Trip 1 Backpacking Citico Wilderness

The most beautiful spot in the world! This is a scene on the North Fork trail between the 8th and 9th crossing.

This was taken from the trail and shows the North Fork in low water.

Here's a fotog of Uncle Fungus(tipi walter)walking up the South Fork trail as it's about to merge with the footbridge of the North Fork Citico trail.

TRIP 1 November 12-15 2001

With my old 1984 truck I drove to Warden's Field, a large car campiong area on Citico Creek by a low water bridge. From there several wilderness foot trails began and it was a perfect place to begin a backpacking trip. The Citico Wilderness is mountainous country with several pristine creeks dividing the ridges and going from around 1600 feet in elevation at Warden's Field all the way to over 5000 feet beyond the headwaters of its creeks. The main creeks in the Citico are the North Fork, the South Fork, Mill Branch and Crowders Branch.

My first trip started on the North Fork trail and took me up past seven crossings where I spent my first night at a little pulloff camping spot on the left. The next day I continued up river and passed two more major crossings and then reached a portion of the trail known for its wild, rugged and brushy nature. It's not for the faint hearted as the trail crosses the creek 15 more times and seems to disappear here and there.

After a serious workout the trail tops out on a long north-south ridge called the Fodderstack(#95)at a place called Cherry Log Gap. Here I turned left and went north to another gap called Glenn where I found a great campsite south of the gap in a grove of massive hemlocks. On my last day I retraced my route and fell off the mountain all the way back to the truck and out.