I discovered this trail last year and have almost hiked it on a couple of occasions, but there has always been something foreboding about it to me. Enough of that, I'm going to hike the Sourwood Trail today. The name was strange to me and I had asked some friends about it. It turns out there is a tree called the sourwood that blooms with white flowers in mid-June, which is why I chose this day to finally complete this short trail.
I arrived at the parking area and road-walked a short distance to the beginning of the well-marked trail. Some trail reports that I had read mention the trail being overgrown, but at least the early part of it seems to be pretty well maintained. There is a lot of poison ivy though, which makes me glad I wore long pants and a long-sleeve shirt. It's scorcher though with temps in the low 90's and humidity to match. This is actually one of the hottest days I've experienced since moving to Atlanta nearly five years ago. Well, I'm here now and I'm going to finish this trail regardless of the conditions.
The trail sort of meanders through the woods and all the while I'm on the lookout for sourwood trees, of which I never find any. After about a mile, the trail takes a downturn and descends to Nancytown Creek, which it follows for a short distance to Nancytown Falls, which is actually a pretty nice waterfall, comprised of a number of large granite boulders in the creek with water cascading over them approximately thirty-five feet tall.
Heading back out the way I came in, I complete the loop by traversing a very narrow trail through the lush greenery and then finally connecting up with a gravel road that leads back to the trailhead. It's unfortunate that I never found the sourwood trees, but the waterfall was nice and I'm glad to have knocked this one off of my "to do" list. Total distance was only about 3.4 miles, but the heat and humidity made it seem much harder than it should have been.
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