D. Boone Hut Trail

Hiker Red River Gorge Backpacking Map
Distance: 1.5 Miles loop trail
Difficulty: ++
Scenic Views: +++
Elevation Relief: 400ft ^
Ownership: Daniel Boone National Forest, USFS

Red River Gorge Backpacking Map: $14

D. Boone Hut A hike from Gray’s Arch Trailhead to D. Boone Hut and Martin Fork. A large area of ferns can be found on near the crossing of Martin Fork and scenic overlooks offer limited views down the valley and across the valley to Tunnel Ridge Road.
[Read more…]

Auxier Ridge & Double Arch Trails

Hiker Red River Gorge Backpacking Map
Distance: 3.2 Miles loop trail
Difficulty: ++
Scenic Views: ++++
Elevation Relief: 400ft ^
Ownership: Daniel Boone National Forest, USFS

Red River Gorge Backpacking Map: $14

Double Arch

Auxier Ridge is one of the great hiking areas in the Red River Gorge. Hikers have two loop options here. First, you can hike out the Ridge on trail #204, passing some excellent scenic overlooks, and return on Trail #202, Courthouse Rock trail. The second option is to return by way off Auxier Branch Trail, #203, with a side trip to Double Arch. This second option uses the closed Tunnel Ridge Road to connect back to the trailhead.

Courthouse Rock
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Rock Creek Loop, a cool summer hike

Twin ArchesHiker Big South Fork Map
Distance: 6.6 Miles round-trip
Difficulty: ++
Scenic Views: +++
Elevation Relief: 520ft ^
Ownership: Big South Fork, NPS

Big South Fork Trail Map: $12

Hike the scenic crossroads of the John Muir Trail and Sheltowee Trace. Rock Creek Loop is a 6.6-mile loop in our Big South Fork Guide. Half of this loop follows the cool waters of Rock Creek, a trout stream with small stretches of swift water and deep pools for summer refreshment.

Hikers weave through a forest dominated by old, stately Hemlock and American Beech trees with grassy, wildflower areas along the stream bank. The trail is a rugged footpath with a bridge across Massey Branch. Numerous backcountry campsites along the loop offer great weekend backpacking options with side trail options into Pickett State Park and the Daniel Boone National Forest.

Rock Creek Loop

Gray’s Arch Trail

Hiker Red River Gorge Backpacking Map
Distance: 3.4 Miles loop trail
Difficulty: ++
Scenic Views: ++++
Elevation Relief: 400ft ^
Ownership: Daniel Boone National Forest, USFS

Red River Gorge Backpacking Map: $14

This well-used and maintained trail is the first (or last) segment of the challenging 10-mile Power Loop Hike. Starting at Gray’s Arch trailhead parking (map) walk a short quarter-mile double-width foot trail to an intersection with the Martin’s Fork Trail. Continue to the right passing the small field on Butterfly Hill. About a mile into the hike, you’ll find a few ridge top campsites west of the trail. An unmapped trail follows a narrow ridge above Left Flank climbing area.

[Read more…]

Swift Camp Creek Trail

Hiker Red River Gorge Backpacking Map
Distance: 7.8 Miles one-way
Difficulty: +++
Scenic Views: +++
Elevation Relief: 500ft ^
Ownership: Daniel Boone National Forest, USFS

Red River Gorge Backpacking Map: $14

The best trail in the Clifty Wilderness Area. Starting at Rock Bridge trailhead and hiking down Swift Camp Creek as it cuts a steep, narrow gorge, you’ll experience the least-visited area in the Red River Gorge. Trail often skirts cliff edges and side trails wind down to the creek and cool water in the summer heat. Nice campsites exist near Pooch’s Turtle Falls, Don Juan’s Garden, and Steamboat Rock.
[Read more…]

2010 Draft of New Great Smoky Mountains Trail Map

Welcome to our new topographic map of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. At 1:50,000 scale, this will be the most detailed map published of the park. We’ve added a couple new features to help better navigate in this wonderful national park, such as the new official trail system and elevation contours. We’re almost done!

You can check out a public draft here: http://www.outrageGIS.com/grsm/draft and please tell us what you think in the below comments section.

New Features:

  • 1:50,000 scale, which is 140% enlargement of the Trails Illustrated map
  • 100-foot contour interval with 500-foot index contours
  • Canopy cover type indicating deciduous, evergreen, shrub, grass, and open areas
  • 1-minute Geographic coordinate grid for GPS
  • Elevations for trail intersections and other points of interest
  • Mileage shown between trail intersections and campsites
  • Updated official trails and campsites
  • Unique hillshading shows topography clearly

Tower Rock Trail

Hiker Red River Gorge Backpacking Map
Distance: 1 Mile loop
Difficulty: ++
Scenic Views: ++
Elevation Relief: 200ft
Ownership: Daniel Boone National Forest, USFS

Red River Gorge Backpacking Map: $14

Tower Rock Trail is an easy hike to a monolithic outcropping of eroded sandstone.

