2nd Annual End-of-School Backpacking Adventure

Last year, I took my son and a couple of his friends on a short overnight backpacking trip to celebrate the end of the school year. To read about our trip last year, click here. He and his friends enjoyed it so much, they decided to make it a yearly tradition. This year, Aaron invited one more person along:

Our hiking party: From the left - Aaron, Nick, Josiah, and James

South Cumberland State Park is a large state park made up of several non-contiguous natural areas. Last year, we hiked the Westernmost section of the Savage Gulf area, near the Stone Door Ranger Station. This year, for a change of scenery, we decided to hike the Easternmost section of Savage Gulf.

The plan was to park the truck at the Savage Gulf Ranger Station and hike the Savage Day Loop trail to Savage Falls. From there, we would pick up the South Rim trail and hike to the Stagecoach Road Campground. After camping one night at the campground, we would hike back out (retracing our steps) the next morning.

Normally, I take my DSLR camera with me on our adventures. This time out, I made a big amateur-level mistake: I packed all my camera gear, but left the camera battery in the charger at home. Thankfully, I discovered this at the ranger station before we set off on the hike; and left my useless gear in the truck instead of bringing that extra weight along. Because of my absent-minded lapse, all of the following pictures were taken on my iPhone.

After arriving at the Ranger Station and unloading the truck, we headed off on our adventure.

After about a mile along the Savage Day Loop trail, we came to a suspension bridge crossing Savage Creek. The bridge only allowed 2 people to cross at a time, so Aaron and James went first...

...Followed by Josiah and Nick.

Being the last in our party to cross, I stopped in the middle of the bridge and snapped a picture of Savage Creek. It's hard to believe this little creek carved the gorge that we were hiking along.

Mountain Laurel in bloom along the trail.

After about another half-mile, we came to Savage Falls. This is taken from the top of the falls, looking West into the gorge. The creek flows through a small cleft in the limestone to form the falls. There is a small splinter trail that leads to the base of the falls. At this point, we off-loaded our packs and descended a wooden staircase to enjoy the falls.

Savage Falls

We found some wildlife basking in the sun around the Savage Falls pool. It wasn't poisonous, but we gave it plenty of space anyway.

The boys enjoyed exploring the creek and climbing on the rocks.

After we got our fill of Savage Falls, we donned our packs once again and began heading to the top of the gorge via the South Rim trail.

Once we climbed to the top of the plateau, we found a scenic overlook to stop at for lunch. The South Rim trail has several overlooks along the 4+ miles between Savage Falls and the campground. However, none of them are directly on the trail. Overlooks are marked by short, blue-blazed splinter trails along the main path.

View from the overlook, looking West into the gorge.

Another view, looking North across the gorge. During lunch, we saw a few hikers on the rock outcropping hiking the North Rim trail.

After lunch, we hit the trail again and headed toward the Stagecoach Road campground. Being early in the hiking season, the trail was pretty overgrown in sections - either because this trail is less traveled than others, or because the maintenance crew hadn't been out to clear the trail of overgrowth yet. One thing was for sure: it was definitely the season for ticks - and the overgrown trail gave plenty of ticks the opportunity to find us. A few of the boys kept finding ticks and flicking them off throughout our trip.

One way to make a 45-year old man feel old, is to make him try to keep up with a group of athletic teenage boys. I thought I was moving at a pretty good pace, but the boys quickly left me in their dust.

I finally caught up to them when they stopped to take in the view from one of the last overlooks off the trail.

Looking Northeast across Savage Gulf.

Looking Northeast

While we had the opportunity, we went for the obligatory scenic group photo

 From the overlook, it was only a few more minutes of hiking to reach the campground. The Stagecoach Road Campground has 10 sites, some bigger than others. Site 2 is actually a group site and costs more to reserve. All other sites are $8 a night (plus a reservation fee). Not knowing how big our party was going to be, I reserved 2 sites (site 8 and 9). Site 8 was a little bigger than site 9, so we decided to setup camp there.

We quickly got to work setting up camp: pitching our tents and gathering wood. Within short time, we had a proper campsite.

The water source for the campground is a small spring located right at the beginning of the campground trail. This area was actually in a moderate drought, due to a unusually dry Spring. Because of that, most of the water was stagnant. We spent a few minutes looking up and down the spring and finally found a place where water was bubbling up from the ground. We made a small make-shift dam with some rocks and used that small pool as our water source.

After gathering enough water for our stay, we headed back to camp and cooked our dinner. After dinner, we built our fire and conducted our ceremonial burning of the Geometry workbooks. Before it got too dark, the boys went for a short exploratory walk around the campground. By 9:30, we were all tucked into our tents for the night.

The next morning, we all struck camp, had breakfast, filled up our water bottles, and headed back to the ranger station by 10 am. We made pretty quick time heading back, hiking all 6 miles without any stops. All the while, the boys were talking about fast food and trying to decide where we would stop for lunch. In case you were wondering - Taco Bell won the discussion.

All-in-all, the boys had a great time, and are already looking forward to next year's trip.