We’re headed up to Owens and Ricketts Mountains again, for past adventures on these two mountains in the Ozark National Forest, see: (71 Owens and Ricketts Mountains), and (89 Owens Point). We park just off Ricketts Mountain Road at the west end of Ricketts Mountain, calling this a ‘parking spot’
isn’t fair as it's so much more. A special place, besides parking it’s
also a camping, picnic, rock climbing and scenic area. For us though, today it’s just a parking
spot, we cross the road for Ricketts Knob.
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special parking area on Ricketts Mt.
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Right across the road is a desperation campsite, out
the back a good trail goes about 150 feet to the grave of Margaret
Nichols, who was in a wagon on her way up the mountain to Ricketts Mountain
Cemetery for burial. A blizzard hit making it impossible to continue further, so members
of the funeral party dug a grave and buried Margaret here at the side of the
road, where she remains to this day.
Although her husband John is buried on up the road just over a
mile at the cemetery. |
approaching Ricketts Knob
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Another 150 feet from the gravesite the trail arrives at the base of
Ricketts Knob. We head west, counterclockwise around Ricketts Knob, the trail soon
fades away. In about 100 yards is a nice bluffline break to the top, we pass on the climb even though there are some nice vistas up on top. Along the bluffline just over 100 yards
we come to the Training Shelter, a nice shelter cave maybe 100 feet long which is often used by rock climbers for practice.
We spot lots of white chalk in handholds all across
the bluff above the shelter.
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Training Shelter
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We soon
come to another smaller shelter and 100 feet past that, a steeper bluffline
break which involves some climbing to reach the top. Maybe 50 feet from the break is a tiny
shelter, we continue from here but soon come to a dead-end. Back near the tiny shelter is
an easy descent to where we need to be to continue. Now as we curve around to the east and the south side of Ricketts Knob
the bluffline is much taller, I think
much prettier as well.
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Piggyback Rock
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Here along the south facing bluffline are blooming pink azalea
bushes everywhere, and their putting on quite a show both visually and olfactory with showy pink blooms and a sweet scent. In the next quarter mile, we pass nice small shelters and a few interesting rock formations
including Piggyback Rock, a protruding crag high above with a large rock
sitting on the top, riding ‘piggyback’. Past Piggyback Rock is a good-sized shelter
called Rocky Bottom, here we find rock benches and the perfect place for a
break.
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interesting passage
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Another 100 yards brings us to a descent to a lower level just as the bluffline swings to the north (east facing). On the way down this
break on our left is a short dead end bear crack, then a little further down we
exit the descent back to the west and a very nice shelter area with lots of
fallen rock and flowing moss hanging from ledges all around. A nice little side trip could continue west
from here at this lower elevation, but we return to finish the descent and are
now heading north.
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stone benches in Rocky Bottom
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Here along the east facing bluffline the undergrowth is much thicker and
everything a little wetter, along with that comes considerably rougher hiking thanks to the undergrowth and slick
rock. We soon pass under a huge rock
overhang then maybe 100 feet later a long green dripping crevice in the bluff
and just a few feet north of the crevice a long precariously balanced rock
protrudes off the top of the bluff.
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azalea up high on rugged bluff
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From
here it’s a little over 300 yards back to the trail where we started at the
base of Ricketts Knob. Along the way are
a couple smaller shelters and interesting blufflines, also more rough hiking
conditions. We try to stay close to the
bluffline where the hiking is a little less ‘choked’ with undergrowth, and
we’re soon back on the trail heading downhill back to that very special parking
spot. Ricketts Knob is a nice easy hike, and we had a great time, only 1.2 miles with 101 feet of altitude gain.
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Pink Azalea
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We drive up Ricketts Mountain Road (NC 6385) to go see the cemetery since
we’re this close. A little steep and
rocky at first it soon tops out as a nice smooth dirt road, but then we come to
a huge mud hole with deep ruts where it looks like someone
was stuck. I pull off the road as best
as I can and park here, we’ll walk to the cemetery. It’s only 0.3 miles further to Ricketts
Mountain Cemetery we pass a couple more mud holes along the way.