View of Tower Rock side with moon
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Chimney Top & Princess Arch

Hiker Red River Gorge Backpacking Map
Distance: 1 Mile one-way
Difficulty: +
Scenic Views: +++
Elevation Relief: 100ft
Ownership: Daniel Boone National Forest, USFS

Red River Gorge Backpacking Map: $14

Chimney Top Rock

Chimney Scenic Picnic Area is the start of the two shortest, but most rewarding trails in the Gorge. Both trails visit splendid overlooks and many additional miles of side trails connect with picnic area. The camping area is a nice ridge to explore.
Princess Arch
[Read more…]

Sheltowee Trace & Bison Way Loop

Hiker Red River Gorge Backpacking Map
Distance: 5 Miles loop
Difficulty: ++
Scenic Views: +++
Elevation Relief: 300ft ^^
Ownership: Daniel Boone National Forest, USFS

Red River Gorge Backpacking Map: $14

Overlook in fall

The Sheltowee Trace spans the entire length of the Daniel Boone National Forest and a portion of the Big South Fork in Tennessee. The section through the Red River Gorge is one of the most spectacular, with this short segment visiting some of the most impressive overlooks and challenging side trails. Indian Staircase is an unofficial trail that climbs up a steep set of cliff ledges and can be found on the printed map. Although this loop uses part of a paved road, hikers have a chance for a short walk to the Red River suspension footbridge, the longest in the forest.

Suspension Bridge

Gladie Welcome Center
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The Rough Trail

Hiker Red River Gorge Backpacking Map
Distance: 8 Miles one-way
Difficulty: +++
Scenic Views: ++++
Elevation Relief: 500ft ^^^^
Ownership: Daniel Boone National Forest, USFS

Red River Gorge Backpacking Map: $14

Rhododendron grove along Parched Corn Creek

The Rough Trail is longest trail through the heart of the Red River Gorge. Many side trail options allow hikers to increase mileage and create additional loops. For the ultimate Gorge experience, connect this trail with the Swift Camp Creek Trail.

Junction of Rough and Swift Camp trails
[Read more…]

Wildcat Trail Loop

Hiker Red River Gorge Backpacking Map
Distance: 6 Miles loop
Difficulty: +++
Scenic Views: ++
Elevation Relief: 400ft ^^
Ownership: Daniel Boone National Forest, USFS

Red River Gorge Backpacking Map: $14

Don Juan’s Garden

The Wildcat Loop begins at the eastern terminus of the Rough Trail. The trail descends into Sons Branch while passing large stands of rhododendron and hemlock trees. At the intersection with Swift Camp Creek, hikers can cross the creek to find large camping areas. After about a mile hiking up Sift Camp, Don Juan’s Garden presents a majestic grove of hemlocks along an impressive cliff known as Wildcat Wall. After returning to the ridge on trail #228, the Wildcat Trail, hikers can find abundant lady slippers in spring.

Wildcat Wall
[Read more…]

Rock Bridge Loop

Hiker Red River Gorge Backpacking Map
Distance: 1.5 Miles loop
Difficulty: +
Scenic Views: ++
Elevation Relief: 300ft ^
Ownership: Daniel Boone National Forest, USFS

Red River Gorge Backpacking Map: $14

Rock Bridge

Rock Bridge Scenic Picnic Area is the start and end for this easy hike. This trail descends into the Swift Camp Creek drainage area and visits Creation Falls, one of the largest falls in the Gorge, and Rock Bridge, the only arch with a stream flowing beneath it.

Creation Falls
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First freezing night in the Great Smokies

Overnight the temperature dropped to 25° F at the Newfound Gap weather station, elevation 5,000 ft. Mt LeConte at 6400 ft above sea level recorded a low temperature of 31° F.  The slight warming at 1,400 ft higher in elevation is caused by a temperature inversion that most frequently happens in autumn mornings.

The lowest temperature recored at Mt. LeConte for September 29 was 24° F and that happened in 2003. The coldest night ever recorded since 1988 was -22° F, which occurred last February 4.

Station reports for 7:30 am, September 28 – 7:30 am, September 29:

STATION             ELEV    HIGH    LOW     PCPN    SNOW DEPTH
SUGARLAND CENTER    1600     75      45     0.00
NEWFOUND GAP        5000     62      25     0.00
CADES COVE          1900     73      44     0.00
OCONALUFTEE         2040     79      42     0.00
MOUNT LECONTE       6400     57      31     0.01

http://www.outrageGIS.com/weather/grsm

All weather cams are up

Look Rock, Sept. 24

Look Rock, Sept. 24

After a few months of intermittent outage, all four weather observation cameras for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park are now operational. We archive full-day animations for 3 webcams and the visible satellite view of the park every day at:
http://www.outragegis.com/weather/img/animation/yesterday
.

For previous days, you can access other days by replacing “yesterday” with the 6-digit year month day combination. For example, for September 24, 2009 replace “yesterday” with “090924”and create this link:
http://www.outragegis.com/weather/img/animation/090924.

For highest resolution images, just click on the preview images.

The two National Park cameras are located on Look Rock and Purchase Knob. Look Rock camera overlooks most of the park. The two National Forest cameras, Cold Mountain and Joyce Kilmer Wilderness, overlook small portions of the park.

Now let’s watch fall pass in the mountains!

Woodland Art Fair, Aug 15-16

Come down to the Woodland Art Fair the is Saturday and Sunday and check out our new maps. We will have the spring release of the Red River Gorge and the Sheltowee Trace South, both of which were designed and printed in the past 6 months. The map to out booth is provided below: [Read more…]

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