18 Days in a Big Frog Rainstorm

[Tipi Walter]

I figure I might as well post this trip in the BMT forum as I was on the BMT for most of the trip.

TRIP 141 January 2--19 2013


The BMT passes thru Thunder Rock (Thunder Truck) campground and it's where I'm dropped off so I don't have a car sitting around for 18 days.



There are 3 different local trail names when leaving Thunder Rock---305, 330(poplar hollow) and West Fork 303. There are confusing but just follow the white blazes and no problemo.



Before reaching the Big Frog Wilderness the trail passes this mysterious gravesite which Sgt Rock has often wondered about. Is it for a human? A dog? A bicyclist?



I spend my first night 4.4 miles in on the West Fork of Rough Creek. The BMT here is inside the wilderness. This creek must be crossed 3 times and it's usually no problem but sometimes it's impossible, like the Slickrock crossing many miles north.



This is what Rough Creek can do in high water---wash away a steel culvert in concrete moorings. Not good. In hard rains a detour is possible if you turn right at the FS road 221 crossing and jct with the Big Frog trail up to Frog Mt, etc.



19F Morning---I'm up and ready to leave my Fork Ridge spring camp and climb to the next spring which Sgt Rock mentions in his BMT trail guide. I get to the gap and go for water and when I come back I meet legendary backpacker Christine Thuermer---the German Tourist.

I got an email before the trip from Bert Wildcat Emmerson who told me she is backpacking the AT and the BMT and wanted to get in touch with me and so I planned my trip to be on the BMT in Big Frog about the same time she was to hike thru and as luck would have it she passed by on the Fork Ridge trail.

She's done the triple crown, kayaked the Mississippi, paddled the Everglades and the Yukon River, backpacked the Bibbulmun Track and Florida Trail and Arizona Trail, cycled thru Australia and New Zealand and Japan, etc. Check her out at http://www.christine-on-big-trip.blogspot.com/



The BMT left Rough Creek a while back and here's where it jcts with the Big Frog trail at the end of the Fork Ridge trail. A good place to rest cuz the climb up from Thunder Rock is around 2,500 feet.



I make it to Big Frog Mt and go to the spring which is the highest I've ever seen it. Gotta load up on water here, boys, if you want to camp.



I stay atop the Frog and by morning it's cold enough for some ice. Not much but ya take what you can get.



I get off the Frog and the BMT for several days and head down the Wolf Ridge trail which is probably the toughest trail in the Big Frog and find this old trailsign on the ground in Nut Jct (Chestnut Mt jct with Wolf).



I make it to the end of Wolf Ridge trail at Pace Gap and pull this 2 mile roadwalk to the Big Creek/Yellow Stand Lead trailheads to loop back into the Frog.



I take the Yellow Stand Lead trail to Low Gap and spend the night and in the morning get geared up for a hike on the Grassy Gap trail back to Wolf Ridge. It's a good loop to return me to the top of Frog Mt and the BMT. Here I am in my Icebreaker merino tops and bottoms with the turtle fur tuque.



Grassy Gap wipes me out for some reason, probably because I ended up carrying too much water way before I needed and ended up at Nut Jct where I crapped out for the night.



On Day 8 I climb back up to the Frog and get caught in a nonstop rainstorm so I sit put for 4 nights here and the rain never stops except for a few hours on Saturday.

[SGT Rock]

Great pictures. Did you see any bad trail erosion up in that area?

[Tipi Walter]

INSIDE THE RAINSTORM


Thinking of you and wishing you were here.



I get a short lull in the rain on Saturday so I do the logical thing and string out my bear line to hang out the gear---mostly down items. It's winter, remember?



After 5 days on the Frog I finally get a little break in the rain and leave the mountain on the Big Frog trail down to Low Gap where I take a break. A pack cover is your friend.



I make it down to Frog Pond where I set up camp and get walloped with another 3 days of rain. The pond floods. The pond is off the Big Frog trail at the Rough Creek jct.



The little pond after several more days of rain. I have to pull 2 more zero days in this crap.



There's nothing to do but cook and eat.



I finally leave Frog Pond Camp in a brief lull of rain and return to the top of Frog Mt cuz I here it's supposed to snow. The climb up the trail passes thru a couple neato rhodo tunnels.



