Kirkland Creek Trail

The Kirkland Creek Trail (FS Trail 85) is a trail in the Upper Bald River Wilderness Study Area within the Cherokee National Forest in

the Tellico Ranger District which connects the Benton MacKaye Trail at Sandy Gap with Bald River Road. The trail is 4.6 miles long and for the most part follows the water drainage of Kirkland Creek from the gap down to the Bald River, dropping 700 feet. This trail crosses the creek several times, but none should be much of a problem except after a heavy rain.

Monday, January 12, 2009: We began working today to log out the blowdowns on the Kirkland Creek Trail. We started in at Sandy Gap and cleared everything to Waucheesi Creek, a distance of over 1.5 miles. This trail is entirely in the Upper Bald River Wilderness Study Area, so we worked with the crosscut saws and axes to clear a total of 40 trees.

The day started out cold with lots of ice in the trees. We had plenty of sunshine, so the ice began coming down in chunks after lunch time. We found these conditions to be another good reason to be wearing a hardhat!

Here is our volunteer time for the day:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	3	5.5	8.5
Tazz Reid	2.5	5.5	8
Jim Holland	3	5.5	8.5
Bobby Mitchell	3	5.5	8.5
Totals	11.5	22	33.5

Thursday, April 9, 2009: Five of us volunteers worked with Robert Thomas yesterday to complete logging out all of the blowdowns on the Kirkland Creek Trail. We had previously cleared the upper 1.7 miles of the trail going in from Sandy Gap on January 12^th of this year. The water levels were still up in the streams, so all of us had wet feet after negotiating 20 stream crossings. The totals for the day were 6 miles walked with 800’ of elevation gain, and 39 trees cleared from the trail. We also cleared some additional small stuff from the trail. This trail is still in need of brushing out, as the dog hobble has grown in along much of the 3 miles of trail that we covered.

Here are our volunteer hours for the work trip:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	3	6	9
Tazz Reid	2.5	6	8.5
Ed Ley	4.5	6	10.5
Rick Harris	2	6	8
Jeff Hunter	5.5	6	11.5
Totals	17.5	30	47.5

Saturday, May 30, 2009: Bill Hodge, George Wilhite and Jeff Hunter met in Tellico Plains at 9 AM and headed to the Kirkland Creek Trail. Rick Harris also met us there, and took possession of a crosscut saw that I picked up recently in Chattanooga. Rick did not join us on this trip. This trip was a Tennessee Wild sponsored trip.

We spent 4 hours using loppers and swing blades on the Kirkland Creek Trail. It was badly overgrown with Dog Hobble and other vegetation. We were able to clear from just across the Bald River to the first ford of Kirkland Creek. That is probably just under a mile of trail. We encountered one hiker during the day. That hiker was doing a 17 mile loop day hike using the Kirkland Creek, Stateline & Brookshire Creek Trails.

We have another trip planned for July 11 on the Kirkland Creek Trail. I am hoping we can generate more of a turnout for that trip. After the trip, I left the tools and hard hats in the shed behind the Ranger Station. Here are the numbers:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Jeff Hunter	6	4	10
George Wilhite	2	4	6
Bill Hodge	2	4	6
Totals	10	12	22

Saturday July 11, 2009: Kirkland Creek Trail - Rick Foster and Jeff Hunter picked up where our last crew left off on the Kirkland Creek Trail. We lopped rhododendron and dog hobble from the second stream crossing until the trail climbs the ridge. In the future, it will probably be more efficient to deal with dog hobble using hedge clippers, as the cutting surface is much larger than loppers. Rick made this observation. I'd be curious to know if hedge trimmers could be used by volunteers.

The trail is currently in pretty good shape for most of the way although there is a blowdown about 0.25 miles from the trailhead on Holly Flats Road. This will require a crosscut saw. I will plan on doing some lopping from the Sandy Gap trailhead in the next week or two. I am leading a 17 mile backpacking trip July 24-26 on the Kirkland Creek, Stateline Trail, Brookshire Creek route.

Here are the work hours

Rick Foster: Work - 7 hours Travel - 50 min.

Jeff Hunter: Work - 7 hours Travel - 4 hours

Total: Work: 14 hours - Travel 4 hours 50 minutes

I will be looking for a new wilderness hiking trail to work on. The Jeffrey Hell Trail looks pretty rough. I would like to hear the FS priorities for trail maintenance on wilderness hiking trails in Tellico.

