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Published: September 15th 2008
Little River Canyon
My brothers and I decided to drive up to Little River Canyon in Northeast Alabama, near Lookout Mountain, to go hiking and camping. We had looked at a few different places in that area of the state, but Anna suggested going there, b/c she had always thought it was pretty and knew I'd like it. We filled up our gas tanks the night before, fearing the gas scare on the day of our departure, which helped us get out of town quickly. Insead of driving up to Fort Payne and bypassing all the scenary, we took the Collinsville exit, and made our way up the Look Out Mountain Parkway and Little River Canyon scenic route (CR176). We were pretty shocked to see such an emense depth in the earth. I didn't think that Alabama had canyons like this, and our altitude on top was almost the same as it is in the Hoover area. We couldn't wait to jump out of the car as we stopped at Wolf Creek Overlook. The view was incredible from this point. You could see the winding river below as well as the red rock cliffs jetting out as if watching over
the canyon below. While there, a woman was photographing motorcycles bend with the curves in the road. You could hear their motors resonating throughout the canyon, as they drove off and returned at high speeds around the bend. Since the sun was already setting, and we were unaware of the distance to our camp site, or condition, we decided to stop only a 2 more times before we hurried to our location on the river. We made sure we stopped at Canyon View Overlook, which looks back down the canyon, as well as back toward Wold Creek Overlook.
Once we were through the scenic overlook drive, we passed the Little River Falls, which begins the canyon system, and turned onto CR-103, where we made an immediate exit to our narrow and rocky dirt path. I don't think the Camry had ever been such terrain, but I assured the guys that they test out all models on rough terrain before putting into production. At the bottom of the hill we pulled up to our campsite, which was a lot nicer than expected. The tent ground was portioned off by recycled crosstides, the fire pit had a grill that swiveled around,
and there was even a concrete table. Very comfortable conditions, considering we had planned on hiking in to a site. We were able to pull right up there. It was dark now, so we all headed our own ways to find available dry wood with our flashlights, even though it had rained a lot in the previous days. We made a pile and started a fire, but had to wait a while before all of the larger limbs were dry enough to catch flame. We set up our "2 man" tent, which slept "3 men" comfortably close later that night. After smores we gave up on the constant attention the fire sought, and began fooling around with our cameras flash exposures. We used the slow flash modes to produce photos portraiting ghostly figures and neon writings in the air. When we ran out of ideas, we retreated to the tent. I suppose we should have ran around more, b/c none of us slept that well. Around 4am a screech owl swooped down above us with a shrill call. Even in my disoriented consciousness I was quickly awoken, mind cataloging data to find the named source of such vociferous voice.
We pulled ourselves out of the tent at first sight of light, around 6am, in hopes of capturing a great sunrise. We were quicly dissapointed to see such cloud cover though. Since we didn't know if we would return later, we picked up our belongings and set out for the falls. Of course we were the first to arrive to the undisturbed location, so we enjoyed free roam. The river immediately drops 45 ft down this cliff, which is surrounded by sedimentary rocks. We enjoyed taking photos of the water and adjusting the aperture values of our cameras to change the compextion of the scene.
From there we went back down the senic route to the Little River Falls Overlook, which gave a great view right back up the river to the falls. We passed Mushroom Rock and Hawks Glide Overlook, which had no barrier at all. You stepped right up to the cliffs edge and looked straight down in to the depths of the canyon into the dense foliage. At every cliffs edge, we would see beautiful wildflowers decorating the ledges.
We stopped back by the Canyon View Overlook, as wel as the Wolf Creek Overlook, to
get a few pics in daylight. It was still a very cloudy day at this point, but the contrast in the clouds was decent.
At Eberhart Overlook we decided to hike the 3/4 mile trail down to the rivers edge. I was unaware of the altitude change between the two points at the time, but measured around 130 meters or 400 ft. After the first 50 yards we came to an overlook, which reminded us of Pride Rock in the Lion King (your right, it IS a GREAT movie). The rest of the trail was down a cleared trail which had great step cutting to reduce soil erosion. We dreaded having the hike back up the 70 degree, 3/4 mile hill.
At the bottom, we were met by fantasticly clear, calm stream. The rocks were all smoothed over, and created easy access as stepping stones down the river. I wanted to get a closer picture of the cliff wall above, so we made our way to the next set of larger, less forgiving rocks. You could see the bottom the whole time, and the water looked clean enough to drink. The sun had come out in force at
this point, so we would have liked to jump in the pools if it were not for the wet climb back up. We all did our share of involuntary bathing however. Two rafts were on the bank, but we couldn't figure out why. No one was around, and the water wasn't high enough to go down stream of to have come from above.
After a water break we tightened down our pack and began picking up our knees as we ascended. We are not that out of shape, but the Alabama humidity really pushed down on us and suffocated our lungs. After several stops, we made it to our Pride Rock again, which was even more grand with the sun magnifying the colors below. Finally to the top, SHWOOO! We might as well have bathed in the river before coming up. Basking in the cold A/C, we decided we were done with the canyon, and made our way to the Sand Rocks, or Cherokee Rock Village. Mapquest had given about 9 different turns to our destination, but the local at the gas station was able to guide us there with 3. We would save the unknown routes for the
ride home.
Cherokee Rock Village
We actually ascended in to Cherokee Rock Village via car, and the parking lot was right next to the first boulder field. I guess they were having an Alabama Outdoors clean up day, b/c several people were putting out mulch at the entrance and first part of the trail. When we first entered, we follwed the path between two boulders 30 ft in the air on both sides, and climbed the one facing, from what we could tell, the open area. At the top, we were met with a !Mama Mia! moment. I hadn't realized we would be climbing on the side of a mountain and would not be overlooking the valley below, right to Weiss Lake. This was quite a sight. At the highest point you could be, we were bordered only by the wind. I'm not sure our pictures really do justice to the landscape.
This intricately mazed city of boulders forced us to take out trek to higher ground, so we climbed to the top and began jumping across caverns from boulder to boulder. I think it would take quite a while to climb all of the facings
here, and you definitely need gear to climb the walls. There were places you would never know about unless you were to hop around on top as we did. We found several good places to pose, although we were quite shaken when we became part of our own Beef Jerky ad.
We finally jumped to a boulder that enabled us to walk right up to the campsites overlooking the valley below. This would have been a great place to camp out, but we decided to come back another day. On the way home, we did not get lost, but found our way to Gadsden via compass and good luck. I somehow always forget something, and this time it was directions back to the interstate. We did just fine on our scenic route through the backroads of North East Alabama. I definitely advise anyone to travel to Little River Canyon; really everything can be done in a day. Do take more time if you go to Cherokee Rock Village though.
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Mom
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LOVE THESE
I love your pictures. I am so glad you guys did this!!!