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lower level with moss flows
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This cemetery isn’t big maybe 40
graves, it is well maintained and has a chain link fence around it. We find John Nichols headstone, he
died on New Year’s Day 1885. Margaret’s stone back down the road was added to her gravesite recently but doesn’t provide much information,
just stating she was born and died in the 1800’s, so the mystery remains: who
died first Margaret or John? Anyway, we
pay our respects and walk back to the car, this side trip (the walk, not
the drive) was 0.6 miles and 39 feet of altitude gain.
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dead-end bear crack
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Driving back down NC 6385, we spot an ATV trail heading north
quite steeply up the hill on our right, we decide to check it out. Not knowing what lies ahead I park here at
the bottom on the ATV trail, as we climb the steep slope to the top. At the top is a small slightly overgrown
parking spot, this is as far as I would attempt to go in the truck. Although the trail levels out here on the ridge as it heads west, it’s just too narrow as it winds through the
trees to drive anything wider than an ATV, but it makes a nice easy hiking
trail.
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long precarious hanging rock above
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We soon pass through a couple flat open areas that could be turned into campsites, then north is a small rock patio with views down into the hiking and rock-climbing area underneath. Back on the
ATV trail we continue west a short way to a long bear crack with fantastic
turtle rock patios on both sides. This bear crack goes down to the beautiful and very special Ricketts Mountain
camping, climbing, exploring, picnicking, hiking and of course parking area. Back we go, the way we came, this little side
trip was just 0.27 miles with 45 feet of altitude gain.
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Ricketts Mountain Cemetery
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We drive on, about a half mile down NC 6385 on the right is an old road
FR 92151A, we pull in and park near a locked gate. No longer on Ricketts Mountain, here we are
at the east end of Owens Mountain. We
head around the gate and on down the old road to the west, everything’s green damp and lush here along the north face of the mountain.
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Margaret Nichols near Ricketts Knob
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After only 100 yards or so we leave the road
at an obvious trail to the left up a little road bank then uphill maybe 200
feet to the base of Owens Rock. The
trail up is steep but easy to follow, apparently this route is well
used. But here at the base of Owens Rock
the trail fades out, we head around the Rock in a clockwise direction.
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John Nichols RIP
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Owens Rock we all assume is really big, well it’s beyond ‘big’ lots of
rocks we encounter during a hike are described as being as big as a bus or a
house, Owens Rock is much bigger than that, it’s enormous. This apartment building size rock sits out away from the bluff all by itself and is surrounded by a sea of green ferns. The Rock itself is a rock climbers dream with
shelters, crevices, rock falls and overhangs all around.
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at the eastside crevice
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Here on the east side of Owens Rock is a rock fall that has created a long steep crevice up to a flat ledge under a shelter where some vultures are making quite the racket.
Around the corner we're between Owens
Rock to the north and the bluffline of Owens Mountain to the south, this is The
Courtyard covered in thick ferns and maybe 50 feet wide.
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approaching Owens Rock
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I head west back to a corner where the bluffline makes a 90° turn north, in the corner is a short
narrow crevice cave. Looking back
east, the bluff here is very tall smooth and straight, with climber's bolts
leading to the top. Continuing through the fern gardens of the Courtyard around to the north then east we head slightly downhill through a muddy area hidden in the thick ferns
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in The Corner
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Up above us on Owens Rock is a spine with climbing
bolts under a huge overhang where the bolts continue up to the top. We're now back on the north side of the Rock
and another 100 feet brings us back to the trail down to the road and the
parking area beyond. Owens Rock is a fantastic place to see, explore and even climb, and so easy to get to. Our roundtrip hike to Owens Rock was just 0.5 miles and 96
feet of altitude gain.
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north side of Owens Rock
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It was a full day, but we didn’t really hike very much, our total
hiking today adds up to just 2.57 miles with 281 feet of altitude gain. A truly great time was had by all, it’s no
wonder Ricketts and Owens Mountains are two of our favorites, and we will be
back since there are still many more areas to explore.
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at Owens Rock
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Ricketts Knob/Owens Rock: Statistics Chart 93 For detailed directions to Ricketts Mountain see: (71 Owens and Ricketts Mountains). From the parking/camping area on Ricketts Mountain to Ricketts Mountain Cemetery is just under a mile further up Ricketts Mountain Road on the right. While the parking area for Owens Rock is back down Ricketts Mountain Road about 0.3 miles to the turn right (northwest) on FR 92151A then about 100 yards to the locked gate. |
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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