• Location: Walls of Jericho State Natural Area, on the Alabama-Tennessee border
• Maps: USGS Pitcher Ridge quad or TWRA map
• Access: From Tennessee, get on I-24 and head towards exit 127, which is south of Manchester. Take Exit 127 and head west on Hwy 64 towards Winchester for 18.4 miles, then south on Hwy 16 for 16.3 miles to the first trailhead (which will be marked by a brown “Walls of Jericho” sign on the west side of the highway), or 17.2 miles to the second (equine) trailhead, or 17.4 miles to the Alabama state line, or 18.6 miles to the third trailhead, which provides the shortest access to the Walls of Jericho canyon.
• Alabama TH: zone16 583932e 3870827n UTM NAD83
• Trail: From the Alabama TH, it’s 3.5 miles to the uppermost foot-access of the Turkey Creek Gorge (Walls of Jericho). From an initial elevation of 1800’, the trail initially heads downhill a series of switchbacks through a mature hardwood forest of hickory, tuliptree, red oak, white oak and blackgum for 2.4 miles to a log bridge over Hurricane Creek at 720’ elevation. From there, you follow Hurricane Creek’s west bank for a third of a mile to a backcountry campsite, which is conveniently located next to Clark Cemetery along Turkey Creek. The route then heads up Turkey Creek along the south side of the ever-deepening canyon for 0.7 miles, gaining 140’ elevation, to a nice waterfall and the end of any apparent trail. During low water, you can bushwhack up the stone channel of the canyon and clamor up a few dryfalls for a couple hundred meters (with ~60’ elevation gain) before reaching a deep plunge pool that would require technical climbing to get beyond. Cumulative elevation gain for a round trip is 1280’.
• Fees: None
• Dogs: No posted regulations. This seems like a great dog hike, and we saw several pooches loving it.
• Weather: Local forecast

We headed down the trail behind the tin-roofed info board, and were quickly under a canopy of yellowed mulberry leaves that shortly gave way to a much older canopy of oaks and hickories. Much discussion ensued about the various leaf shapes of the red oaks in the forest. There are northern red, southern red, black, scarlet and Nuttall, and all have leaf shapes that vary by textbook, but seem to overlap to a great extent in shape and size, especially when leaves from the lower portion of the tree are compared to the upper portion. In the case of southern red oak, if you hold up leaves from upper and lower canopy, you’d swear they were different trees. We encountered mockernut, pignut and shagbark hickories, the latter being most easily identified by virtue of it’s shaggy silver bark, and the former two most easily distinguished by the thickness of the nut husk, though where many hickories are growing close together, a nut on the ground may be hard to attribute to any particular specimen. Thus we passed away a mile or two, descending steadily through the forest, enjoying the early fall color in the red blackgums and yellowing maples. 

Reaching Hurricane Creek, we crossed over on a rickety-railed log bridge, then made our way up the obvious trail to Turkey Creek, where we passed by an empty backcountry camping area next to Clark Cemetery, ringed in by barbed wire. I've never seen a better-situated campsite, especially if camping with young, impressionable kids who could get scared out of their minds with just the right campfire stories incorporating yonder cemetary. Makes me chuckle to think on it. 

Ada was pleasant and mellow the entire time, and fell asleep at some point as we began ascending up Turkey Creek canyon, or what is melodramatically titled the Walls of Jericho. I always feel an urge to throw my voice down an octave when I say that: Walls of Jericho. See, you want to do it too, don't you? Shortly after the cemetery, we reached a fork in the trail, and took the left fork, which turned out to be a good move since the right fork apparently leads to the creek, and confusion (as demonstrated by a lost group of hikers deep in the gorge we passed on our way out). 

Shortly after the fork, we passed by the largest sycamore tree I’ve ever seen, easily surpassing 100” circumference. in deep shade, the route hugged the southern side of the canyon, gaining elevation above the trickling water in the creek below, and weaving among rocks and tuliptrees until it settled down to a series of rock ledges where water trickled over. Near the head of this feature, the canyon walls were bare and open, leading up several hundred feet to forested benches above. A deep pool of clear green-tinted water spanned the canyon, fed by a small waterfall from above. We stopped and I took off the baby pack, waking Ada up. We drank water and ate cookies by the edge of the pool, then I took only my camera and climbed up a rocky hill to the right of the falls by myself, since it initially appeared to be too tricky to take Ada with me. 

Above the falls, a large, wide canyon opened up, with an overhanging wall to the east. Fifty meters up-canyon, a sloping dryfall beckoned, and I climbed up the last few feet of rock to a narrower canyon of the same white rock, finely carved and sculpted by rusing water. The falls below were apparently entirely fed by springs, since the canyon above this point was entirely dry. I continued on, following the canyon upstream and uphill until I reached a deep plunge pool with a 30-foot wall beyond that could only be scaled by serious climbers (not me). I turned back, and returned to Andra and Ada, and entertained Ada while Andra checked out the canyon by herself, since the initial falls presented an obstacle one could not safely navigate while wearing a bulky baby carrier. 

After she returned, we headed on out, passing lots and lots of hikers along the way, ending up at the car at 2:00. The hike was pleasant, and not much like any other hike on the Cumberland Plateau. The real treat was the final few hundred meters of the canyon, where the deep white rock narrowed to a slender gorge of sinuously carved rock, forming a feature unique, in my experience, to the Cumberland Plateau.