March 17-19, 2026

Well, I tried. Both trails are National Recreation Trails deep within the Cherokee National Forest.

The western four miles of the 18-ish mile John Muir NRT are well used, well maintained, and accessible by regular roads. The eastern three miles no longer exist as a trail given the tall saplings growing in the old trail bed and no signs of maintenance. The new eastern terminus sees some regular use, likely by folks who park by the road and walk along the river for a while. If you walk more than a few miles, the trail starts to get covered in vegetation. I think if one were determined one could probably figure out the whole thing, but I am no longer into bushwhacking unmaintained trails.

I tried to access the middle of the trail where it crosses forest roads, but the forest roads were deteriorated with tons of deep ruts and large embedded pointy rocks, and I reached a point where I feared my car would get stuck.

Warriors Passage Trail looks well maintained, the little I did of it. The issue was the forest roads getting to the trailheads. Old Furnace Road (FR76) became more and more eroded as I drove, and it was very narrow with steep drop-offs. I admit I thought about crying as I drove for over 2 miles at 5mph hoping my car wouldn’t slide off the mountain. The trailhead had a narrow place to park on the drop-off side. I carefully parked but there wasn’t room for anyone to easily get by on the road. The entire situation was just too narrow and eroded. I hiked a mile down the very well-maintained trail and then turned around and came back to my car. Kept worrying someone was going to get stuck trying to pass my vehicle.

The other end of Warriors Passage is near the top of a mountain along even more narrow and eroded forest roads. I tried to drive up there to hike the trail from the other direction, but my will gave out after I encountered more narrow eroded and rutted road with more steep drop-offs. Oh well, I gave both these trails a good faith effort.