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Category: Hike Reports
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On a beautiful spring day twenty-one TrailBlazers and one canine under the leadership of Becky made our annual pilgrimage to some beautiful waterfalls on these two short hikes.  Glory Hole is truly unique and well worth seeing more than once!

 

Following Tim Ernst’s instructions in his hiking books we passed the red barn with the big white “E” on it that indicates that we are very close to the trailhead for Glory Hole!  When we parked along the road, we met up with several newcomers who joined us for the hike.  Unlike our hike last week on the Shores Lake Loop, the vegetation today was not as advanced.  The trees did not have many leaves but we did see dogwood, violets and irises.

 We headed out on an old roadbed that had some muddy spots before heading down the trail that was steep and rocky in places.  Soon we heard water and knew we were hearing the creek that eventually channels its water down the Glory Hole, a round, smooth rock funnel that leads down to the actual falls.  Of course, this was a great spot for photo ops!  We had to be careful because last year a man fell down the Glory Hole and managed to survive in spite of his injuries.  He was not one of our TrailBlazers!

 Continuing on we trekked down a steep, rocky trail that leads down to the Glory Hole Falls that come swirling down through the hole we had seen on the top of the bluff.   This is an incredible area with its soaring boulders.  This is an interesting and beautiful place to explore but hikers need to watch their steps on the rocks, some of them wet!

 Next we hiked back up to the cars and did not hike as fast as when we were going down!  Then we hopped into our vehicles and made the short drive to the trailhead for our next hike to Magnolia Falls and Woods Boys Falls. This is a gentler, easier downhill than the first one and again we saw violets, dogwood, and also some phlox.  When we reached Magnolia Falls, we scrambled down to the base where we had lunch with a beautiful view.  Then we did some more scrambling to get over to Woods Boys Falls. En route our adventurous Stephen managed to fall in the rocky creek, take an unplanned bath, and hit his knee.

 Woods Boys is only a short distance but the falls are hard to see because vegetation blocks the view somewhat so we mostly saw only a silhouette of the falls.  Alas, the umbrella magnolias had not yet bloomed at either falls.

 Tammy gets the Award for Most Helpful.  Steven and Yours Truly rode with her and her daughter Anna, she whipped out a peanut and jelly sandwich when YT realized that her lunch had fallen out of her backpack before she left home, and she also volunteered to recover YT’s backpack that had been left at our lunch spot.  You guys know that Yours Truly is always wandering around looking for photo ops!

 What a great day for these hikes!

 

There are no hikes Easter weekend.  The following week is the Buffalo Lodge Weekend.  Check with Becky for details or to sign up.

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