savage gulf or Fiery Gizzard

[soul embrace]

i'm off all next for spring break and I'm wanting to go somewhere new to hike and have narrowed it down to either Savage Gulf or Fiery Gizzard. have not been to either one so if you had to pick one which one would you go to first? I plan to go to both but can only go to one next week, reading about them they both sound like a great place to go.

so if you had to pick one which one would you do and which trails is a most do? I want to do a loop and want it to be 9-15 miles in length, this will be a day hike and I can normally do 15ish miles in a day.

thanks

[TrailSlug]

Day hike check, loop check. I would highly recommend the Big Creek Gulf loop. Start at the Stone Door Ranger station and hike behind the ranger station for a 1/2 mile loop to Laural Falls. Then on out to and down Stone Door trail (~.9 mi), down the connector trail (~.9 mi)and then right on the Big Creek Gulf trail (~4.0 miles). If your lucky and the water isn't flowing too deeply you can take the .4 of a mile out and back to Ranger Falls (well worth the trip). Continuing on to Alum Gap and then either back to the Stone Door Ranger station via the Big Creek Rim trail (some nice views 3.2 mi) or the Laural Trail (not a lot to see 2.9 mi) and .9 mi back to ranger station. This totals somewhere between 10 -11 miles. If you feel good I would strongly recommend going for the Greeter trail as Greeter falls is one of the prettier in the park but maybe hit this on another day. There are other loops but this is a very good workout and beautiful area.

[Rain Man]

TrailSlug made an excellent recommendation, given your parameters.

[Benbjamn]

Not Familiar with the geography but when I clicked on it , I was thinking wing flavors ...

[DutchConch]

I've done that trail a few times and I highly recommend it too.

[soul embrace]

thanks for the help. think I'm going to do the savage gulf area this time and then o to the fiery gizzard another time.

right now I'm planning on doing this loop: Stone door>Big Creek Gulf>Ranger Falls>Big Creek Gulf>Greeter Trail and loop (depending on how I feel)>Big Creek Rim>Stone Door> laurel loop.

if the milage on the friends of south cumblerland is right this will be about a 13.7 hike which is between what I do on a day hike if I'm soloing

[TrailSlug]

thanks for the help. think I'm going to do the savage gulf area this time and then o to the fiery gizzard another time.

right now I'm planning on doing this loop: Stone door>Big Creek Gulf>Ranger Falls>Big Creek Gulf>Greeter Trail and loop (depending on how I feel)>Big Creek Rim>Stone Door> laurel loop.

if the milage on the friends of south cumblerland is right this will be about a 13.7 hike which is between what I do on a day hike if I'm soloing

Sounds good and I only wish I could do this many miles but I'm just not in that good of shape. The beauty of this trip is you will see 4 very very nice water falls and another couple of smaller water falls. Be sure to give us a report once you complete this loop.

[Ashe]

Ranger Falls might require a swim for the near future, if that makes a difference in your plans. Collins Gulf is a great loop, too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[soul embrace]

Ranger Falls might require a swim for the near future, if that makes a difference in your plans. Collins Gulf is a great loop, too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

thanks for the tip and yes if the water is covering the trail I will just by pass this trail

[soul embrace]

Be sure to give us a report once you complete this loop.

I ended up doing these trails Stone door>Big Creek Gulf>Big Creek Rim>Stone Door> laurel loop and then driving to the greeter falls trailhead and doing the greeter falls loop and then the blue hole trail. got there a little later than I planned so I chose not to do my original plan of Stone door>Big Creek Gulf>Ranger Falls>Big Creek Gulf>Greeter Trail and loop>Big Creek Rim>Stone Door> laurel loop because wasn't sure if I had time (according to the map description they recommended that the big creek gulf trail be done as an overnight. so I wasn't sure if I have the time to do ranger's fall trail, I've could have done it had plenty of time). I was still able to do 12.9 miles in a total of about 6 hours and 30 mins.

over all I wasn't very impressed with with this loop. the overlooks was great (be nice to see when the leaves are changing) stone door the feature was neat and I liked it. the stone door trail to shortly after the side trail to ranger falls was kinda blah for me not much to see. big creek gulf trail from ranger falls side trail to the alum gap camp ground was good with better views of the creek. big creek rim was better and the overlooks was great but what I thought it was going to be like. laurel falls was a pretty waterfall.

the highlight of this whole trip was the greeter falls loop, that was a great trail and pretty area. too bad one of the waterfalls that look big between the trees and there was no trail leading to it (sign asked to stay on trails so that what I did). the blue hole trail lead to a turquoise water which if you never seen water that color it worth the mile to hike to see it but if you have seen turquoise color water before there no reason to hike it.

all in all I'm glad I went and any day on a trail in the woods is better than a great day at work. would I go and hike this same loop again? no unless someone else I know wanted to go.