Piney River

June 21-22, 2008 - Piney River - 9 Miles (Through)

Piney River is a former Bowater Pocket Wilderness which is now owned by the state of Tennessee. There is no ranger station on site but registration is required. Registration can be accomplished by telephone at 423-566-2253 or on the web here. At the time of our trip there was no fee associated with camping overnight.

There are plenty of campsites along the trail and I created a waypoint for each that I saw. These are available for download from WikiLoc. The best site by far is marked "Logging Camp" (16 S 688929 3952030) with "Camp 1" (16 S 689597 3952990) coming in second place. Both Logging Camp and Camp 1 are located along the river but Logging Camp is more or less at the half way point, it is located away from the main trail, and someone has made some nice stone chairs along the fire ring (it's the little touches that make the difference). There are actually two camp sites in the vicinity of the grid that I've provided. One sits in the shadow of a large stone wall. The other one is located south of the stone wall and is closer to the river. This last one is the nicer one.

I would call this a moderate trail due to the steep climb that we encountered at the beginning of the hike. Beyond that it isn't too bad. The trail generally follows the river the majority of the time and even crosses it several times. However, you are not always traveling at river level. If you start on the east side, don't expect to hit water until you arrive at the Piney River Bridge (assuming McDonald Branch is dry).

Piney River has the natural assets to be a great trail but there are a few things that hold it back. First off, both ends of this trail have picnic tables and large parking areas. Based off the amount of trash located at the eastern trail head, it's clear that the locals don't value this asset as they aught to. Seeing a trashed trail head doesn't make one feel great about leaving a car unattended overnight. The second problem involves the trail markings. We started at the eastern trail head and moved west. Near the eastern entrance there is a sign that shows that the main trail has green metal blazes while the spurs use a different color metal disk. Within the first mile we ended up taking an unintentional detour along an overlook spur (located at 16 S 691405 3954390) all because it prominently displayed one of those green markers. You find very quickly that these metal blazes are not commonly used. Instead, white paint is the order of the day. The third and final problem that I have with Piney River is that at the time of our trip there were several large fallen trees that obstructed the trail and made it difficult to pass. Many of these should be cut away.

The problems listed here are fairly small and the trail is a pretty decent one. The best time to go is probably after some rainstorms. The river was very low when we went and I always think a lively river is prettier than a dried up one.

There are a couple of good sources for more information on this trail. Hiking Tennessee by Kelley Roark provides a writeup on this trail. Cumberlandtrail.org/piney.html
also has directions and some simple, visually appealing maps.

I have placed my tracks and all my waypoints here on WikiLoc.