Chunky Gal Trail, North Carolina

[NightWhisperer]

I'm new to WhiteBlaze but not new to hiking. My name is NightWhisperer and I attempted to thru in 2014 and I'm back out here again in 2016 giving it another go. Two nights ago my hiking partner and I stayed at Bly Gap just north of the Georgia border with rain and potential snow in the forecast. We woke up yesterday, packed up and started hiking. We meet back up at Muskrat Creek and made a game plan. Looking at his small map of the trail it showed the Chunky Gal Trail leading from the AT out to route 64 and it appeared to be less of a distance than what we had just hiked (~3 miles). So knowing that USFS road 71 at Deep Gap was closed and would be at least a 3.75 mile walk to the road we decided to take the side trail, what's a couple miles going to hurt? So we took off with Franklin, pizza, and cold beer in our sights. I took minimal water since the map showed the trail running along the base of a mountain and being so short. We started hiking and thought it was kind of weird that it went uphill a little bit but felt good when it started going downhill, steeply. Not long after that it started going right up the ridge of another mountain. Surely the road would be right at the bottom of this mountain. Nope. This trail followed the ridge of these mountains a few miles until we finally saw the road. I had enough service to pull up a thread from this website claiming the trail to be only 5.1 miles. It also said the trail met the road at Glade Gap so I pulled that up on my GPS showing it still a ways away. Long story short this is not a good bailout trail if you want to avoid the mountains and get into town. There is not a lot of good/accurate information about this trail online and I only saw one water source and that was at the beginning of the trail. If you are going make sure to brace yourself for huge elevation changes and no opportunities to fill your water. I think personally you'd be better off taking the AT down to Deep gap and walking down the dirt road to 64 closer to town. I regret doing it but am glad I can let other people know about it.

-See you down the trail
NDubbs

[Uncle Joe]

Good info, thanks! I hope you got your pizza and beer!

[Slo-go'en]

Many years ago on my first trip down there, myself a couple of others had the same idea of taking the Chunky Gal short cut to the road, as we were running out of food.

I remember the trail being reasonably level, but it dead ended on a cliff well above the highway. Bushwhacking our way down that hill was quite the adventure and a little treacherous, but we made it.

[saltysack]

I'm just Jelous your getting another shot at a thru 2 years later!


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[Captain Bluebird]

Franklin is a pretty cool trail town. Great hiking / outdoor store, good eats and home brewed beer. Not 100%, but you may have been better off hiking to the old 64 crossing and taking a shuttle into town.

[daddytwosticks]

Took a photo of the sign at the AT trail intersection and sent it to my wife. She was not amused. I'm glad Big Butt had no signage...

[Marta]

Ah, the Chunky Gal Trail! Who could resist a trail with such a name?

My husband and I started off to hike it with a fearless crew a few years ago. It turned into one of the craziest weekend hikes we've ever taken. It had been a very dry fall and the water sources were not quite what they should have been. We had separated from the rest of the crew at the start of the hike so David and I could pick up the segment that connects the Chunky Gal to the Fires Creek Rim Trail. Long story short--David is a stubborn cuss and not afraid to carry lots of weight, so he loaded up container we had and hauled many pounds of water with us. The rest of the fearless crew was counting on finding water at the listed water source, found it to be dry, ran out, kept moving on without finding more water, and had a bad time of it.

It was a heckuva hike. After all the drama (and dehydration) of the weekend, my memory of the final climb up to the AT is that it's much longer than we thought it would be, and steeper, too. Definitely not a preferred route for accessing the AT from the highway.