Carolina Pinks growing in profusion along the road
Renegade Mountain and Dogwood
Kenny & Dana Koogler
Monday May 14, 2018
Pix are here starting with frame #279
We have taken numerous rides back to places this season that we ventured to in order
to satisfy our curiosity about different far flung, hard to reach locations. We've had a variety
of experiences in either finding the place but the feature we sought was not very pleasing.
We've had some experiences where we did not find what we were looking for at all.
It isn't as much fun when trips end up that way, but the up side to it is that we learn from the experience, and avoid wasting time on something similar in the future. When you seek the obscure this is going to happen from time to time. Yet in all I can say I am still happy to
scratch some stuff off my list of places to go. It frees me to be inspired about other stuff.
Jack Canfield said in some of his old career track motivational tapes that stuff you leave unattended for long periods of time ties up portions of your subconscious mind and holds you
hostage until it is dealt with. One example is mental clutter from procrastinating about tasks you know you should be doing. Another example is physical clutter in say a basement, closet
or anywhere you your home. It impairs you from finding things efficiently. It drags down your mental energy even if you don't realize it. I place most of these experiences this year in the
category of de-cluttering my imagination. Put it to bed so I don't waste energy on it anymore.
I learned some years ago about a failed ski resort in Tennessee. It was Renegade Mountain. It has quite a story. It was pretty good to begin with, but even in the beginning there were years when it was too warm to produce snow or ski. It looks like from photos that in its Hey day it was quite the place. Mismanagement, embezzlement, weather all contributed to the eventual downfall of the place. It has been reinvented a time or two without success. It is now a housing development. It has a murder attached to its history. I place it in the category of someone's
Big Ideas! Try to get too exclusive in the Cumberland Plateau and the hoi polloi will remind you ..... You ain't nothing. We have been riding the Dogwood area of Crab Orchard for many years now. The trail system backs up to Renegade Mountain Resort. It is now a private housing development. Even now it has political and infrastructure problems. One big problem of late was the water system. The HOA built an installed a water system. Others were permitted to connect and use it with the promise to pay X amount of monies in Y amount of time. Those using the system outside the HOA reneged on the deal and failed to pay. It has been a mess!
We had never attempted to reach Renegade Mountain. It is a gated community.
We decided today to try to be party crashers and make our way in just to be able to say
we had done it. I was also looking to see a waterfall in a land feature I learned of.
We parked up on Owl Roost Road and took off. We went down the mountain and checked out various trails. We did see
The area is a maze of trails.
Above: close up of pink lady slipper. We saw lots of these today.
Below: pinxter azalea. Saw some of this also.
I learned some years ago about a failed ski resort in Tennessee. It was Renegade Mountain. It has quite a story. It was pretty good to begin with, but even in the beginning there were years when it was too warm to produce snow or ski. It looks like from photos that in its Hey day it was quite the place. Mismanagement, embezzlement, weather all contributed to the eventual downfall of the place. It has been reinvented a time or two without success. It is now a housing development. It has a murder attached to its history. I place it in the category of someone's
Big Ideas! Try to get too exclusive in the Cumberland Plateau and the hoi polloi will remind you ..... You ain't nothing. We have been riding the Dogwood area of Crab Orchard for many years now. The trail system backs up to Renegade Mountain Resort. It is now a private housing development. Even now it has political and infrastructure problems. One big problem of late was the water system. The HOA built an installed a water system. Others were permitted to connect and use it with the promise to pay X amount of monies in Y amount of time. Those using the system outside the HOA reneged on the deal and failed to pay. It has been a mess!
We had never attempted to reach Renegade Mountain. It is a gated community.
We decided today to try to be party crashers and make our way in just to be able to say
we had done it. I was also looking to see a waterfall in a land feature I learned of.
We parked up on Owl Roost Road and took off. We went down the mountain and checked out various trails. We did see
The area is a maze of trails.
Below: pinxter azalea. Saw some of this also.
The objectives for the day were to try to get into the land feature called The Basin.
We found Basin Rock and Basin Falls. We did not realize until the past year or so that The Basin is at the far end of that. No trail into it. You can only go so far then it becomes necessary to get out and bushwhack about 1/2 mile into the Basin. It is backed up against Renegade Mountain. It took us a good while to figure our way around. Logging screws the trail system up in ways you cannot begin to imagine. You will be lucky to find your way at all without
a GPS system and waypoints. Today was no different except that an already tough area to navigate was made more difficult by logging. Someone got highly upset with the loggers.
Golden ragwort growing along the trail
Logged area that used to be a beautiful trail.
Destructive practices to harvest timber.
This log picker was burnt plumb up! Someone set fire to it!
View of the distant mountains.
Still a pretty view despite the destruction. We had to find our way down off the back side of this mess to head toward The Basin.
We finally got down to where we knew we were in a place we'd never visited before. This is the headwaters of Basin Creek. Not much water coming down out of there.
Basin Creek Headwaters. Pretty area, but overgrown and not nearly enough water to say there is a falls back there worth visiting.