I make it to the top of Big Frog again but this time set up on the very top where an old firetower used to be. It rains all day and all night and all of the next day. I set a new record---180 hours straight of rain.



Sick of zero days, I decide to leave Frog Mt and return to Low Gap where I get hit with a cold snap and some sleet and snow. It's about time.



I leave Low Gap and take the Big Frog trail all the way out to FS 221 which I hike for one mile to the BMT crossing and the West Fork trail.



Once again for the last night of my trip I set up by Rough Creek in West Fork Camp.



Wouldn't you know it but on Day 17 I finally see some backpackers after 15 days and they are BMT thruhikers Jonathan Lemberg and Regina Reiter. This is Regina's 4th BMT thruhike. We talk for 20 minutes and then they're off.



On Day 18 I pull the 4.4 mile hike out and head into Thunder Rock where the trail as above parallels the mighty Ocoee River (and the Interstate 64 truck traffic noise).



I run into several dayhikers from the Chattanooga Hiking Club preparing to do the Little Frog wilderness.



And so my trip ends by the high water of the mighty Ocoee. This is the last ford of the trip, boys, and it must be done to go north on the BMT. Ha HA HA just kidding.

[Tipi Walter]

Great pictures. Did you see any bad trail erosion up in that area?

I didn't see a single problem although I was only on the Thunder Rock to Big Frog Mt section.

[jbwood5]

Great pictures as always! I met the German Lady (Christine) on the Florida Trail in the middle of a swamp in the Apalachicola National Forest when she was through hiking the FT in 2010. I was going S bound on a day trip and she was heading N (actually W since this is the panhandle). We were going through a good foot of water over the puncheons. She mentioned that she had passed through water waist deep in the direction I was heading. I later bailed because the water kept getting deeper and deeper and I could no longer see the boards. 2010 was a wet year. She is one tough lady!

Just John
Seminole, FL

[SGT Rock]

I didn't see a single problem although I was only on the Thunder Rock to Big Frog Mt section.

I got a report that there was some trail erosion about a mile north of Big Frog on the BMT. I knew Regina was out there again, I didn't know you would run into her again as well.

[Tipi Walter]

Great pictures as always! I met the German Lady (Christine) on the Florida Trail in the middle of a swamp in the Apalachicola National Forest when she was through hiking the FT in 2010. I was going S bound on a day trip and she was heading N (actually W since this is the panhandle). We were going through a good foot of water over the puncheons. She mentioned that she had passed through water waist deep in the direction I was heading. I later bailed because the water kept getting deeper and deeper and I could no longer see the boards. 2010 was a wet year. She is one tough lady!

Just John
Seminole, FL

She's pretty much everywhere. All of us are bound to run into her at one point or another.

[atmilkman]

Really good stuff. Really good. You post the best trail reports. Pics are always great.

[rocketsocks]

Walter, always look forward to your trip reports and commentary. Were the Roadies in rut? hehehe

[rickb]

So where did you result along the way?

0n a more serious note, that is the a great way to present a trip report. I really enjoyed it!

[rickb]

So where did you result along the way?

0n a more serious note, that is the a great way to present a trip report. I really enjoyed it!

I meant to ask (with a wink and a smile, of course) where did you resupply along the way. My spell check got the better of me just now.

[jeffmeh]

Much appreciated Walter. Thanks.

[HikerMom58]

Great pics Tipi!! :>)

[Tipi Walter]

I meant to ask (with a wink and a smile, of course) where did you resupply along the way. My spell check got the better of me just now.

My pack hauls all trip food without resupply so of course the load in the beginning is heavy.

[Grits]

Thanks for taking us along Tipi great pics wish you had some more snow and less rain.

[Tipi Walter]

Thanks for taking us along Tipi great pics wish you had some more snow and less rain.

I never got much above 4,000 feet the whole trip so there's wasn't much of the white stuff.

[Dogwood]

Uhh, gotta tell you Tipi, I think you might have a hole or leak in your down sleeping bag. You are losing down all over the place. A big bunch of it is stuck on your chin in all those pictures.

Great pics. The Hilldeberg looks bomber with your pitch.

[Mountain Mike]

I always enjoy your trip reports Tipi!

[Dogwood]

Four straight days of rain. Stuck in the tent. No wonder why the call it Big Frog and people imagine bears everywhere.

[Sarcasm the elf]

Great report Tipi, thanks for posting!