Long Branch Trail (#116)
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Route map of the Long Branch Trail as tracked by the Gaia GPS app and depicted a la Google Earth...
Route map of the Long Branch Trail as tracked by the Gaia GPS app...
Long Branch/Butter Gap Trail Junction -- 2,680'
The eastern terminus of the Long Branch Trail is here, where it meets the Butter Gap Trail. The spot is about 1/3-mile below the beautiful Grogan Creek Falls along the BGT...
Long Branch/Butter Gap Trail Junction -- 2,680'
The Long Branch Trail as it departs its eastern terminus at the Butter Gap Trail...
From its junction with the Butter Gap Trail, the Long Branch Trail begins a short ascent over the low ridge separating Grogan and Searcy Creeks...
Looking across the rhododendron-choked valley of Searcy Creek...
Long Branch Trail @ Searcy Creek -- 2,650'
The "bridge" over Searcy Creek has certainly seen better days...
If you can't tell already, you better get used to seeing rhododendron along this trail...
The trail begins to climb away from Searcy Creek now through a deep cut in the hillside under a dense canopy of rhodo...
Gaining a bit more elevation, the rhodo soon give way to a beautiful mixed pine and hardwood forest...
Every so often the trail passes the remnants of old logging roads. Stakes like this keep one headed on the correct route but, to be honest, the trail is obvious so these signs are hardly needed...
Climbing through the pines as the trail nears its intersection with F.R. 5095 from the east...