Mountain laurel was blooming today and was especially pretty.
Rough trail heading toward Renegade Mountain.
Would have had to bushwhack through this mess to get to what is called The Basin.
Nope. Not going to do it just to say I've done it. Let's work smarter, not harder. We'se goan try another approach before I go busting my ass to find a wet rock.
We gave up on this attempt when we saw how pitifully little water there was when weighed
against the effort to bushwhack into that mess. We headed another way to see if we could get close
to the bluff the falls comes off. I had seen a photo of Haley mountain Falls which is supposed to drop off the mountain into The Basin. It was nothing more than a couple wet rocks. Seriously.
The forest is pretty here
One of the really weird things we ran across today was this pipe in the middle of the woods. Nothing around it in the way of man made structures. It is near nothing. What its purpose was remains a mystery. It has water seeping up out of it at a barely perceptible rate.
Another pretty pink lady slipper in the forest.
Spot where we had lunch. We ate atop this big boulder.
Fire Pink. Saw a few of these today.
We stopped and ate lunch before attempting to get near Renegade Mountain from the top.
We headed in that direction following trails. Sure enough it lead us onto the property. Next thing we knew we were driving on old golf cart paths!
Golf cart paths criss cross this place.
Below us sat this little building.
We had a view out over the surrounding terrain from up here. Down in that holler would be the basin and basin rock.
We parked and got out to walk down to that little building. My way point for where Haley Mountain Falls would lie was down in there. We soon came to a spring branch that barely trickled over some rocks. I got down to the brush and was able to come to the brink of what that man called Haley Mountain Falls. It would take a Noah's Ark type flood event to make that into a true waterfall.
I was very glad not to have wasted any additional time or effort on that.
We walked back up the hill to the machine. We did see a pretty lake.
Lake on Renegade Mountain. From here you can see several occupied dwellings in the distance.
We did not tarry long around here. Not much else to see. Our curiosity was satisfied. We headed back toward Black Mountain.
Someone put up this lions head carving on a tree.
Yes, this was someone's big idea that bombed out. Pretty stone work on the little building.
We headed back toward Black Mountain and did a little riding around. Finally we both felt we were done. We were just wasting our time. We wrapped it up and headed home.
I am not saying I will never come back to this place to ride. I am saying I'll plan my trip more carefully. The trip here in earlier Spring with Gabe was a delight. Today was a bust.
Some things I would like to locate in the area:
The Bristow Cemetery
The "ruins" marked on Cal Topo between Bristow Cemetery and Black Mountain Rocks
Black Mountain Rocks
Revisit the trails out toward SR 68
Sandy Creek trail
Aside from that I'm done with this place.
We found Basin Rock and Basin Falls. We did not realize until the past year or so that The Basin is at the far end of that. No trail into it. You can only go so far then it becomes necessary to get out and bushwhack about 1/2 mile into the Basin. It is backed up against Renegade Mountain. It took us a good while to figure our way around. Logging screws the trail system up in ways you cannot begin to imagine. You will be lucky to find your way at all without
a GPS system and waypoints. Today was no different except that an already tough area to navigate was made more difficult by logging. Someone got highly upset with the loggers.
Nope. Not going to do it just to say I've done it. Let's work smarter, not harder. We'se goan try another approach before I go busting my ass to find a wet rock.
We gave up on this attempt when we saw how pitifully little water there was when weighed
against the effort to bushwhack into that mess. We headed another way to see if we could get close
to the bluff the falls comes off. I had seen a photo of Haley mountain Falls which is supposed to drop off the mountain into The Basin. It was nothing more than a couple wet rocks. Seriously.
Another pretty pink lady slipper in the forest.
We stopped and ate lunch before attempting to get near Renegade Mountain from the top.
We headed in that direction following trails. Sure enough it lead us onto the property. Next thing we knew we were driving on old golf cart paths!
Below us sat this little building.
We parked and got out to walk down to that little building. My way point for where Haley Mountain Falls would lie was down in there. We soon came to a spring branch that barely trickled over some rocks. I got down to the brush and was able to come to the brink of what that man called Haley Mountain Falls. It would take a Noah's Ark type flood event to make that into a true waterfall.
I was very glad not to have wasted any additional time or effort on that.
We walked back up the hill to the machine. We did see a pretty lake.
We did not tarry long around here. Not much else to see. Our curiosity was satisfied. We headed back toward Black Mountain.
We headed back toward Black Mountain and did a little riding around. Finally we both felt we were done. We were just wasting our time. We wrapped it up and headed home.
I am not saying I will never come back to this place to ride. I am saying I'll plan my trip more carefully. The trip here in earlier Spring with Gabe was a delight. Today was a bust.
Some things I would like to locate in the area:
The Bristow Cemetery
The "ruins" marked on Cal Topo between Bristow Cemetery and Black Mountain Rocks
Black Mountain Rocks
Revisit the trails out toward SR 68
Sandy Creek trail
Aside from that I'm done with this place.
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Dana 🐝