Jacks River Falls

Sean Gregory

Copyright © Sean Gregory Sean Gregory

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The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

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Cover design by: Sean Gregory

Jacks River Falls

Fall, 2020

Several of my coworkers and I were sitting in the employee lounge for lunch one day last week discussing things we missed from our younger years. There were recollections of parties, trips to the beach in Florida, the Bahama's or Mexico, to the Grand Canyon, or to Europe. From the stage at "the 'Grand 'ol 'Opry to the mosh pit at Offspring and 311 concerts, our interests were as diverse as they were descriptive of our individual personalities.

I was quite active in my youth with my main life goal at the time being a desire to do and experience everything I possibly could before I die. I've made a pretty good run of it, too so I was able to relate some pretty entertaining anecdotes, some flattering, some rather embarrassing but all were given and received in good humor. I've paid, actually I'm still paying, a pretty steep price for my adrenaline fired adventures with knee, ankle, hip, back and shoulder injuries and their several related surgeries and other medical procedures to mitigate the pain. Only a few of which could be deemed successes. Years of Football, motocross, rock climbing (and falling), mountain biking and other ways of finding the next adrenaline fix all leave their marks on the body. Some of these adventures will play into a future story or two, I'm sure.

One of my contributions happened when I was twenty-two years old and working at another agency. I'm afraid this story won't be quite as exciting as most stories on this site, simply because it is, on the whole, a (mostly) true depiction of what actually happened one summer weekend in 1989 in the North Georgia mountains and isn’t quite as prurient as most of the others you’ll find here.

I don't remember everybody's names (and that’s irrelevant anyway because I’ve changed all the names involved in this recounting), but the events were pleasantly etched into my memory, and they occurred pretty much the way I’ve written them.

Summer, 1992

"Come on, I'll show you the way up to the top ledge."

A group of nine college students had joined my two hiking buddies and me along with about a half-dozen other transient hikers at Jacks River Falls the Friday after Independence Day in 1989. The river begins in the Jacks River Gorge in North Georgia and flows north into the Alaculsey Valley across the Tennessee state line. The falls is the most popular spot in the Cohutta Wilderness and is a prime swimming area if you're willing to undergo the effort to hike in to reach it. The Jacks River Trail begins about eight and a half miles and twenty river crossings upstream from the falls and terminates about eight and a quarter miles and twenty-two river crossings downstream. The trail meanders through some of the most scenic and beautiful country you could ever hope to experience but is not suited for the lighthearted, it can be a pretty strenuous trek and some of the 42 separate river crossings can be quite difficult, especially when the water level is up after a rain. There are, however, a few other routes to the falls that are considerably easier than the almost 17milelong Jacks.

The first route is the Penitentiary Branch Trail which covers about eight miles from the parking area at Dally Gap.