Penitentiary Branch Trail
A short connector down to the Jacks River, from Hemp Top Trail.
- Distance
- 3.6 mi one way
- Elevation gain
- Not recorded
- Trail type
- Point to Point
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Crossings
- No crossings recorded
- Best season
- Year round.
Wilderness status
Inside Cohutta Wilderness
Bicycles
Bicycles are prohibited on this trail. Mechanized transport, including mountain bikes, is banned in designated wilderness under federal law by the Wilderness Act of 1964. This is enforced by the Forest Service. Do not ride here.
The trail
Penitentiary Branch is a connector, not a loop. It drops off Hemp Top Trail down to the Jacks River in about three and six tenths miles, and it is the way in for people who want the river without spending the day in it, following the branch down through hemlock and laurel to the main corridor.
The name is old and nobody agrees on where it came from. Most people walk it as one leg of a longer loop with Hemp Top and the Jacks River Trail, a combination that runs around thirteen miles total and shows up on hiking apps as its own named route. That combined figure is not this trail's own length.
Marquee feature
Descent to the Jacks River without the crossings
Getting there
Forest Service roads to the Cohutta trailheads are gravel, seasonally gated, and often without cell service. Download directions before you leave pavement.
Access roads and winter closures
Open trailhead in Google MapsLoops that use this trail
- Hemp Top and Penitentiary Branch
13.0 mile loop
Stay near the trailheads
Sherpa Camp — a cabin at the edge of the wilderness.
The drive in from Atlanta or Chattanooga is long enough that most people are better off sleeping near the gate than starting at 4 a.m. Sherpa Camp is a small cabin on Holly Creek, on the western edge of the Cohutta Wilderness, about 25 minutes from Ellijay. It sleeps five, with a covered porch, a firepit, and a creek. Cell service ends before you get there.
See Sherpa Camp