BFCW Trip Report

“The name of the place is so long I had to abbreviate it so "Trip Report" would fit in the thread title.

Anyway, Father Goose and I had been planning for a while to get out and do a quick trip, but it kept getting put off by one thing or another. Eventually we settled on this past weekend. I poked around the net a bit for a new place to go, and picked the Bridgestone/Firestone Centennial Wilderness as a good destination.

The BFCW is a large property that was granted to the state of Tennessee by the Bridgestone/Firestone corporation a few years ago, thus the name. It lies along the Caney Fork river in White Co., Tennessee, and encompasses about 10,000 acres. It also adjoins the Virgin Falls Pocket Wilderness. There are about 30-40 miles of trails in the BFCW, a handful of campsites, and three or four trailheads. After looking at some of the online material, I decided that we would take the Polly Branch Falls trail down to the Caney Fork river, and camp at a campsite there.

Saturday I picked up Father Goose at his place and we set out. It's about a three hour drive from Huntsville to the BFCW, mostly because the drive is primarily on secondary highways in Tennessee. We got to the trailhead about 10:00AM, got our gear on, and hiked down the trail.

We visited the Upper Polly Branch falls and took a few pictures, then continued on down. Let's say that again, shall we? This trail's primary direction is DOWN. There is one spot where the trail loses about 75-100 feet of elevation in 100 yards or so, straight down the side of a gully. From there, the trail follows old jeep roads, and is considerably less steep.

After about an hour's hike, we got to the Caney Fork River campsite, although we didn't realize it. The trails are remarkably well signed, so we assumed that the campsites would be similarly signed, since the rules are that you have to camp only at the designated campsite. There was no signage at the campsite, so we hiked on down the trail, heading up the Caney Fork for about a quarter mile before we turned back to where we had seen the first campsite, a fire ring build almost in the middle of the trail.

At this point, there was another trail that we had missed that led down the Caney Fork, across a dry, rocky streambed, and to a couple of really nice campsites with fire rings. We chose the second one, right next to the river, where it became shallow and rocky, with several large boulders in the middle of the stream to sit on and eat lunch. It was only 11:30 or so when we got there, so we took our time, eating lunch, napping, collecting firewood, etc. Just a lazy Saturday afternoon in the woods. The depth of the river just preceding the rocky area of the river would have been sufficient for swimming, had we brought something to swim in. We might have swum anyway, if it had been hotter, but the temps were in the 70's, an oddity for Tennessee in August.

As it got later, we fixed our dinners and started the fire. We talked late into the night, smoked cigars, and imbibed spirits.

The next morning, I woke up feeling pretty rough from the "spirit imbibing" that had taken place the previous night. I ended up sleeping in until about 9:00AM while Father Goose packed up his stuff and took a little hike exploring the area. I finally packed up, drank some water, and ate a little bit, then we hiked back out to the truck. I was feeling pretty bad and wiped out, but we still managed to hike out in about 1hr 15min. I did let Father Goose drive us back to Huntsville, while I napped on and off.

In spite of feeling pretty rough on Sunday, it was still a good trip and a good time. I imagine I'll be headed back to the BFCW sometime soon for another hike on some of the other trails there.

Pictures when I get them uploaded, I haven't even looked at them myself yet.”

“Bit- did you hear any 4-wheelers? They frequent that area and make bpacking a little less solitary:(

Glad you had a good time. It was a beautiful weekend!”

“No 4-wheelers...I did hear what sounded like rapid-fire gunshots once though.

Lots of frogs, owls, and woodpeckers too.”

“Glad ya'll had a good trip, it was a great weekend for it. I was jonesing to go o a solo trip myself, but couldn't make it happen.”

“You guys are twinkies! Wearing close to the same outfits. You guys plan that?

Nice picture of the firewood. Arranged into size piles.”

“Ha! Well, he had on long pants and I had on shorts...”

“Yea, but everything matched.”

“good pics, bit.
i like that area. glad you had a good time there!”

