Huckleberry Knob / Falls Branch Trail
Driving the Cherohala Skyway | Hiking Huckleberry Knob Trail | Falls Branch Trail | January 2023
On our second day in Tellico Plains, the sun was out and we were ready to go play in the snow! We prepared ourselves for some snowy hikes, then began our drive up the Cherohala Skyway. This road starts as TN-165 in Tellico Plains, then turns into NC-143 after crossing the border, and it goes up into the mountains and follows a ridge for 43 miles before going down the other side into Robbinsville, NC. The Tennessee side was completely clear of snow, but once we crossed into North Carolina the roads became covered in snow and slush, making us very thankful we had taken a Southern route through Georgia rather than drive over this pass a few days prior while the snowstorm was happening. Most forest roads leading off the highway were still completely covered in snow, but thankfully both of our trailheads were right off the highway.
Today we were starting with a peak hike up Huckleberry Knob, a bald peak with 600 Meters of prominence and only a mile of hiking to reach the peak. We debated using snowshoes, but ultimately decided that since others had done the work of stomping down the snow, they weren’t necessary as long as we stayed on the trail — though we still carried them up, in case we ran into drifts at the top.
It turned out to be the perfect day to summit a peak. Sunny, not too cold or windy, the trail was obvious but not too packed down to make it slick. The snow still held on to the North-facing pines, lining every branch. And best of all, the skies were perfectly clear giving us fantastic views from the top in all directions. We enjoyed seeing Great Smoky Mountains National Park to the Northeast (the most we would see of the park this trip, since Charlotte can’t hike most of the trails there). Overall, it was just a great hike that put Curtis one closer to his goal, and we were so happy to be here!
After returning to the car, we had one more hike on the agenda. We crossed back into Tennessee and parked at the trailhead for Falls Branch Trail. We knew that if we wanted to see a frozen waterfall, this might be our only chance given how only the higher elevations got snow, and the temperatures would be rising over the rest of the week. This trail was two miles long, and from the trailhead down to the falls is over 500 feet of elevation difference, and most of that is in the last quarter mile. We eventually reached the point in the trail where it descended steeply into the final ravine. Charlotte lead Curtis down rather quickly, while I took my time on all the roots, rocks, snow, and ice.
Near the bottom of the ravine though, we reached a severely eroded section that simply I wasn’t comfortable with because of all the snow. But I could see the waterfall in the distance, so I was satisfied with ending here. Curtis and Charlotte went on ahead, but soon reached the stream which was impassable for Charlotte. Curtis let her believe that this was the end of the trail, then lead her back to the start of the ravine – which she scaled quickly without a second thought, better than I ever could have – and Curtis continued back to cross the stream to the base of the waterfall. And we were right, the waterfall was quite frozen. Or rather the spray from the falls was frozen to all the plants and rocks at the base. Curtis got some great pictures from this perspective to share with me. By this point, Charlotte figured out that he had gone further than her and she wasn’t happy about it, but once he returned she happily led the way back up to the trailhead. When we returned to our car, we saw three snowplows passing by, finally clearing the rest of the skyway in NC. We enjoyed the scenic drive back down to Tellico Plains, though the road was much busier than we expected.
This ended up being the most snow we saw throughout our weeks in the South. We wouldn’t have minded more — especially if it was anything like today, it was really just the colder temps in the Midwest that we were avoiding. We knew that if all we wanted was sun and warmth, we could have just stayed on the coast. But what we really wanted was variety — cold days and warm days, sunny and rainy, snowy and windy, to experience the highs and lows of winter in an area with diverse scenery. And that’s why we chose the Appalachians!
