Hiking, Camping and a little Geocaching - Part 2

As promised from Part 1 of this posting, I will let you know what happened to the trackable we fondly came to know as "the little yellow guy".  We set out Saturday, May 19, 2012 for Panhandle Rd on Holston Mountain.  Specifically we were headed for the fire tower access road on top of Holston Mountain.  The group this time around only consisted of Misty (the Wife), Abby and myself.  Brianna and Colton chickened out on going and unfortunately Jordan had to work Saturday night.  And yes to make sure that I point it out so that all 10s and 10s of people that read his blog will notice that Brianna (age 15) and Colton (age 12) were too chicken to make the hike out to the camp site.  Yet Abby (age 5) was a trooper and went with us.


I had hunted this area before with Jordan so I was somewhat familiar with the access road out to the fire tower.  The road was wide and a easy hiking although it does climb in elevation a little towards the end.  Normally this wouldn't be so bad but with Misty and I carrying loaded packs for out camp we were due a short rest by the time we made the close to mile hike out to the tower.  After a short rest we decided to check on one of the caches that are supposed to be near the fire tower.  While looking around for the cache we found this little guy right around where the cache should have been.  Not liking snakes very well I decided to let this cache pass until another day preferably when the weather cools off some and the snakes aren't out.


So we set out down the Holston Mountain trail (and yes there is a trail hidden somewhere in this picture lol) on our way to the Flint Mill trail.  The ground foilage was very dense for most of this trail so I kept a good eye out for more snakes while we hiked on.  The trail was a good hike and as I pointed out to Misty several times, was mostly down hill which meant tomorrows hike back out would be up hill most of the way.  She was not in the least pleased to here such comments from me so I decided to shut up before I found myself sprawled at the bottom of one of those hills.

By the time we made it down to the Flint Mill trail head we had been on the trail for a 2 to 3 hours and all three of us were ready for a break.  Abby was hoping to make our camp right in the middle of where Holston Mountain and Flint Mill trails intersect.  Not out of exhaustion though, she was just excited to be camping.  After a short break we set off up Flint Mill trail.  The trail was ab little over 0.5 miles to Flint Rock and we hadn't gone far when I heard Misty shout something from behind that I never really expected to hear.  As I was walking up the trail I heard her gasp and then shout "HORSE".  Now I know that people do frequent these trails on horseback, but maybe my mind just working a little slow at that moment because I about jumped out of shoes when I spun around to see a guy on a horse approaching us on the trail.

After we all got a good laugh and things calmed down the guy on the horse pulled a rattle snake rattle from his shirt pocket and said that he was a short ways behind us on the trail coming down Holston Mountain and that we had walked right past the snake.  On the return trip the next morning I came across the dead snake and man were we lucky.  It was about a 3 and half to 4 foot long snake and as a big around as a mans arm. I am just glad that something didn't happen when we went past it.

After that little jolt we continued on up towards Flint Rock.  About half way there we found a spot where others had camped so we dropped our packs there and hiked the rest of the way out to the rock.  Once we made it to the rock all we could really say was WOW what a view.  I have seen basically the same view from planes while I flew into Tri-Cities Airport but nothing quite like seeing it from the rock.  I think we could have spent all afternoon there but we still needed to find the cache and get out camp set up.

We started back down the train and found the cache on the way back to our camp site.  It was in great shape and after trading out a little swag for Abby we signed the log book and said our goodbyes to "the little yellow guy".  He was our first trackable and we were excited to send him on his way.

We got back to the site and set up our tent and got started on dinner.  I cooked some small pizzas on my MSR pocket rocket stove.  I am not sure if it was just the fact that we were all so hungry or not but the pizzas were some of the best I had every eaten.  After we ate and cleaned up the dishes we broke out some marshmallows and roasted them over the fire.  Abby was her typical self and ate her fair share of them.  We then straightened things up and did a little laundry before heading to bed.  We slept pretty decent aside from the occasional critter in the camp site that night.  Not sure exactly what they were but I did here several coyotes howling nearby.

We rose the next morning and made our trip out.  All-in-all it was a great experience and one we will remember for some time to come.

Here is the track of our trip one way to Flint Rock.

Flint Rock Hike / Camp

⇒ Click here for an album of pictures from the trip. ⇒ Click here for a slideshow of pictures from the trip.