mountain outside of the park.  At one spot there was a platform with a nice view of Wear's Valley.

This trail terminated at the Metcalf Bottoms Road (not sure this is the name. It is the road from Wear's Valley into the park at Metcalf Bottoms.)  We turned to the left on the road and walked a few hundred yards down the road to the Roundtop Trailhead.  The Roundtop trail had a decent climb onto the side of Roundtop Mountain.  Fortunately it didn't go to the top of Roundtop as that would have been a very hard climb.  The trail was a nice walk in the woods with a few nice views along the way.  It is 7.5 miles in length.  There was one tree across the trail that made life interesting.

The last 0.5 miles of the trail goes down the mountain and ends at the "Y".  It is on the "wrong" side of the "Y", so we had to fjord the Little River to get back to the cars.

Met at the Y at 7:30
Got started on the trail at 8:15
Back to the Y at 2:15