Backpacker Magazine – June 1999

Tennessee/Georgia's Big Frog Wilderness

Why choose between breezy peaks and cool streams when you can have both at Big Frog Wilderness?

by: Hiram Rogers and Jean Gauger

Backpackers in the southern Appalachians usually have one of two locales in mind when they head out the door: summits or stream bottoms. One features views, refreshing breezes, and the satisfaction of a worthy mountain climbed. The other offers swimming holes, lush plant life, and the meditative sound of water flowing across stone. It's usually an either/or proposition, unless you're heading for Tennessee's Big Frog Wilderness.

A recent visit found us camped beside a small spring near the summit of Big Frog Mountain, our sweaty approach-hike a distant memory as we relaxed in the cool evening air. The next morning, we descended to Rough Creek through blooms of rue anemones, hepatica, trillium, galax, trailing arbutus, and other woodland flowers. At water's edge we soaked our tired feet, shaded from the sun by the rhododendrons. Like we said, Big Frog offers the best of both worlds.

Solitude-a quality you expect but too rarely find in the East's wilderness areas-is the other defining characteristic of Big Frog. Visit adjacent Cohutta Wilderness, just across the Georgia line, on a summer weekend, and you'll see what we mean. Together, the Big Frog and Cohutta form the largest unbroken wilderness in the southern Appalachians.

Trails in Big Frog are rugged, unsigned, and minimally maintained. The Forest Service rates all but one as "low use," the exception being the long-distance Benton MacKaye. Hitch a ride on the Benton MacKaye and swing back on the Big Frog Trail to create a 13-mile loop that showcases the Big Frog Wilderness at its best: knife-edge ridges, shady pine forests, rhododendron tunnels, and the prospect of encounters with bears, boars, and wild turkeys.

The native Cherokee had another animal in mind when they named Big Frog Mountain. To the tribe, the frog symbolized spring renewal. As you divide time between water and summits, you'll grow to appreciate the amphibious metaphor.

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