John Muir Trail Reroute

The John Muir Trail is a beautiful trail along the south edge of the Hiwassee River Gorge in eastern Tennessee which runs for 19 miles from the Childers Creek Trailhead near Reliance to about 3 miles east of TN68. This was the route Desoto took through Tennessee as well as John Muir on one of his travels. The first 6 miles follows the river closely from the powerhouse downstream. River levels range from almost dry to a raging torrent when electricity is being generated, creating a playground for kayakers. When the powerhouse is not generating, the trout fishermen are wading out into the riverbed going after that big one. Above the powerhouse, the old riverbed is nearly dry most of the time, only being fed by the creeks entering the river below the Appalachia Dam. Major creek crossings are Towee Creek, Loos Creek and Coker Creek. A side trail up Coker Creek leads to the spectacular Coker Creek Falls. Several good campsites are along the route of the JMT. This trail is also part of the Benton MacKaye Trail, a 300 mile long distance trail from Springer Mountain, GA to the north end of the Smokies. On the south bank of the Hiwassee River runs the old L&N Railroad which used to be the main route from east Tennessee to Atlanta. The track now carries tourists up the gorge from near Etowah, TN, to Blue Ridge, GA. The train ride goes through the corkscrew double loop to get riders up out of the gorge.

Ken Jones, Clayton Pannel and Rick Harris made a start at logging out and brushing out the new reroute today. They went in from the Towee Creek overflow parking, and began work right away. Ken and Clayton cleared all of the trees to Towee Creek, up the old road bed to the switchback, along the steep side hill to the top of the ridge, and then almost all of the next sidehill that ends in a gap before the trail makes the final sidehill climb to the high ridge line. There were a lot of dead pines down on this last sidehill segment. Ken burned three tanks of gas in his saw. Rick Harris worked behind us on brushing out the route. He started at the parking area, and worked to a spot about 100 yards beyond the Towee Creek crossing.

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	1	7	8
Clayton Pannell	1	7	8
Rick Harris	2	7.5	9.5
Totals	4	21.5	25.5

Wednesday, May 14, 2008: We continued working on the reroute today with a start on side hill tread Ken Jones giving his safety talk construction. We went in across Towee Creek and began our work at the switchback at the end of the old road. We had to install cribbing along several sections of the trail due to the steep side slope. Clayton got to chop out an 8” hemlock root that we just could not find a way around for the tread. For the day we completed about 160’ of new side hill tread and also completed the one and only switchback on the side slope.

This new segment should give us a good example to show new workers at National Trails Day. We also decided that our next work day should be cutting and installing cribbing for the National Trails Day event. The cribbing will make the steep side hill construction easier, and will ensure that the tread is built exactly where we want it.

Here are our volunteer hours for the work trip:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	2	6.5	8.5
Clayton Pannell	2	6.5	8.5
Totals	4	13	17

Wednesday, May 21, 1008: We continued working on the reroute today, doing mostly what would be called National Trails Day (NTD) preparation work. We installed some additional cribbing in a number of places on the first steep side hill segment going in from Towee Creek. This will help ensure that the trail gets dug in where we want it on NTD. We have several additional places that still need cribbing. We have cut the cribbing, but it was too big for us to drag uphill to the spots. We left it in place for when we have some more manpower to drag it back up the hill. There was one new tree (10”) down across the flag line that came down since last Wednesday. We also cleared the flag line up to the ridge, along the top of the ridge, and maybe 100 yards of the second side hill segment. We cleared the path so that anyone working on NTD will be able to find the correct place for the trail and see the flags without our assistance.

Here is our volunteer time for the trip:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	1.5	7	8.5
Rick Harris	2.5	7	9.5
Totals	4	14	18

Wednesday, May 28, 1008: We continued work today on logging out and brushing out the reroute. Clayton started brushing out with the weed eater at the top of the first ridge line on the flat area. I picked up Ryan, Ron and Esther taking a break and eating lunch with the chainsaw where I had left off on the second side slope segment. It started to rain about 11 am, and by lunch time we were wet. We decided to call it a day after lunch since it was no longer safe to run the power tools on the steep side slope. I believe that we each completed about ¼ mile of additional work. Next Wednesday we plan to install some more cribbing on the first side slope segment and possibly do some more digging.

Here is our time for the day:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	1	4	5
Clayton Pannell	1	4	5
Totals	2	8	10

Wednesday, May 28, 1008: We spent today doing more preparation for National Trails Day. We went in across Towee Creek to the Off to work -- up the trail first steep side hill section just after the switchback off the old road bed. We spent the day cutting logs and stakes for cribbing, and then installing them in all of the places that they were needed. We did a little digging in the hard spots, grubbing out some stumps. We should be ready for the large digging crew to attack the slope this coming Saturday. It was very hot working today, so we need to keep a careful watch on the work crew for Saturday.

