Crab Orchard Mountain Exploring

??? Weirdness in the mud on the Cumberland Plateau

Crab Orchard Mountain Exploring 

Kenny & Dana Koogler

 Wednesday April 25, 2018

     We've had an odd situation at home this year as I have stated in previous blogs.

Never have we experienced more constant upheaval and more varied KINDS of upheaval than

we have this past year. So far 2018 is turning out to be a WEIRD one.   Lucky for me I am a 

weirdo myself so it don't confront me.   Kenny had back surgery and would be off for 10 weeks!   Ten weeks of bossing me around and getting paid to do it.  Thank the Lord for

short term disability insurance and advanced planning for contingencies.    We've had to replace two major appliances.  We're raising a child in our old age.   It is making us 

crazier than usual.     You put the two of us together at home on a day when Gabriel is

being cared for by his other grandma and look out!  We are going to see what kinda trouble

we can get into.   Both of us are eaten up with Killed the Cat type curiosity.   

  

    We had been doing some ATV riding and short hikes while Kenny recuperated.

He talked to a fellow just prior to being off from work with his back , and he could not get

that conversation out of his head. Neither could I.   We'd had the gazetteer and Cal Topo out.

The fellow was just one of several who had told Kenny at different times that it was possible

to ride the territory on the north side of I-40 West.  Crab Orchard Mountain.  He was told

that there was a tunnel leading under the road providing access.   We were both intrigued at

the prospect of all those thousands of unexplored acres to add to our spots to ride.  

We got out and started prowling.    

      

  Now you know dear readers that it is not like us to go straight to the point.  We have to 

drag things out and make them just as difficult as possible.   So our first attempt was to turn off

the interstate onto Airport Road and try to approach Crab Orchard Mountain via the Millstone Gap side.  That did not pan out, but we did see  a boat access for Crab Orchard Creek.  We also found a cool place that we need to go back to explore. We passed by Waldensia

It was a coal washing operation with old coke ovens.  I read a good blog by Paul Mashburn about the area. (Click the link to go to his blog entry)  We will wait til it gets cold to go round the coke ovens. The brush is thick.

It looks like a place you go if you were itching to get snake bit. 

Crab Orchard Creek flowing strong after the rain.   this is the boat put in.

  Well our first approach did not pan out, but we continued ambling round til we came out in Ozone.  We saw an interesting building and found out Ozone was larger than we'd imagined!

Kenny thought maybe the tunnel was back a road in Ozone, but that turned out to be wrong.

 Above and below.. an interesting and attractive abandoned building in Ozone.  The rock work is beautiful. I can't help wondering what it was?

   

   We went on down SR 70 heading west past Ozone Falls really watching every holler to our right for signs of a tunnel.   We stopped at another place we thought looked promising.  It was also wrong, but it was pretty just the same!   It was a railroad trestle where some recent repairs had been made.  

 Above:  two different views of the trestle.  I grew up living near the railroad tracks. I am a cross tie walker.

Above: all the heavy rains had created a pair of waterfalls just past the trestle.  Both pretty. Both wet weather.  the one on the right is a natural falls. The one on the left is a culvert falls! 

Kenny walked up ahead and looked, but it was clearly not where the tunnel was.  

      We got back in the jeep and kept going.   I was watching down to the right of SR 70 from the shot gun seat.   I had Kenny turn around and go back to a spot that looked promising.   Below us flowed Berks Creek through the bottom of Renfro Holler.    We parked and walked down there. Kenny went around looking for signs of the tunnel. I wandered amongst the wildflowers taking pictures and enjoying the scenery.  Below are some photos of the various pretty flowers and the stream.

 Trillium grandiflora

 Foam flowers

 Trillium leuteum

 Slope below SR 70 absolutely covered in wildflowers!! Woo Hoo!

 Bright pink large flowered trillium.

 Wild geraniums

 Trillium sulcatum

Berks Creek 

   

  We'd still not found any tunnel.  We went down to Crab Orchard itself and drove back Hebbertsburg Road.  We eventually saw where we thought folks were accessing the area with four wheelers from that side.  Neither of us would have felt comfortable with that access without talking to some land owners or local riders.    We still had not found our tunnel.

