Trip report 11/13-14

This past weekend I had Friday off, so I decided to go out to Sipsey for a quick overnight trip with my dog Zoey. We got to the Thomson Trailhead at about 11AM on Friday and were only the second car there, aside from a couple of horse trailers. This was to be my first time in the western part of Sipsey, so I wanted to stick to a pretty basic route. I decided to follow a similar path that was discussed a couple weeks ago by JC785, so I got a copy of his GPS tracks and decided to try that out. We were going to go in from Thomson, follow Whiteoak Hollow out to trail 208, then 224 down to 204 and camp in the Bee Branch canyon area. From here I decided to deviate a bit from the planned route. I had already hiked the unofficial East Bee Branch trail before, so I decided to backtrack a bit on Saturday morning and take the official 204 trail south to 209, just to see what it is like. From there it was just a simple westward trip down 209 to 206 and back to the car.

We had no problem finding the right way down the west bank of Whiteoak. We came across a blue and yellow fly that I remembered from a previous thread as belonging to someone here. We picked that up and went on our way. At one point I spotted a trail on the other side of the creek that I suspected was a shortcut trail over to the Big Tree, so we went over there to explore a bit. We followed that for about a mile before I couldn't see a trail anymore and turned back. I'd like to see somebody's GPS track of this if it truly does go all the way to the Big Tree canyon. We continued up Whiteoak sometimes on a faint trail, other times just following the creek. Once we got to the point that the creek was just water bubbling out of the ground we head a few hundred yards northeast until we picked up 208. The stretch of trail including 208 and 224 was really pretty boring with lots of mud and not much to see. I was glad to turn off of the horse trails and get onto 204. We got down into Bee Branch canyon at about 2:30 and enjoyed having the whole place to ourselves for a bit. I took a few pictures and enjoyed the beautiful day. A couple of people arrived at that point and I decided to let them enjoy the place to themselves. I clambered back out of the canyon to set up camp. I found a nice little spot about 50 yards upstream of the falls right next to a small cascade to give me just enough white noise for a good night of sleep. At least it would have been a good night of sleep had it not been for a leaky sleeping pad that was putting me on the ground every hour. This was only Zoey's 4th night out camping. Previously she has always slept in a crate in the vestibule, but I wanted to try letting her in the tent with me so I wouldn't have to carry her 2 lb. collapsible crate. I was a little worried that she would be moving around all night barking and licking my face, but it turned out just fine. I guess staying awake and hiking all day made for one tired little pup and she just passed out right on her blanket.

The next morning we got up with the sun and fixed breakfast while trying to keep warm. I loaded everything into the packs and we headed out. We went back down into the canyon again to see what things look like in the morning light. It's a totally different place with the sun at the opposite end of the sky. I just wish my camera lens wasn't fogged over. I guess I should try not to breathe on it when it's cold. After some time enjoying things we headed back out of the canyon again to backtrack out to 204 proper and then down the ridge. I wasn't really impressed with this trail at first, but once we started descending down into the valley, I really started to like this trail. There were some challenging parts and beautiful views that kept things interesting. We got down to 209 pretty easily and headed west from there. The USGS gage height reading for Sipsey Fork was about 5 feet for Saturday and Bee Branch was only a little higher than ankle deep, a far cry from the waist high water that I saw the last time I was out there in October. I changed into my Crocs to cross Bee Branch and met a nice group of day hikers as I was changing back on the other side. They were headed to the Big Tree and I told them what their options were. They decided to take the shorter, but more difficult unofficial route up the branch. I passed a lot more people than I saw on Friday. Tons. There were 3 big scout troops and dozens of other folks all headed the other direction from me. I guess everybody else wanted to take advantage of the beautiful weather also. There was some pretty serious downfall to traverse on 209 that took some creative navigation on Zoey's part to pick through. A 65 pound boxer is a bit much for me to carry over the big stuff, so I let her off leash to pick her own way through the tangle of branches and logs. We met up on the other side of the mess and continued down the trail toward 206, stopping to see the Eye of the Needle where one of the scout troops was taking a break. We kept following 206, passing lots of other hikers until we arrived back at the trailhead by 2PM.

I was amazed how many cars had filled the trailhead when we got back. I counted 55 vehicles as we drove out stretching further than you can see from the bridge. I drove home with Zoey snoozing in the back seat and making it back into Huntsville before my wife was off work. We had a great time and can't wait to get back. If you were startled by a white boxer with a green pack on Saturday, I'm sorry. I promise she wasn't trying to eat you. She's just really anxious to show everybody she meets how cute she is.