Tuesday, August 29, 2009: Kirkland Creek Trail - Rick Harris and Jeff Hunter maintained the upper 1.5 miles of the trail by clearing 13 trees with crosscut saw and brushing out this section with loppers and swingblade. The lower stretches of the trail had been maintained earlier in the summer by the Tellico District Volunteer Maintainers and also two worktrips sponsored by Tennessee Wild under the direction of Jeff Hunter. The entire trail should now be considered maintained to USFS standards for a wilderness trail. Volunteer hours are as follows:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Jeff Hunter	5	5.5	10.5
Rick Harris	2	5.5	7.5
Totals	7	11	18

Wednesday, September 23, 2009: Kirkland Creek Trail. We worked upstream to a point about 2 miles in and just above the second crossing for Waucheesi Creek. We worked primarily on defining the stream crossings with wilderness blazes and clearing Rhododendron. We also cut back the brush in spots to help define the trail. We chopped two trees from the trail for the day, so probably the entire trail is clear of blowdowns. The trail is now much better defined in some of the previous spots of confusion.

Here are the hours for the trip:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	1.5	7	8.5
Rick Harris	1	7	8
John Calabus	2	7	9
Totals	4.5	21	25.5

Saturday, April 3, 2010 - Kirkland Creek Trail - Bob Ruby and Sandi Still hiked from Waucheesi Bald down to Six Mile Gap on the BMT, then to Sandy Gap, then down the Kirkland Creek Trail, then on down to Bald River Falls on the Bald River Trail scoping out a planned Labor Day Backpack route. While going down the Kirkland Creek Trail, then threw several logs off the trail and did some general light maintenance and GPSed about 8 logs which need to be sawed out with crosscut. Volunteer hours are as follows, just for their part on the Kirkland Creek Trail:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Bob Ruby	0	3	3
Sandi Still	0	3	3
Totals	0	6	6

Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - Kirkland Creek Trail - Rick Harris and Bill Hodge cleared trees from the Kirkland Creek Trail today (around 40 or so). Mostly little stuff, with a couple complex situations. Rick also carried loppers and cut back the rhododendron. The trail is clear top to bottom. It rained off an on most of the day and was fairly chilly, especially after all the creek crossings (11 in all). We even got hailed upon several times during the day.

We had help in the shuttle department with Bill's wife so we are reporting some time for her because it saved a bunch of time for us.

Here are the hours;

Rick Harris - 8 hours plus 30 minute driving
Bill Hodge - 8 hours plus plus 1 hour driving
Laura Hodge - 1.5 hours plus 1 hour driving

Thursday, September 23, 2010: Kirkland Creek Trail - Yesterday a crew of seven tackled brushing out two sections of the Kirkland Creek Trail. We were able to brush out the two sections needing the most attention. A group of 5 worked on the top section of the trail from Sandy Gap to the steep drop down to Waucheesi Creek. The other two crew members brushed out the bottom mile from the trail head to the first ford of Kirkland Creek. The rest of the trail is in good shape. The hours are:

Bill Hodge - 6.5 hours - .5 hour travel
Bobby Mitchell - 7 hours - 1.5 hours travel
Ken Jones - 7 hours - 1.5 hours travel
Tazz Reid - 7 hours - 1 hour travel
Roger Taylor - 7 hours - 1 hour travel
John Kalabus - 5 hours - 2.5 hours travel
Phillip Gooch - 5 hours - .75 hour travel

Friday, July 29, 2011: Kirkland Creek Trail and BMT Section 15c - Friday two groups of volunteers tackled some annual work on the Kirkland Creek Trail. The work included logging out blowdowns from the trail and brushing out the trail. It was a pretty hot and humid day, but we managed to complete the project. One of the saw crews also logged out the Benton MacKaye Trail from Six-Mile Gap to Sandy Gap.

Because we worked in two-groups I did not capture every name.

Bill Hodge 10 Hours Worked 1 Hour Travel

Ken Jones 10 Hours Worked 1.5 Hours Travel

Bobby Mitchell 10 Hours Worked 1.5 Hours Travel

Jim Holland 10 Hours Worked 2 Hours Travel

Peter Reber 10 Hours Worked 2 Hours Travel

Reggie Jay 6 Hours Worked 3 Hours Travel

Betty Petty 6 Hours Worked 3 Hours Travel

Donald Box 6 Hours Worked 3 Hours Travel

There were two other volunteers whose names I did not catch that each worked 6 hours and had 3 hours travel time.

Other non-volunteer hours;

Stephen Eren 10 hours Worked - No Travel Time