“Yah it was fun. I'd like to go back sometime and maybe get some swimming in.”

“hey what happened to your knee?”

“Any gravy spillage?”

“Oh, I've always needed that brace. It's like this: If I wear the brace, no problems. If I don't wear the brace, problems. There's nothing really the matter with it, but if hike without the brace, it will hurt.”

“Oh, and no gravy, sorry...”

“Just checking”

“that makes sense, bit.
proactive=happy knee!”

“Big, f'ing country-western???

LOL! ;-P”

“Non sequitor...”

“that sounds like most of mine & Tarpy's trips...a short walk, followed by drinking. LOL! it was pretty cold out last weekend here too...weird.”

“Nice report, bit! Pics, too!”

“I don't think I'll be drinking that much on a trip again...Still feeling pretty rough!

I laid out of work yesterday, even. Still tired and grumpy...”

“daaaang dude! i personally puked on Saturday night. i think it was the combo of several kinds of alcohol, brownies, and shrimp cakes at midnight. LOL!”

“shrimp cakes at midnight...well that answers my question of what kinda brownies.....lol”

“the sad thing is, they were just normal brownies...and i only had 3 drinks besides that!”

“That is sad. Maybe it was the shrimp cakes?”

“lyra is such a pansy drinker!!! ;)”

“Oh, I almost forgot.

I ordered a map of the BFCW about two weeks ago, for this trip. I waited patiently every day for this map to arrive. On the morning I left, it hadn't arrived yet, so I took with me the freebie map that they sent me when I called to order the real thing, only to find out that you order them by sending in a form from another website.

Of course, the map arrived after I left that day.”

“shut yo' pie-hole, yam! ;-) i must need more practice.

and it wasn't the shrimp cakes, everyone ate them!”

“shrimp and brownies... mmmmmmhhh.... uggghhhh...”

“howdy there, wacko sacco”

“greetings and salutations, miss lyradoodles”

“why lyra i aughta kick yer $^#&($^#%!

actually, when i mix shrimp w/ hard liquor, my stomach gets all quesy. queezy. quezy. dang. i can't spell.”

“Queasy.”

“that looks wrong, too. but i TOTALLY believe you, bit. you are very wise. :)”

“I think it's appropriate that the word "queasy" should look wrong, don't you?”

“absoqueasylutely!!”

“quea·sy also quea·zy Pronunciation Key (kwz)
adj. quea·si·er, also quea·zi·er quea·si·est, quea·zi·est
1. Experiencing nausea; nauseated.
2. Easily nauseated.
3. Causing nausea; sickening: the queasy lurch of an airplane during a storm.
4.
a. Causing uneasiness.
b. Uneasy; troubled.
5.
a. Easily troubled.
b. Ill at ease; squeamish: “He is not queasy about depicting mass violence, in some circumstances, as a legitimate instrument of social transformation” (Shaul Bakhash).”

“Yam, I know now what to bring for you on our next trip! (hee hee hee)”

“embear--a dictionary? : )”

“scopolamine?”

“no, silly. some scrimps and "the gentleman"”

“hmm. SCRIMPS i can handle!

but jack... i'm still mad at him.”

“Did he make you do stuff you wouldn't normally?

We've all been there, yam...”

“he made me blue the next morning. and afternoon. and evening.

but that night.......it was the best night of my life!”

“Yah, but how much do you remember?”

“Looks really fun bit!

And Dicentra and I are notorious for matching. We happen to own things of the same color. It's weird. Last weekend we both had olive pants and red fleece on. It's creepy.”

“It was a lot of fun until Sunday morning, ugh...but even that wasn't too bad.”

“Think of the fresh cold water you filtered to quench your thirst and the woodsy air to keep the "queasiness" at bay. Then the hike out usually sweats out the hangover. Then the stop for burgers and beer (dog that bit ya) on your way home. Yeah. There are definitely worse places to be hungover.”

“Wasn't quite ready for food yet until I got home that day, lol...”

“you really were hurting then.

Poor guy.”