Jamie will make a good trail boss! He knows his way around up there good. FWIW, this is my prefered method of attack.
Take the Green trail out of camp past the cabins down on your left. At the first old sawmill, take the Red trail to the right up the hill. This trail is marked with red blazes and red #2 on the trees. There are several side trails on red so stay on the main trail, be alert for trail markings, take a hard left at the first sawmill you come to! When you get to the top of the hill you are at the intersection of the Red and Yellow trails, #10 on the map. There will be a sign on your right that says "To Camp" with an arrow pointing back the way you came. The two trails on the right are Red heading back down the mountain. Yellow continues straight ahead bearing to the left. Immediately across from the to camp sign is a smaller trail to the left that is narrower and goes up hill. Take this trail marked with TOW on a couple of trees, it is the top yellow trail on the map from #10. Take the first right which will be the little red trail on the map. It looks like it is unused and overgrown, there should be a TOW marked on a tree. If you take the left here you will go around TOW and come out at intersection #9. Take the first left, up hill, marked TOW on a tree and at the top you will see the TOW rocks on your left. There are several lines to take here but all put you on Top Of the World with a great view this time of year when the leaves are off the trees. It's a little tight for full sized rigs at the top but you can make it and the down hill off of TOW is STEEP but fun. Follow this out to the Yellow trail, where the red TOW trail meets yellow on the map, and take a left and you are at #9 on the map. You will see some large mud holes to your left, to the right is the Skyline trail. Go straight across this intersection, there should be yellow blazes and #4 marked on some trees. In a couple of hundred feet you will see the old Tower area on your left. There a lots of different line to try there and the 360 view from the top is incredible. When leaving the tower continue on the yellow blaze/#4 Yellow trail. Follow the #4 to the bottom of the mountain. You will come to the intersection of Yellow and Green at the bottom. Turn right across the creek onto Green and go about 100 yards. You will see Welder trail entrance on your left. Trees on the right side are marked Welder with arrows pointing to the left. Take Welder all the way to the top of the mountain. There are several ways to go (reference the map), but the way I like is to ALWAYS take the left option with two exceptions. Do no take the first left after the Waterfall, a dead end on the map, and do not take The Loop. The Loop is doable and can be fun, the rocks tend to be sharper up on that hill and it's just not worth it IMO but if you've never tried it by all means give it a go! If you have taken the left trail options, avoiding the two I mentioned, you will have not taken The Step or The Rut and will be at the intersection of Welder and Blue trail where you take a right. Depending on your progress, time and breakage you have two options here. You can take the second right off of Blue which is The Rut trail down to Easy Out and take a left on The Step trail back up to Blue. Going up The Step is getting more difficult as it gets eroded more and the hill climb up to Blue trail after The Step is STEEP and can be VERY slick, here you would take a right on the Blue trail. The other option is to stay on the Blue trail all the way down the mountain. Either way you will come out at the sawmill marked #31 on the map at the Blue/Green intersection. If you have time and your rigs are still together
you can continue on Green up to the Little Tellico/Armor All/Pull Cable area about 1/4 mile on the right. You have had a BIG day by now. If you spank Armor All and Pull Cable you have time to make it up Black to the Skyline trail and head back to camp that way. By this time I am ALWAYS ready to head back to camp on the easy Green trail. I have done this route many times. It can be done in one day easily by built rigs that do no have breakage/stoppage issues. It can also turn into a night ride if things go badly
IMO this route gives you all of the best parts of Callalantee without backtracking too much, allows rigs of various capabilities to ride together as there are by passes for everything except The Step, presents some great views this time of year and lets you see most of what Callalantee has to offer!
??i thought they were 27 spline longs?
