Frozen Head Loop HIke

I took a day off from the kids to go for a long hike in the nearby Frozen Head State Park. The park itself doesn't allow geocaches, but there was one earthcache placed just outside the park boundary that I stopped by. I also took lots of waypoints and notes on locations so that I can create a hiking wherigo/multi cache that follows my route.

A portion of the trail I took was on the Cumberland trail, which when finished will transect Tennessee. The small white marked indicates that the Cumberland Trail will also be part of the Great Eastern Trail which will go from Alabama up to New York.

The CT marker.

The earthcache I visited dealt with this small natural arch called the March Arch.

Castle Rock is one of the cool geologic formations along the Bird Mountain trail. The trail skirts around rock buttresses for about half a mile.

Sasha was my trusty companion for this hike. She handles Tennessee trails much better than New Mexico ones, keepinging up the entire day without lagging and without tearing up her pads.

At one of the backcountry campsites I found these recently used homemade camp utensils all neatly arranged on the table.

I almost stepped on this really cool Box Turtle. It was all shut up against me, the predator. And it was right to do so since I picked it up and gave it a good inspection. Looks just like the shell I found with the kids a few weeks ago. Way cool to stumble across a live one of these.

I find these signs funny. Watch out for Class III natural areas, those are for experts only. I can handle class II though.

Several places along the trail were massive vine swings. I hopped on this one for a little leaisurely swinging.

One of the most spectacular campsites that I passed was the Stone House campsite located pretty close to the lookout tower down a short side trail. The camp is completely underneath an overhanging rock, dripping with water. I'm not sure if I would want to camp there, it was very damp, but it was sure a cool spot to check out.

While most of my hike was along the ridge-top, the thick forest prevented any grand views. I bet you could get some great views in the winter when the leaves have fallen, but for my hike I had to satisfy myself with fleeting glimpses of mountains and valleys beyond. In order to get a proper view, you need to climb up the ~80ft tall observation tower, and even then the trees blocked the view to the west where the Frozen Head valley is located. Still, from the tower I could clearly see Bull Run steam plant near our house.

Just underneath the lookout tower is the wonderfully refreshing Tub Spring. I had brought my water purifier with me and pumped water here to refill my water bottles. You might be able to drink directly from this spring, it looks pretty darn clean. But better safe than sorry.

A huge polypore fungus along the trail.

We saw a pretty good amount of wildlife on our trek, including two turkeys, several white-tailed deer and a box turtle. Along one portion of seldom used trail I came across this bear track as well.

I had several options to make my hike shorter, but in the end I opted for one of the longest possible loop hikes up Bird Mtn Trail, along the Lookout Tower trail and down via Chimney Top Trail.

Amazing that anyone would construct a cement chimney way up this mountain ridge. Although there were signs of old logging roads and such in this range, so it's not that far-out. This old ruin was pretty cool.

Another rare view was had on top of Chimney Top peak, looking down over the valley towards Wartburg.

Had a few raptors flyby overhead while on Chimney Top. I wasn't sure what they were but snapped a few pictures. Turns out they were common Black Vultures.

I really liked the layers on this rest rock halfway down the Chimney Top trail. You can count the individual layers.

The end of the hike.

The hike clocked in at 17.4 miles, definitely one of my longer hikes, but it didn't feel too strenuous. most of the ridge-top hiking was long relatively flat wide trail. It was cool (high 70s), no bad weather. We cruised all day long. Still, for most hikers this route would be more enjoyable as a 2 or 3 day backpack.