Sat, May 7 2005 - Backpacking Savage Gulf to Great Stone Door (View Original Event Details) Trip Leader(s): Bruce Participants: Rebecca Portman, Kelly Licht, Udo Licht, Mike Bryan, Ameen (Buck) Dahdah, Andrea Holtzheimer, Michael Aubertine, Bruce

Write Up:
Beautiful weather greeted the six of us for the entire weekend at Savage Gulf-temps in the 70’s in the day and mild at night. After driving up and adjusting backpacks, we were on our way to beautiful views of the Big Creek Gulf from the Great Stone Door, a mile from the trailhead. There were a couple more overlooks on the last 3.2 miles to the Alum Gap campsite, where we set up our tents and were on our way into the Big Creek Gulf in day gear. The hike down into the Gulf provided tremendous displays of multi-varied beautiful wildflowers and unfortunately an abundant supply of poison ivy, which we all avoided as best, we could.
When we arrived at Ranger Falls everyone was taken back by not only the lovely waterfall, but the ‘sink’ the water flowed backwards into, a common geological oddity up on the South Cumberland Plateau.
After hiking back most of us gathered firewood for the night festivities and Udo hung our food and smelly stuff-critter attracters; up in the pine trees, after we all had dined on dehydrated delicacies of our choice.
Darkness fell and we all had good conversation and seeking entertainment in the form of stories, Buck volunteered and story-epic-poem, and amazed us all with a lengthy, perfectly orated ‘The ballad of Blasphemous Bill’ by Robert Service. We let the fire die down, and after a little while several of us stargazed before retiring. It was cool in the morning, but warmed up as we had breakfast and were off on the days hike to 3 increasingly beautiful waterfalls, Boardtree then upper and lower Greeter Falls. We all played and waded below Upper Greeter Falls. Rebecca, Andrea and I noticed the time was getting late; as all of us had commitments of one sort or another to get back to in the big city.
We dediced to hike back at a quick pace and Udo graciously led the second group of 3 back from this days hike and backpacking out from the Alum Gap campsite.
All of us made it out fine-Andrea, Rebecca and I got back relatively close to time we wanted to be back and I found out later that Buck, Udo and Kelly ‘dined’ at Dairy Queen on their way back.
I thank all again for being part of a great weekend in a beautiful place and a very memorable trip.
Written By: Bruce Aldridge
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