Here is our time for the day:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	1.5	6	7.5
Clayton Pannell	1.5	6	7.5
Rick Harris	2	6	8
Totals	5	18	23

Saturday, June 7, 2008: Come join us in celebrating National Trails Day with a work trip on the John Muir Trail / Benton Trails Day participants MacKaye Trail. We will be working on constructing a new trail segment that fixes several long standing problem areas on the existing trail. The work will consist of digging in the dirt with pulaskis and mattocks in an area close to Towee Creek and the Hiwassee River. This event is sponsored by the Ocoee / Hiwassee Ranger District of the Cherokee National Forest, Hiwassee Hiking Club, Cherokee Hiking Club, Chattanooga Hiking Club, and the Benton MacKaye Trail Association. Tools and safety gear will be provided, but remember to bring plenty of food and water. T-shirts will be awarded to the first 24 participants, and there will be other door prizes available to everyone who helps make this event a success. Meet at the intersection of US 411 and Hwy 30 in the vacant lot across from the store at 9 AM. For additional information, contact Ken Jones at 745-2451 or mkjones@comcast.net.

New side slope trail on the JMT Reroute We had a great National Trails Day event with 29 workers helping build a much needed reroute of the John Muir / Benton MacKaye Trail. We had participants from all four of the sponsoring clubs (Benton MacKaye Trail Association, Chattanooga Hiking Club, Cherokee Hiking Club, and Hiwassee Hiking Club) as well as 5 guests. We started the events of the day with sign-in, awarding T-shirts and door prizes, and a tailgate safety briefing. Worker safety was an especially important consideration since the temperatures hit the mid 90s for the day. With the large number of workers, we split into 3 crews that worked on different tasks and sections of the reroute. One crew worked on brushing out an old road bed, while there were two digging crews working on different side hill segments to constuct new tread.

The brush out crew finished cleaning out all of the old road bed (0.15 miles). The lower digging crew finished about 420’ of new tread construction, while the smaller in numbers upper digging crew completed 300’ of new tread for the day. The day was a wonderful success, with all of the workers performing great in some really difficult conditions. All of the workers completed the day safely, although a few workers suffered some stings when they tangled with some yellow jackets along the way.

Special thanks go out to all of the following workers that made the event so successful:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	1.5	5	6.5
Stephen Cartwright	1.5	5	6.5
Tom Waters	1	5	6
Al Rymer	1	2.5	3.5
Will Rymer	1	2.5	3.5
Jack Rymer	1	2.5	3.5
Rick Harris	2	5	7
Cady Pannell	1.5	5	6.5
Clayton Pannell	1	5	6
Bill Lundin	2	5	7
George Owen	3	5	8
Ryan Nunley	3	3.5	6.5
Ester Nunley	3	3.5	6.5
Ron Nunley	3	3.5	6.5
Steve Biatowas	1	5	6
Randy Morris	.5	5	5.5
Jane Bohannon	1.5	2	3.5
Rick Rutledge	1.5	5	6.5
Eric Rutledge	1.5	5	6.5
Ross Broadway	2	5	7
Elberta Broadway	2	5	7
Gary Smith	1	5	6
Ralph Van Pelt	1.5	5	6.5
Eric Anderson	1.5	5	6.5
Kathy Ryan	1.5	5	6.5
Betty Petty	1.5	5	6.5
Brenda Harris	2	5	7
Donald Box	1.5	5	6.5
Steve Barnes	1	5	6
Totals	47	130	177

Saturday, June 7, 2008: We continued our work on tread construction today, picking up where we left off Side Slope trail at the end of National Trails Day. We completed the tie in of the first side hill segment to the ridge line. Then we moved up to the second side hill section and continued building trail. We completed another 225’ of new tread construction for the day. I sawed one 10” pine off the route with my one man crosscut saw. This tree was somewhat in the way, and had come down in the last 3 weeks.

Here are our volunteer hours for the day:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	1	6	7
Clayton Pannell	1	6	7
Gary Smith	1.5	6	7.5
Totals	3.5	18	21.5

Saturday June 14, 2008: Three workers came to do side-hilling work on the reroute of the John Muir from Towee Creek, to Rock Island Branch. We installed some cribbing, and dug about 266 feet of new trail, and we are near completing the trail into a small ravine. A thunder storm came up in the early afternoon and we headed to the parking lot. On the way to the parking lot the trail was slick in some places, with all the rain water on the trail. We arrived in the parking lot at 1:45 Pm and no one had a dry stitch of clothing on them.

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Clayton Pannell	1	5	6
Gary Smith	1,5	5	6.5
Eric Eades	3	3	8
Totals	5.5