Sat, Apr 23 2005 - West Rim Trail and Water Fall Trail (View Original Event Details) Trip Leader(s): No Coordinators Found Participants: Kiran Puttaswamy, Kristin McDermott , Kelly Licht, Caitlin Stark, Denice Fischer, Kyle D. Barrow, Krista Martin, Udo Licht, Joanne Beer, Cam Meriwether, Eric Huminski, Nikki Halipilias, Angela, Patricia Morelli , Carol Campbell,

Write Up:
The weather forecast for Trenton, Ga was supposed to be cold, cloudy and windy. Well, again the weather forecast cannot be trusted, we had a gorgeous day, sunny, warm and not windy. It was just perfect weather for a beautiful hike. We started hiking from the parking lot, Udo and Kelly had brought there back packing pack, they said they wanted to train for the upcoming backpacking trip (Udo was carrying 40 lbs). We hiked along the scenic trail along the parking lot first before we got on the main trail. The spring was definitely here at Cloudland, the park was very green, and the flowers were blooming everywhere. Once we got on the main trail, we started our gradual descent down to the river with a wooden bridge. (We actually appointed a leader to hike in front of us, almost like the AOC hike leader D.H.) The river was clear and small amount of yellow leaves left from the Autumn Season enhanced the view of the small waterfall. From the river we started our up hill climb, we cam to a huge wall, where it looked like if some one had stacked many layers of thin rocks. When we got to the canyon level, there were many overlooks where we enjoyed the breathtaking view of the canyon. We came to a rocky area where we took a 15 minute break. giant rocks with many narrow cracks, as we were enjoying the view and the warm sun, we heard a voice coming from the bottom of the crack, Udo the adventurer has taken his gear off and was enjoying his short hike in between the crack of the rock thats no more than 2 feet apart, but a good 15-20 feet deep. When Udo came back we looked for our overlook to go have lunch. The place where we picked was away from the trail, but had a nice wooden fence, and the flooring was a colorful rock (mixture of red, orange and yellow). Some brought sandwiches and some brought energy bars, it was a fun lunch, Michelle and Tim offered us a thin mint cookies, and it was good. Kiran was telling me that he wants to see the waterfalls, and if I dont show him the water fall, I need to buy him dinner... .... From the lunch stop we briefly continued for 1/2 mile or so, since we decided the hike wasnt long enough, then we turned back and hiked back the same trail till we got to the giant rock with a shelter beneath, most people that comes here does the hercules pose, so I asked Kristin to pose for me. From the big rock we started top go down to the 2nd waterfall, where many stairs awaited for us. It was one stairs after another for a long time, but the view of the waterfall was well worth the stairs, a huge rock was siting in-front of the water fall, we rested for a while and enjoyed the beautiful waterfall, as we were getting ready to leave for the other falls, Udo was missing again, he was actually hoping rocks to get close to the waterfalls, but his first attempt didnt get that far but a lot more than any of us, so when he came back, he tried another path where he was able to stand behind the waterfall. When Udo came back we started walking back up the many stairs, with all those stairs we walked up it wasnt too bad. The 1st waterfall was just beautiful. we were able to get very close to waterfall, and enjoy the sound and sight of the waterfall, it was so beautiful we decided to take another group shot here, we attempted several times and we finally got a good shot. (I had to turn on the auto shutter on my camera and hop some rocks to get to the group). When we got back to the parking lot some has decided to go back home, the rest of us drove to Chattanooga, and gone to Chattanooga Choo Choo where we had prime rib buffet at the Garden Restaurant for $12.95 per person, it was quite delicious, and everyone was very happy with the food, Nikki and Joanne got 3 different cakes and shared, very clever... after dinner we walked around the facility for a while. It was quite a event-full day, I hope everyone had enjoyed the trip.
Written By: Susumu Komatsu
Photos From: Susumu Komatsu

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