Ivestor Gap and Caney Fork trails?

jimdentoniv

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 29, 2010
Location
Newport, TN
I have a few questions about these two trails cause I have yet to try them and don't know anyone who has.

1. Do these two trails connect cause they look like they're pretty close together on the map?

2. How long is each trail?

3. I seen a video on youtube of Caney Fork and it looked like they were camping at the top at the end of the trail. Can you camp up there and is the trail that long that you have to camp a night because its so long? If so that would be awesome.

4. What does each trail have to offer?
 
We've done a whole bunch of Shining Rock, but I can't find the map right now to figure it all out. The National Geographic maps do have trail lengths on them, though. You can camp dispersed anywhere in the forest or wilderness area.

There's enough mileage out there to keep you busy for a couple of days. We'd plan out a big loop. Started/finished at the Boy Scout camp on the west side of the mountain one time. Hiked up Cold Mountain, spend the night in the saddle, spent another night out near Shining Rock, then dropped back off the hill on the south side. Came another time from the bottom of the hill on the east side, up to Shining Rock, out and around to Grassy Cove Top or thereabouts, then back off the east side again on Greasy Cove and camped by by a river. Done it a couple of different ways from the south. Hiked out to the west around Sam Knob, had some good views of the parkway through the fog, then came back around over Tennent and Grassy Cove Top, etc.

Then again, we were humping along the ridge between Cold Mountain and Shining Rock one day, poking our way through the laurel, when here comes some... er... *elderly* folks with day packs hauling ass. They were doing 15 miles or something, started the day down on the south side of the parkway and were hiking Art Loeb to the Boy Scout camp in one day. So really, you can spend as much or as little time out there as you want.

It is pretty busy out there, though. Especially so between the Ivestor Gap parking lot and Shining Rock.
 
Oh, no.... there's nothing out there. They open Ivestor Gap to OHV traffic "seasonally", which I generally think just means during blueberry season. But it basically just takes you to the saddle where the wilderness area starts. You can't go past there.

I don't think it's more than a few miles one-way.
 
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