Walls of Jericho very cool!

“I finally madeit down to the Walls of Jericho last weekend. So very cool! Not very wet last weekend, but still enough water to dip my balls in. I can't wait to go back after some good rain. We were the only overnight campers! Slept right next to the Clark Cemetery...but alas didn't see any zombies like I promised my kids.

Anyways...I highly recommend it to anyone in the TN/GA/AL region. Very nice!

Here are some modest pics. It's hard to capture it on film because it's very big, yet very secluded.

http://community.webshots.com/album/380474034QtEWvl”

“Nice pictures, nice kids, and a good trip report. When the creek is running, it pours out of a cave in the canyon wall upstream of the campsite about a mile. Absolutely spectacular.”

“Thanks for posting!
I love the Walls!
Cute kids. :-)”

“Thanks. That was my daughter's first hike. She did really well too. Just a little moaning on the hike up out of the valley. It is a bit tedious, especially when it's 95 degrees. I am very proud of them. My son was making better time than I was by far. I'm gonna take him on some more lengthy treks later this summer. Can't wait.

I hear the walls are amazing when it rains. Water shooting out the sides and stuff. I think their blazing a new trail that leads from the campgrounds up above the walls. I hiked up to the ridgeline last weekend, but didn't go any further. It's a very new trail, still clumps of dirt and such. Be careful if you go.”

“were the ticks very bad when you went? I was at Fall Creek Falls SP this past weekend and I must have picked about 30 ticks off of me on the lower cane creek loop.....
last edited: 6/29/05 11:35:12 PM”

“I think they would have been had we ventured into the field next to our campsite, but we did not. We founf a few, but not many. The skeeters were out witha vengence though. My daughter's legs looked like she had chicken pocks. I didn't get bit much at all though, never do. Don't know why. Guess they don't like the way i taste.

I love the FCF lower loop. Good stuff. That was actually my first real hike ever. Froze my nuts off too. The first night was nice, but then it rained, and then it snowed the second night. We were drinking Peach Shnapps to keep us warm around a small ass fire.”

“nice pictures and report-that pack that your daughter was sitting on-did she carryit looks pretty heavy-its great to have kids that enjoy getting out in nature as yours seem to--”

“Did you know there are **FOURTEEN** threads on "Walls of Jericho???!?" cool indeed! lol

Here is an AP story from the 2/12-06 Star Tribune:
http://www.startribune.com/1513/story/237404.html

Associated Press
Last update: February 11, 2006 – 11:57 PM

HYTOP, Ala. - After waiting nearly three decades to visit the jagged rock formation known as the Walls of Jericho, Olivia Howard was stunned by the view.

Howard, a member of the Birmingham Sierra Club, gazed up at the semicircle of limestone walls towering around her. The bluffs resemble an ancient Greek theater smack in the wilderness of northeast Alabama on the Tennessee state line.

Normally bathed in the waters of the Paint Rock River, which typically shoots through rock holes and crevices, the formation was mostly dry and easily accessible because of weeks of arid weather when Howard and a group of hikers visited.

"Oh, I love it," Howard said. "The rock formations and river bed are very interesting. I want to come back up and see the water."

Most hikers couldn't visit the Walls of Jericho until recently because it was on private property, and few people knew how to reach it.

The Nature Conservancy bought the land in 2003 and sold it to Alabama's Forever Wild Program, which purchased about 12,500 acres that included the formation. The area is now open to the public with well-marked trails for hiking and horseback riding.

But the 7-mile round trip is steep in places and can be treacherous after a rain.

The Walls of Jericho gets its name from a traveling minister who found it in the late 1800s and decided the cathedral-like beauty was so captivating it needed a biblical name. The 150-foot-wide natural amphitheater sits between 200-foot-tall walls.

For more information, go to nature.org/success/jericho.html.”