We kept prowling round and eventually came to what turned out to be a section of the old historic Walton Road!   

  We went down it and then went another way. We started seeing posted signs plastered everywhere.  We were right near some houses so we felt uneasy continuing.  We finally packed it in for the day, but the story doesn't end there.   

     Later that weekend two family members went riding with friends and came back with photos of some awesome views from up high. They'd found the darn tunnel before us!  Augh!

Thankfully they were willing to school us as to its location.  When we saw all those posted signs near the houses and the Walton Road... we were 50 yards from it.   We went back a short time later and at last got to ride the territory on the north side of the interstate.   We started out

being very excited about it.  

This is the stream flowing out of the tunnel under the mountain that permits access to Crab Orchard Mountain. It is near the zinc mines. 

Below find a short video of us riding through the tunnel. My photos of the tunnel were very nondescript so the video will show it off much better.  

    It was a hot, sunny day.  I think it was a Monday when we went back.   I don't rightly know.

The place started off rather pretty. A few wildflowers. A pretty creek. A hemlock forest.  We began climbing trying to get to the known good spot.. the Big Rock Overlook.  We went briefly on a rabbit hunt, but Kenny got us sorted out and heading up the mountain the correct direction.   I had also wanted to see what was in a place that had an intriguing name..Terrell Cove.   I thought it might be a wildflower paradise just waiting for me to discover.   

 Big Rock Overlook

 Grand stand view from here. You can just make out I-40 in the bottom right of the frame.  It was hot as ten suns up here and dry and dusty.   The view was real pretty though.

The mountain top was so so. It was not as pretty as we'd hoped, but we found it just the same.

  We headed back down to hunt for Terrell Cove.  

 Big dusty intersection at the top of the mountain.   The sky was pretty and blue.

   After some riding down down down we made it to Terrell Cove.  It was pretty, but not that great.

Very few flowers.  Nothing but a wet trail.   It is part of the headwaters of the stream that goes on to from Ozone Falls eventually.   

 Terrell Cove.  Nothing much here.  

  We explored a bit further but continued to be disappointed in what we were finding on this side of the interstate.  It is fun for guys who just like to ride. Trails aplenty, but for anyone who likes pretty scenery it was not so great.   We decided to head out of there.  I am not saying we'll never go back. 

A ride there in Winter or early Spring might be better.  Maybe there are other parts of this section that are far better and we just haven't found them yet?   Needless to say we won't be in a hurry to go back. 

   Still we learned some stuff and we satisfied our curiosity.  You can't win 'em all.   It was still good

to have a day to get out with my honey.

Cumberland County and Hinch Mountain Exploring

Sunny yellow cluster of Golden Ragwort growing on Hinch Mountain

Cumberland County and Hinch Mountain Exploring

Dana & Kenny Koogler

Saturday April 7, 2018

Pictures are here starting with frame 147

Cumberland County Exploring Pix

   We had finished up our visit to Clear Creek, Twin Bridges, and Fourmile Creek Falls much sooner

than anticipated. We still had a good half day left and while rain was in the forecast it didn't matter.  When we have the RZR it is not the same as hiking in the pouring rain.  The machine keeps us from 

being quite as drenched.   We headed toward Cumberland County just as quickly as we could.  I had a feeling today was going to be one of those watershed moments where I finally found something good.

I said a little prayer asking God to please give me a little hope and encouragement by letting us be 

successful today.  He is ever faithful to reward.   I had some good information about some wildflowers I'd long wanted to find.    

    We parked the truck along Old Highway 28 and headed up Jewett Road.  It was a lot better experience today than our previous visit.   Today we encountered no squatters. No druggie types.

No shady characters.  We did see a few other family groups out enjoying the day riding.  It was very chill and laid back.  What a relief.  Someone has fixed it where the squatter camps are no longer accessible.  That seems to have cut out a lot of the nonsense.    We found a path up over the mountain

that we'd tried before and had good luck finding flowers.  We hadn't gone any distance before I hollered for Kenny to stop. The bank to my right was laden with the very flowers I'd hoped to find.

