Very good pictures Sam. I was wondering if you got to go. Did you get my email before you left?
Looks like the Bill Tidwell Beech is in very bad shape. I'm sure the carving is all but gone now.
Yeah, it was a great trip and I got your email. Most of the bark was completely gone and I couldn't spot any evidence of the carving at all. I never found the hermit's shelter and never made it to the Hubbard/Parker junction, though I was close, I think. I spotted a devil/demon's head carved on a beech tree (recent?) on the left hand side past some small falls and decided to scope it out (I was rock hopping to get away from the @#$%@#$!% seed ticks that plagued me). I ended up slipping, smacking my camera bag with my knee and it sent the camera flying out and into the water. It wedged in so that the memory card area was sticking out and the photos were saved. The camera starting back working later that night, thankfully. I was upset about the camera and ended up turning back there.
What route did you take to get there. I have not been up Parker Branch but want to see the next time i am up.
I was wondering cause i would like to drop in the drainage right at Randolph TH and then work my way down. Didnt know if this was a viable route.
The route Pully offers I've done once before, and it's definitely more scenic in the fall, and you'll find a shelter with a rock cairn along the way. However, if you want it short and sweet, parking in the small area on the right side where the pavement ends on kinlock rd and hiking in will get you to the falls in a hurry. It's a very visible beaten path, but people are using this to make a complete mess of the falls/shelter you come in on top of. Watch your step on the right side of the intermittent stream coming in, I came across a yellow jacket nest there not terribly far past the large fallen tree.
The mortar stone is just upstream from parker falls in a shelter at the junction of parker branch and the stream that goes by the dam. The 1881 tree is on the backside of a huge beech on the left side of parker heading toward the shelter. You can't miss it, though it's faint. The metal hook is in a tree close to the outer edge of the shelter. The navigational marks are on a tree literally right where that side stream hits Parker.
There's not a lot of dead fall to use for a campfire around here. I ended up pulling branches off the dead trees hanging in the creek to make something to dry my socks (covered in seed ticks, I washed them in the creek as best I could). I will note that this is one of the only areas in Sipsey I've had radio signal, and managed to dispense my late night loneliness listening to some college football. I was also a little freaked out, kept getting the feeling something was watching me or was close by. The next morning I found deer tracks about 100ft downstream of my tent. Coming back up parker after dropping the camera, I found what I think were coyote or fox prints near parker cascades, another place I had a weird gut feeling as I was passing it initially.
That fire pit is under the side falls you pass coming in from Kinlock Rd. An adjacent shelter had an orange line or two spray painted in the dirt as well. It had been heavily dug up, 2-3ft deep.
I love that frog pic! I wouldn't mind having his camo abilities.
