National Trails Day 2014 Lula Lake Hike #2

     After our first trip to the Lula Lake Land Trust area, Jackie and I have been wanting to go back and explore some more.  For this year's National Trail Day, we decided to go back.  The Land Trust's popularity has grown since we were last there in 2011.  I was happy to see all of the people on the property.  The Trust must be doing something right.  We got to park close to the trailhead for the main trail, but we were not interest in starting with that trail.  There was a young man sitting by a table who gave us a map of the trails, which was nice since we did not have one three years ago.  We thanked him and walked down the driveway towards the falls.  At the table there was also a small box for donations and stickers for sale.

The creek crossing on Ford Trail

    Just before we got to the exit on the main road, we came to a little trail off to the right called Ford Trail.  It led strait into a creek.  I asked Jackie if she felt like exploring a little and she said she was.  I bent down to pick Mia up before we started into the creek and found a tick on her.  I plucked it off, sent it to its maker, and thought about how it was now summer.  Mia would wind up with two more ticks and I would find one on me.  Jackie seems to have repelled them this trip.  The crossing was not deep and the water wasn't that cold.  If we had hiked further than we had up to that point, it would have felt refreshing.

The North Creek Trail 

     
     After crossing the creek, we joined North Creek Trail, old Trail A.  I hoped it was North Creek Trail at least, there was not a sign.  Without a map I would have still turned left since that was the direction of the falls but I would have been a little more unsure than I was.  The North Creek Trail is just a half mile (.5) long, but with all the ups and downs it felt a lot longer.  The trail follows Rock Creek as it makes its way to the Connector Trail.  This is a nice trail for solitude.  Even though there were a lot of people on the property, we did not see a single person while we were on this trail.  I enjoyed the forest walk with the sound of the creek in the background.  The fisherman in me kept looking in the creek whenever it came into view for the chance swirl of a trout tail or the shadow of a perch, but I did not see anything but minnows swimming in the water.
     The Connector Trail runs up the mountain from the Handicapped parking/Port-A-Potty Bathroom area just beyond the bridge over Rock Creek to the Middle Trail.  We turned left to go down this trail to reach the old railroad grade that would take us to the waterfalls.  This part of the Connector Trail is pretty steep and rocky, but when you are going only a tenth of a mile it isn't bad.
     The falls going into the lake looked very nice this day.  Our still rainy spring gave the falls plenty of water.  There were a lot of people gathered around the lake.  It is a nice place with picnic tables and a couple of the box charcoal grills.  There is a cut where the railroad used to run that you pass through before the picnic tables that I always find interesting.  I love to think about the railroad booms that swept our nation and how men and steam conquered mountains and rivers to expand our national horizons.  I know that I have a slightly rose colored glasses look at this, but Lookout Mountain rises practically strait up from the Tennessee River and I am just awed by the nerves of the engineers who used to drive those old steam trains up the sides of the mountains.  End rabbit trail/rant.  After snapping a few pictures of the lake area, we continued down the trail/grade to Lula Falls.

The trail to the base of the falls.

     On our previous trip, we did not go down to the bottom of Lula Falls.  We felt like exploring more of the area than a hike down into the bottom of the gorge.  This time though we wanted to see the bottom.  I had hopes of possibly recreating a picture I saw on Lula Lake's Facebook site that was taken during the Civil War once I got to the bottom.  The trail to the base of the falls was very steep, washed out, and crumbling.  The picture to the right is just at the start of the trail.  It is quite possibly the best part of the trail down.  Once past the tree in upper center, the trail becomes crumbling sandstone and gullies.  We had to hold onto tree limbs and roots to keep from sliding or falling the entire way to the bottom.  Once we did make it to the bottom though, we were rewarded with great views of the falls.  There were people down swimming and splashing around, but they were careful to not wet others.  It was nice.  I was surprised to see several women in bikinis at the bottom, they are not what I would consider hiking wear but to each their own.  I will admit that they put shorts and shirts on before they climbed back to the top.  Due to downed trees and new plant growth, I was not able to recreate the picture I saw, but in comparing the two I was happy to see that in 150+ years the waterfall had not changed much.  The area below the falls is pretty open and there was plenty of room for lots of people to spread out and do their own thing.  Jackie and I took a spot just to the right of the frame of my picture by a couple who were sunbathing.  We sat for a little while and enjoyed the view and people watching.

The picture from 1860's I wanted to recreate

The picture that I took.

     After we had taken a break, we began the hike out.  It was a pretty tough climb back up to the top of the gorge.  The real hardest part was when we bumped into a guy with a pit bull and the dog wanted to say hi.  I was down hill and the dog was up, so it kept trying to help me get back to the bottom in a quick fashion if you know what I mean.  It really was a sweet dog and the owner apologized for it jumping on me.  I told him no worries, Mia didn't even get excited by the dog, and we went on our way.
     Jackie and I started to go up the Bluff Trail, but it was a little overgrown for my taste and Jackie was a little tick shy so we went back to the car.  To be honest, lunch was calling our name pretty loudly and I didn't want to ignore it much longer.  There was a guy who was struggling after climbing up from the waterfall in front of us.  An older woman from Alabama told us that the guy was on the verge of over heating and she was slightly concerned for the boy.  She was with a group who was there visiting and she said that they had given him some water.  We kept an eye on him until we were able to catch up.  I tried to talk to him a bit as we walked, but he was fairly quiet.  He met up with his group and we went on.
     This trip to Lula Lake wasn't as extensive as our trip three years ago, but I still enjoyed it.  Any time we are able to go there, I find something new that I had not seen before.  The Trust tries to keep the area low impact and it shows.  The trails are similar to hiking in some of the National Forest Wilderness Areas, but are a little better maintained.  If you have the chance one first weekend of the month, I would suggest a visit.  The trail they were making to connect Lula Lake with Cloudland Canyon is now complete so that opens up even more hiking opportunities!  This is the link for the Land Trust http://lulalake.org/