Caney River Trail in Scott's Gulf Part I

June 8, 2012.  The sun had set and we were standing at the top of the bluff with no obvious path down to the river and our campsite. We (JPD, PR, WvH and SSD) had left from what we hoped was the trailhead at 6:45 pm, figuring that we could easily cover the approximately 2 miles to our campsite in the 2 hrs before total darkness set in.  We knew that this end of the trail system was poorly marked and infrequently used, but we had figured with a GPS we should be able to make our way reasonably well. Now the sun had gone below the horizon and the afterglow was the only light to guide us.  Only half an hour into our journey, whatever trail we had been following had petered out into an open meadow which we could find no obvious trail leading from.   

Crossing through the forest, we had eventually struck a gravel road that based on the GPS seemed to be leading in the right general direction. Over the next hour, we had found several potential trails crossing this road, but each time had found that these trails quickly died out within a few hundred yards of the road. So we had given up on trying each of the many openings into the forest. Unfortunately for us, we had just discovered that the gravel road was the one marked as a dead end on our map.  Still based on our GPS we were only about half a mile from the river, which based on our map, we could follow to our campsite, so we remained optimistic. 

Turning on our headlamps, we found a faint trail leading beyond the chained off end of the gravel road, and figured this was our best hope. Then in the narrow glow of my headlamp, we realized that the open space we were walking towards was the edge of the cliff.  The view was spectacular, as we could see across the valley to where the last rim of red fiery light beautifully outlined the hills in the distance and could see 500 feet below us the dark ribbon that clearly must be the river we needed to reach. We could even see where they black shadow split to surely form the island that was near where our campsite was.  The only problem was that in the quickly fading light, we could see no way down the bluff to the river from where we were, and our map clearly indicated we were at a dead end with no connection to the actual trail.  From our bluff overlook, we could see a ridge well off to our left that clearly sloped down in the general direction of the island, but how to get there we did not know.

With no other real options, we started back up the gravel road, deciding that we would have to go back and try each the little trails again, hoping to find one that would lead us to the sloping ridge.  After a five minute hike, we found the first one and there our headlamps caught the first real sign in two hours that we were on a trail that lead to our campground, Amber’s Den.  The sign was high up in the trees, which is probably why we had missed it in the fading light originally.  Heartened by this finding, we hurried on.  The trail was split in several places, with no signs or other indication of the direction we should go, so we chose based on the GPS and on which trail seemed to be headed downhill.  Eventually, the trail became a sunken road, making it easier to follow in the darkness as it steadily dropped downhill.  The overgrowth of plants and tree branches on this sunken road made it obvious that no one had passed over the trail for a long time.  In one particular section, at the end of a steep descent, an enormous spider web spanned the trail.  PR and JPD tried to trick WVH into walking through, but he spotted the web and found a way through it.

After about two hours of hiking in the dark, the trail began to be very flat and we could hear the sound of bullfrogs.  We still could not see the river, but Jonathan spied a campfire ring in a elevated flat patch three or four feet above the trail and to the right of us. Although a single campfire ring seemed unlikely to be the actual Amber’s Den campground, it seemed a reasonable spot if we could just find the river nearby.  At that moment, PR said, “I think I know where the river is and picked up a rock and threw it into the dark space about 20 feet beyond the campfire ring.  Sure enough, we heard a kerplunk as it landed in the water.  We climbed to the flat area and investigated.  The drop to the water line from the campsite was too steep to comfortably try to filter water, so we decided to investigate the nearby area.  We dropped our packs and WVH led the way through some brush and such and we found a place a little further up the trail where the slope was much more gentle down to the water.    Deciding that even if this wasn’t Amber’s Den campground, it was a good enough spot for us, we set up camp.  There were some glass whiskey bottles and a bizaree looking collection of stalks placed next to a flat rock near the fire ring.  At some point, JPD realized they stalks and rock were an improvised chair back.  

Happy to finally reached our destination we settled in for the night. PR and WVH ate their squished sub sandwiches and regaled us with stories of the Tim Tebow loving women at the local store who had made them for them.  PR had lashed his sandwich to the top of his pack and we had joked the whole time about it having fallen off or one of us having eaten it.  JPD and I had had the foresight (thanks to a loving wife and mom) to have a delicious dinner to eat on the drive down, so we just topped off on some snacks. After about an hour of discussion on guns, soda bans in school, and other political topics, and watching giant beetles come to our head light, we settled down for the night.  JPD and I had only brought our sleeping bag liners, since after all, it was June in Tennessee, but by the middle of the night we were pretty cold.  I put on my rain coat and such and felt tolerably warm after that, but JPD was apparently cold all night.