There in the scrubby grasses and red dirt bloomed the tiniest, most perfect trilliums I'd ever seen.

Least Trillium or Dwarf Trilliums by the hundreds!  

       

Bright pink dwarf trillium with my hand and ring for scale. 

Cluster of dwarf trilliums.  This is representative of what I saw.  Lots and lots of them.

  I got out and just wandered around taking pictures of them all.  Some were so tiny the bloom was no bigger than a dime!  Some were as short as two inches!   I hadn't really soaked up my fill of these beauties when the sky opened up and began to pour down rain in buckets! 

Kenny urged me to come on so I did.   We finally got turned around and headed back off the mountain.   The rain continued to beat down.   We turned onto the next dirt track we'd had good luck on and to my delight there were more dwarf trilliums.  Again they were thick. They 

grew near the path and continued up the slopes of the mountain.   It delighted me to see so many of them!  

White form of Dwarf trillium.

   We pushed on along the track as the rain beat down.   I have found all kinds of beautiful and different wildflowers in Cumberland County. Today was turning out to be pure gold.  Thank you Lord!  We saw the tiny trilliums continue up the mountain.  We also encountered a great patch of Virginia bluebells!  

 We saw bluebells in great numbers see the photo above.  Below is another flower we saw.. toothwort.   Up higher on the mountain the blooms were still present, but less flowers.

    We pushed on up the mountain and Kenny was on a rabbit hunt.  I knew that look in his eyes.  I kept quiet for awhile. He had been putting up with my flower searching so I just let him ramble awhile.    I began to see stuff along the ridgeline that made me feel like we were going exactly opposite the way he believed we were. He thought he'd gone up on the ridge and would run it out to the end where we'd work our way back down to Jewett Road.  I disputed that fact. I said we were heading further up the spine of Brady Mountain north.. away from Dorton Knob and Jewett Road.   I began to be able to tell him what would come next like "We will come up to a pond. " Then we'll see some rock outcrops with views."  He admitted he was disoriented. The path was narrowing to a knife edge. He had gotten mixed up and we were not going to be able to continue. He got us turned around.  I got out and at least enjoyed looking around since we were there.  It was eerie and beautiful all at once. 

 Fog shrouded path on the mountain top!  Spooky and pretty too. 

The fog lifted and you can see the lichen and moss encrusting all the trees and rocks.

Partial views through the trees from the mountain top. 

       We got turned around and headed back off the mountain. He found a way for us to come off and make a loop.  We came back down past the first tiny trilliums we'd found.   The rain was stopped and the fog was lifting.  A beautiful view of the plateau opened up before me.  

I had to stop to soak it in.  

The fog lifts to reveal a view of Grassy Cove below.

   We made it back down to Jewett Road.  We went on toward Hinch Mountain and turned onto it.  We drove along slowly noticing all the posted signs by some weird survivalist group.   We did not stick around that area.  On up the mountain slopes we did stop because the entire slope was covered in gorgeous wildflowers. They might be able to keep me off their land, but they can't stop me from looking from the road!  I got out and walked around just taking it all in.  

The slope was filled with interesting limestone rock shelves and formations.  Interspersed with the rocks were tons of deep purple and pale lavender larkspur.  Also yellow violets and yellow trilliums.  I saw a few white trilliums in there.  I saw blue phlox and jack in the pulpits too.  

 Large flowered bellwort was seen here and there along the road. 

 Close up view of the pale lavender larkspur 

 Cool moss covered limestone rocks with the flowers. 

 Freshly opened great white trillium

 Newly emerged Jack in the Pulpit

  The rain began again in earnest so we did not continue to the summit of Hinch Mountain nor did we try any of the side trails.   We went on ahead down the mountain as the rain settled in.  

We were getting cold and wet enough we were done for the day.  What a day we'd had too!  Turned out great.   A fantastic waterfall and great fortune finding tons of Spring flowers.  

It was a much needed respite from every day life.