{"id":44,"date":"2007-07-29T16:58:40","date_gmt":"2007-07-29T21:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/?p=44"},"modified":"2007-07-30T17:15:01","modified_gmt":"2007-07-30T22:15:01","slug":"dry-creek-phillips-hollow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/?p=44","title":{"rendered":"Dry Creek \/ Phillips Hollow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This hike follows the less popular trail from the Margarette Falls trail head near Bethany, Tennessee in Cherokee NF.\u00a0<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/swallowtails.jpg\" title=\"Swallowtails\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/swallowtails.jpg\" alt=\"Swallowtails\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The half mile gravel road that leads in from the parking lot to the trailheads has a high salt content in places and attracts butterflies.\u00a0\u00a0 These are pipevine swallowtails.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/phillips_hollow.jpg\" title=\"Phillips Hollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/phillips_hollow.jpg\" alt=\"Phillips Hollow\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Phillips Hollow trail is dark blue blazed and leads across dry creek and up along the north bank.\u00a0 Ultimately, this trail leads all the way up to the A.T. at the top of the ridge which is a very strenuous hike.\u00a0\u00a0 In the lower portions, to say that there are a few waterfalls might be an understatement.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/trail_crossing.jpg\" title=\"trail crossing\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/trail_crossing.jpg\" alt=\"trail crossing\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>At the first major stream crossing, a light blue blazed trail leads south across the stream and then winds up the valley with Dry Creek.\u00a0\u00a0 This would be the same Dry Creek (still poorly named) that Margarette Falls in on, although a different branch.\u00a0 This trail is not listed on our map of Cherokee National Forest and the Cherokee NF website is more or less useless when it comes to trail identification.\u00a0 Instead your best bet are some rocks at the trail junction which have been painted with names and arrows.\u00a0 The trail up Dry Creek is identified on the rocks as Shoot Creek for reasons we can&#8217;t possibly explain.\u00a0\u00a0 Either way the further you go up this trail, the more impressive the waterfalls get and the more difficult the path becomes.\u00a0\u00a0 About 0.3 miles in, the trail crosses Dry Creek between ledge falls.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/dry_creek.jpg\" title=\"Dry Creek\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/dry_creek.jpg\" alt=\"Dry Creek\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There are plenty of good swimming holes along the way.\u00a0 In fact, in several places it&#8217;s a lot easier to walk up the stream than it is to follow the trail over and around rhododendrons.\u00a0\u00a0 Somewhere along the way is Spruce Thicket Falls, which seems to be the only named falls.\u00a0 We&#8217;re not sure which one it is but there is a 35 foot series of cascades about .6 miles in.\u00a0\u00a0 Above this, it becomes really difficult to travel further upstream.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/shroom.jpg\" title=\"Mushroom\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/shroom.jpg\" alt=\"Mushroom\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Melanie became fascinated with the wide range of mushrooms along the way and might eventually put up a gallery of images on the site.\u00a0 In the meantime, we&#8217;re mostly certain (after some time with the mushroom field guide) that this is a Yellow Patches.\u00a0 If it isn&#8217;t, some mycologist out there can correct us.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This hike follows the less popular trail from the Margarette Falls trail head near Bethany, Tennessee in Cherokee NF.\u00a0 The half mile gravel road that leads in from the parking lot to the trailheads has a high salt content in places and attracts butterflies.\u00a0\u00a0 These are pipevine swallowtails. The Phillips Hollow trail is dark blue &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/?p=44\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Dry Creek \/ Phillips Hollow<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cherokee-nf","category-hiking","category-waterfalls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrfs.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}