Blood Mountain Cove adventure!

Join me on an overnight backpacking trip that is a mix of familiar trails, lesser used trails, and trailess areas. It will have mountain views, rushing streams, waterfalls, rock scrambling, and cross country hiking. It has been done by the club in the past, but not in quite a few years. We will start at a small parking area near Dick's Creek Falls (also called Waters' Creek Falls). (NOTE: This is NOT the same Dick's Creek Falls that is on the Bartram Trail East of Clayton!) From there we will hike up around Crow Mountain and past the Crow Mountain Falls waterfalls. We will get our feet wet here while we check out the view from the bottom and top of the falls. Then we hike up Blood Mountain Creek past Chestnut Flats to Blood Mountain Cove. We will continue up the creek to Blood Mountain Creek Falls, crossing the creek several times (wet feet likely). We likely will stop for lunch at these falls.

After enjoying the falls and lunch we will go off-trail and uphill to the Freeman Trail, which we will take East to Flaltrock Gap. There we will turn left onto the AT. We will follow the AT to Blood Mountain summit and take in the spectacular views. We will continue on the AT past the other end of the Freeman Trail and turn right to go to the Woods Hole Shelter. There we will spend the night. (The shelter may be full, as we are still in the bubble!) 

The next morning we will continue down the AT through Bird Gap, and at Turkey Stamp we will turn left off the AT and go off trail to make our way back to our cars. We will stop a few times to enjoy more waterfalls. While we will be off trail at times on this hike, no bushes will be whacked! We will respect the land and do our best to leave it as we found it. 

This hike involves around 4,000 feet of climbing and 15 miles carrying packs. We will be climbing over boulders and up steep inclines. We will be crossing streams multiple times, very likely getting wet multiple times. Due to the difficult nature of this hike, I have designed this page to put everyone on the waitlist. If you do not have any recent D5 hikes you will remain there. I will select people to move from the waitlist who have experience on long and strenuous hikes, and who can deal with difficult situations that can arise on an exploratory trip. If you only have non-AOC comparable events, you can email me a link to an recording showing your ability (AllTrails, strava, etc.) and I will consider it. I will not expand the group over 8, and prefer to keep it at 4 or 5 to lessen impact on the pristine area we will traverse. 

This is an exploratory hike. I have not done one of the trails or any of the off-trail hiking, and do not have a recording to verify the distance or elevation gain. I cannot guarantee the finish time noted above, although I expect we will finish early. Don't sign up if you need to be somewhere after, though!

There is parking at the trailhead. You can use the GPS coordinates on the map shown when you click the map icon above. Or in Apple Maps enter "Dicks Creek Falls" to go to the trailhead. In Google Maps "Waters Creek Falls" takes you the same place. It is necessary to drive through a creek to get to the parking area, so higher clearance vehicles would be wise. 

To get to the trailhead, use the GPS coordinates displayed when you click on the map icon above, or in Apple Maps enter "Dicks Creek Falls," or in Google Maps "Waters Creek Falls."

Apple Maps: https://maps.apple/p/hh3BvQR6jLq_Yw

Google Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/1vLFjF97a5gvqgFv7?g_st=ic