Just for laughs I decided to document the trail down the hill from the second parking lot . Ill start at the car park .
After parking the car follow the big trail down the ridge to the northeast from the parking lot . Soon you will encounter an old Beech tree that's been all carved up ( about a hundred paces )
Now you will want to leave the trail and walk along the edge of the ridge ,still in a north easterly direction . Soon ( about 25 or 30 paces) you will encounter a small Beech tree that somebody carved a Z on . Ironically that Z sort of depicts the shape of the plummet trail .
As you look over the edge of the ridge you will see an old trail or fire road that slashed down the bluff at a 45 degree angle .You will have to come back to a more westerly direction to follow this trail . In a very short time the trail turns into a gulley as many abandoned trails do so you need to hop up onto the right or north bank of the gulley .
After about half your descent I noticed this old trail marker ( probabley Mules ) but it might not be there next year .
You will be descending between two gulleys now and when you get near the bottom another gulley will cut across your path . It's not that deep and you need to cross it and head up a small ridge where you will see these twin and a half huge ( over 2 foot diameter ) white pines . I put a soft ball size geode between the pines that I decided I didn 't want bad enough to hump up that hill .
You have been travelling in a north westerly direction untill now but you need to turn right or easterly at the white pines . These pines are in a sort of single file line that marches down to the big creek which Sycamore trail follows . You need to cross that creek and follow it to your right or east until you intersect the little trail that goes to campsight two . You will see a little tee pee symbol with an arrow pointing to campsight two but no number on it . You must turn left on that trail and now your heading almost due north . Within just 20 paces or so you will encounter the sign on Sycamore trail that says Campsight 2 with an arrow . As you all know this is where the trail back to crescent valley begins .
This trail may be known to a lot of you but if you don't know it in wet weather you'd have a hard time scaleing that bluff . Also this trail has been tested by an out of shape 66 year old with a 40 pound pack .
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