You don’t get too many days in January forecast to reach the upper
sixties, so we jumped at the chance to get out and go hiking. The Moccasin Creek area is remote with a lot to offer anyone willing to make the journey. Since the area isn't really on the ‘tourist circuit’
and it’s not the easiest place to get to, we weren’t really surprised that we
never saw a single soul while hiking today.
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Moccasin Creek confluence with Indian Creek
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For us the best route into the area takes us down
Dare Mine Road all the way to the bottom at Indian Creek near the confluence
with Moccasin Creek. We park right on Forest
Service Road 1806B, which is on the right just after Dare Mine Road reaches the
bottom of a long hill. First, we'll head north to check out Little Still Hollow, we hike up FR1806B, which is more like a trail than a road and right away come alongside an old rock wall.
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in Little Still Hollow
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Soon we leave the road and after crossing a little side drainage begin
hiking up Little Still Hollow. Literally, we hike right up the creek. Little Still’s creek is smooth solid bedrock, and here near its downstream end pretty wide (about 20 feet across). Today the creek has very little flowing water, but it is wet and pretty slick.
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small creek near Shop Bluff
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We pick our way upstream trying to stay on
dry rock, but before getting back down to the road I slip and fall
twice. I’m okay, no injury to report just wet pants and bruised ego. Along the way a couple times we hear flowing water running underground. The creek obviously has some underground passages just below the surface.
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in Little Still Hollow
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It’s
real cool to hear rushing water hidden from sight, this is the first place we
have encountered this. Just past a side creek coming in from our right (south) Still Hollow narrows considerably and begins to look more like the typical small creeks you see in the Ozarks. Also becoming a lot more difficult to hike.
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bedrock Little Still Hollow
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We get up on the bank to continue
upstream, but the undergrowth soon convinces us it’s time to turn around and
head back. We had hoped to reach a wet
weather waterfall that I estimate to be less than 100 yards farther, it
probably doesn’t have any flow today anyway, but that gives us another reason to come back someday. |
old road with rock wall
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Back at the car we drive down Dare Mine Road a quarter mile further to
Moccasin Creek. Some maps show the road
continues across the creek to Maupin Flat Road. Not today, the ford across Moccasin Creek
is washed out, lots of large sharp rocks are hidden in the raging white
water. Just below the ford Moccasin
Creek flows into Indian Creek, which is wide deep and fast. We back up a little and turn into a muddy camping area and
park on some dry high ground. |
Moccasin Creek crossing
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We head east, hiking on the old road that follows Moccasin Creek
upstream. Again, this road is more of a
trail but does show some evidence of past ATV use. The trail stays pretty close to the bank of
Moccasin Creek on the right, and we soon come to a rock wall on our left, we
seem to find these old rock walls everywhere we go. Way back when these places were first settled the pioneer families would clear a field for crops, first they would remove trees, then the larger rocks.
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good trail along Moccasin Creek
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Often these rocks would get stacked along the
road creating a fence to help keep their livestock from wandering away. Anyway, this particular wall must have taken
years to build, as it is one of the longest we've ever seen, easily a quarter
mile long. Not far past the south end of
the rock wall is a low overhanging bluff left of the trail, beyond here the old
road starts gradually turning to the east.
After another quarter mile is a huge boulder between the road and
Moccasin Creek, just past this boulder the trail swings to the right and
crosses the creek.
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creek waders
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Moccasin Creek is a good-sized stream, where the old road crosses, it's close to 30 feet
wide and looks to be two feet deep, or more. I have learned the hard way that stream
crossings are always deeper than they look.
Today we brought along our new ‘creek waders’: waterproof covers that slip
over your shoes. If the creek is more than about a foot deep the waters coming in over
the top, we scout along shore a little
and find a spot that appears to be
only 3 or 4 inches deep. The waders work
out fine, we make it across with dry feet. |
the old Sommers place
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After crossing Moccasin Creek, the road curves to the south as we head
uphill in a little side drainage, then east where the road levels out and there's a
house on the right. The house doesn’t
appear to have been lived in recently, but it is not some old homestead in
ruin. The property is fenced and clearly
marked as ‘private property’, so we stay on the road and let only our ‘eyes’ do
some trespassing.
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Moccasin Creek at a good place to cross
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Just back 10 yards or
so west, past the corner of the fence line is a good trail that heads back
south down to that side drainage we were just hiking along. This trail heads upstream and in 100 yards or so we come to Shop Bluff which is maybe 40 or 50 feet high on
the east side of the creek. At the base
of the bluff the creek has eroded back under the cliff creating an impressive
shelter.
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moss and rust stains
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In this shelter (legend has it)
there once was a blacksmith shop along with other business endeavors, including in
just another 100 feet a moonshine still operation. Not much evidence remains of any ‘business endeavors’ and would probably be hard to locate, the small spring in the
back at the base of the shelter helps to locate where the still may have been. This area around Shop Bluff Grotto is beautiful, like a little hidden
oasis. We hang out a while just soaking
it in. |
under Shop Bluff
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After visiting Shop Bluff, we head back to the car the way we came, an
‘in and out’ hike. In and out at Little
Still Hollow was right at 2 miles, and Shop Bluff 4 miles. Neither one had much elevation gain, 120 feet total at Little Still, and 90 feet at Shop Bluff. What a great way to spend a gorgeous winter
day, warm, sunny and easy hiking with lots of interesting things to see all
along the way. |
upstream at Shop Bluff
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Little Still Hollow: Statistics Chart 38A Shop Bluff: Statistics Chart 38B This area can be reached down Page Road or Dare Mine Road. Dare Mine Road the better of the two is off Highway 7 about 3.5 miles south of Rotary Ann rest area, or 5.5 miles north of the entrance to Moccasin Gap Recreation Area. Page Road is a closer option for those coming up from the south, at about 2.3 miles north of Moccasin Gap.
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base map before fair use alterations is property of USFS Forest Service-
-licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 U.S. License |
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