This was a hike to the restored Burnt Granite Trail, which goes around the east side of Burnt Granite. This area burned extensively in the 1930’s or so and is very rocky. The area had lots of rhodies! From reports, it is a popular cougar spot as well, since they seem to like the cover the rhodies provide. We didn’t see any cougars on our trip, however. The weather was cool, and a little foggy-actually a lot foggy at times, but still a good day. When we were at Tarzan Springs, there was a point we couldn’t even see across the meadow due to the fog! Due to the fog, we didn’t get to see any views from the top, but it is an interesting trail once you get up on top.

The beginning of the hike starts up an old cat/spur road and is rather steep, but then the grade levels out a bit. The lower section wasn’t too interesting, just some scrubby pine and lots and lots of rhodies. After you get to the mountain, you encounter a couple of big rock slides, which I’m guessing would yield some spectacular views on a better day, but we couldn’t see much. We hiked out to the other side where the trail pretty much disappears in an old clearcut (we didn’t take it down to the other end) and turned around. We hiked cross country up to the peak of Burnt Granite, looking for the location of the old lookout. All we found was some old phone line that looked like it was used as a guy wire for the pole and a place where a pole was for the old phone line.

Nothing that looked like a foundation or anything, but I don’t think we actually found where the actual lookout was.

After trying to find the lookout, we came back down and took the side trail to Tarzan Springs. I guess this is considered the beginning of the Tumble Creek trail. It went down to a road, which we walked a bit to find Tarzan Springs/Meadow.

I wonder why they called it Tarzan Springs? Not a whole lot to see there, but was interesting to see nonetheless. An interesting day, but one that requires a do over on a better/clearer day.