Waterfalls Everywhere - Jones Run - Doyles River Loop

On Saturday, Chris, Tom and I managed to finally get out for our first hike of the year. We chose the Jones Run/Doyle’s River Loop as our hike, a 6.5 mile effort that includes three waterfalls ranging from 28 to 63 feet – although since both streams tumble and cascade through gorges, you could say there are a lot more waterfalls than these…there are plenty of smaller ones, I’ve included photos of two of them. Andy, usually our fourth, wasn’t able to join us this time due to a soccer injury.

While we didn't find this hike too challenging, the Park guide describes the round trip as moderately difficult.  There is an altitude change of more than 1,000 feet on this loop as you descend into the gorge and then climb out.  I've kept the rating as a moderate day hike in the label for this post.

The first photo above is of the Jones Run Falls, at 42 feet. As you can see from the map (source is the NPS, this is a GIS product my neighbor Dan worked on, by the way!) – the Jones Run Falls occurs about halfway through the route we took. There was a mile on the AT, then a steady descent to this first one. When I first did this part of the trail last September, there was barely a trickle here – the rocks were slick and wet, but there wasn’t enough to even call this a falls!

At the starting point (photo of Tom and Chris posing by the sign), there are traces of the old farmstead here, including a decaying split rail fence and some apple trees, which were blossoming on Saturday. We met some people in the parking lot who were taking the reverse route than our approach, in fact, most of the people we met on the trail were coming from the opposite direction. There is also a picture of me at the Jones Run Falls trailhead – the PATC does a great job with maps and orientation on these trails in the Park’s Southern District.

I will post more on this hike tomorrow. But I’ll close today’s entry with the table of readings I took with the Pathfinder, tracing the altitude changes on the hike. I still have some work to do on mastering this tool, but I had some fun using the watch along the way on this effort.