Backpacking The Appalachian Mountains | Cohutta Wilderness | Jacks River Falls | Best Waterfall
Most of my life I’ve done this thing where i am always looking forward to the next big excitement. Don’t get me wrong it's nice to have something to look forward to but I feel like it almost keeps me from enjoying the mundane moments of life.
Idk if Ive reached a new chapter in life but lately I’ve been feeling more at peace and am able to enjoy the moment. I’ve realized the current moment is usually just as good as what I am looking forward to.
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This weekend we are going to one of our favorite places to backpack. It's called Jacks river falls. This place is special because it's the first place I took moriah backpacking and the waterfalls are absolutely stunning and sooo much fun to play in, in the summer. Its early spring now so it's too cold to swim but it's still fun to explore.
As we were getting ready to leave I noticed I wasn’t in a hurry to get on the road or overly excited to get to the destination. We were blessed with beautiful weather all weekend. There was no possibility of rain and the temperatures were perfect. It was 72 and sunny!
We drove about an hour and 40 minutes north until we reached the Cohutta wilderness, this is where the gravel roads begin. This part of the trip starts to feel like an actual adventure because you lose cell phone service and have to drive about 50 minutes on rough gravel and dirt roads. In the past this part of the trip has been stressful because we would worry about getting lost or stuck. Having been here a handful of times now I’ve gotten more comfortable with the area and terrane allowing this part of the drive to be extremely relaxing. We had the windows down, Moriah was playing our favorite music, there were creeks and rivers flowing next to the car, luscious green pastures tucked in between mountains and cliffs that you could easily drive off of If you are not paying attention.
Once we made it to the trailhead we grabbed our stuff and we were off. We decided to wait to go to the falls till in the morning and we wanted to try a new campsite. We alway camp on a little island about a mile below the falls but this time we wanted to camp above the falls just to try something new. To get to the campsite we hiked about 5 miles from the car and had 1 river crossing. We found a campsite that had the river on one side and a creek on the other. It oddly resembled our usual campsite.
While we were out there Moriah explained that the reason she started liking backpacking so much is because she gets to spend quality time with me. I love this too. I have this bad habit where I pull my phone out and start checking notifications unintentionally but when I’m out here in nature, I have no desire to be brought back to “the real world”. Every activity out here is a vacation from “the real world”. There are not many better ways to disconnect from modern technology than building a fire next to a river and cooking dinner on a little stove.
After a lovely 9 hours of the two of us squirming around in a hammock together, we got up around 6:30 because natures calls. It turned out great to get up early because we had plenty of time to casually hang out by the fire till it was time to go. After some coffee we packed up all of our stuff and said goodbye to the campsite.
It was only a mile hike to the falls. The sun was high enough now to get over the mountains. The weather was absolutely beautiful. We took our time getting to the falls to enjoy the scenery, as we got closer we could hear the falls roaring.
You can tell by how loud it is that these falls are big and powerful! Getting to jacks river falls was the destination which should be the climax of the trip but actually it was just as exciting as any other part of the adventure.
The old saying “it's not about the designation, it’s about the journey” could not be more true. I’m grateful for my new found perspective because I can find joy and pleasure in more things now, even the things that used to be a chore.
Anyway we had an absolutely amazing 24 hours backpacking through the wilderness, the falls were breathtaking and Moriah’s company was delightful. If you are new to the channel please subscribe to see what our next adventure has in store for us. Thank you for watching
BTW this area is not too far from the appalachian trail. AT. Could be a great shake down hike or a preparation hike for the appalachian trail.
#Backpacking #AppalachianMountians #BePresent
