Return to Panther Creek Falls

Clarkesville, GA - This was my second trip to Panther Creek Falls, and this time, I was joined by a new group of hikers. My previous visit to the Clarkesville area came in February when the temperature was still in the 50s and 40s, and ice and snow were still present in many of the shady areas along the trail. This time, the daytime temps rose into the 60s and 70s, and much more flora and fauna were present. White pine and hemlock bordered both sides of much of the trail, and Panther Creek itself looked to be flowing much more rapidly than before; a likely side effect of the recent rains. There was also an increase in visitors to the falls; some of whom were rather interesting.

I mentioned that I was joined by a new group of backpacking buddies. My best friend Ben, his wife Janet, and Janet's friend Candace, all came along for this little 2-day excursion. Although Candace has been on a few trips in the past, for Ben and Janet, this was their first-ever backpacking trip. None of this group had any equipment, so a buddy of mine and I had to outfit everyone with our personal gear.

Now the problem with using someone else's stuff is that it usually doesn't quite fit right for the other guy, especially when the owner is 6'2" and the borrower is only around 5'7". Ben's pack was nearly as big as he was, and when hiking behind him on the trail, all I could see of Ben was from the backs of his knees down. From the large bulges in the pack, it looked as though he was carrying around a couple of small children. Being the good husband that he is, Ben elected to carry the heavier load, so Janet's pack was not nearly as cumbersome, although she could probably have benefitted from a smaller size as well. I gave Candace my super light REI pack, and I went with my Gregory instead. For Candace, everything was packed away neatly, except that her sleeping pad was strapped horizontally across the top of the pack. Ben had the same situation. The trail gets narrow at sections, so it was entertaining to see the contortions and hear the explicatives as we passed under or by some of the rock overhangs and cliff walls. Overall, we made good time and covered the 3.5 miles in about 1.5 hours.

When we arrived at the site, we noticed several interesting visitors already enjoying the area. To be honest, it looked as though we had just interrupted some kind of cult gathering. They were an eclectic group of various ethnic backgrounds with the lone female as their undoubted leader. As we began to set up our tents on the beach at the base of the falls, the leader spent a good 30 minutes laid out on a rock with a rain jacket draped over her face and upper body, while the males appeared to be meditating in spiritual contemplation. That is, until she began to stir and we noticed several of them beginning to talk on their cell phones. They must have been letting other members of the cult know that their planned activites had been interrupted, and they were preparing to return to the temple. A few of them remained for a while, with one male in particular choosing to sit and stare at us from his perch atop one of the large boulders. Janet and Candace tried to snap a picture of him, but his camoflage was far too clever. He blended in with the background and then quickly left the site. Soon after the departure of the cult members, others began to join us, including a large-bellied, shirtless man with his girlfriend and children. The large smiley face tattoo on the man's stomach was undoubtedly applied when he was at a considerably lighter weight, and it now looked a lot like Stewie from Family Guy. They were very nice though, and even offered Ben some ibuprofin for his headache. We also met a man with a weimaraner that lifted its leg on just about everything in the area, including our tents....twice. The tops though had to be the pot-bellied, red-shirted, knife weilding, canteen toting, ogre who was one of our last visitors of the day. I swear we heard dueling banjos beginning to play somewhere far off in the hills as he approached, and the girls were certain that he had come for one, if not all of us. He never said a word, stayed about 45 minutes, and then left. Ben thought he would surely return in the middle of the night to kill me and then take the rest of them off into the woods for personal amusement. We never did see him again.

To kill time, we decided to try and hike the remaining 2 miles of the trail that complete the 5.5 mile one-way total, but the trail is very badly eroded not far beyond the falls, and Ben's dog got a sore paw, so we decided to turn around after going only half of the way. That night as the sun began to go down, we broke out the Wild Turkey that I had stowed away and began to cook dinner. The only disappointment was that I did not pour the whole amount of whiskey from home into my Nalgene bottle. Had I done so, at least one of us would probably have mustered up the courage to take a dip in the pool below the falls. Therefore, our supply quickly diminished, and we called it an early bedtime.

The overnight temps were very manageable, and we only received a few intermittent showers that dissipated well before morning. Although I thought we were being visited by bears a few times in the middle of the night, I was relieved to find that it was only my tentmate slumbering heavily and dreaming of being a lifeguard for a soccer game. Don't ask.

The morning was cool, but presented great weather to hike out. Ben again had trouble navigating his RV-sized pack past the narrow passages along the return, but we were able to make it back to the trailhead in good time. None the worse for wear, we safely and gratefully returned home.

My next trip will be to the Coosa Backcountry Trail, and my only companion will be my dog Guinness. That's all for now. Till next time.