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| Just 25 minutes from Horsepound Falls, I reached Fall Creek (left)(#5), which also disappears underground (right). Just a couple hundred feet from this sink, is the dry Collins River bed, which is just a few hundred feet downstream from Horsepound Falls, amazing. I wanted to hike upstream to find and take a picture of where Collins River goes underground, but I decided that trip was for another day. I felt I really needed to keep on schedule. The trail now runs parallel with the dry Collins River bed. | |||
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After another mile of hiking, the Collins Gulf Trail crosses the dry river bed of the Collins River. This is four miles into the trip and it is extremely quiet here. | ||
| At the 4.3 mile mark, a faint old jeep trail
to the left leads up to a 120 foot bluff (far right) containing Schwoon
cave, a spring, and 30 foot sinkhole. This was the highlight of my whole
trip. To get there, required another crossing of the dry Collins River bed
(right).
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| Below is Schwoon Spring (#6). I don't know who rigged the pipe you see in the picture, but it is obviously there to give campers and hikers an easy access to good spring water. | |||
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| I went just inside the cave to snap this amazing photo (below), which was as far as I was going to go by myself. I spent about 15 minutes at the spring and cave. Should've stayed longer, but being concerned with staying on schedule, I headed back to the main trail. | |||
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| At 4.4 miles, I reached the dreaded Connector Trail (#7), which for years required crossing the dry river bed again. Now there is a new suspension bridge, which I'm sure is nice to have after a big rain. There is evidence of recent flooding in this area. The elevation here is about 1000 feet, I have dropped about 800 feet so far on this trip. |  |
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| The Connector Trail turned out to be as rough as I was expecting. I had talked to very good sources and even a park ranger about this trail and I was hoping the trail wasn't as bad as they where making it out to be. It was. The trail is obviously not used as much as others, because it requires looking for the markings on the trees to stay on trail. | |||
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At 11:15, and 5 miles into the trip, I reached the trail down to the historic Cator Savage Cabin (#8). | ||
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| Just over 3 hours into the trip, I have reached what I consider to be the halfway point. It was very quiet and peaceful here. I had preplanned that if I could make it to this cabin, I would set up the tripod and take a picture of myself on the front porch. | |||
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| I spent about 30 minutes here to rest and eat my lunch. | |||
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| At 11:50, I packed everything up, and
continued my journey on the Connector Trail.
Concluded on the next page |
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