Tearbritches Trail
A short, punishing drop from the ridge to the Conasauga River.
Photo by Thomas Brent Browder
- Distance
- 6.5 mi round trip
- Elevation gain
- 2,526 ft
- Trail type
- Out & Back
- Difficulty
- Strenuous
- Crossings
- 4 crossings
- Best season
- Spring through fall. The trailhead road closes in winter, about January 1 to early March.
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
Twenty five hundred feet of gain in six and a half miles tells you what this one is. Tearbritches falls off the ridge toward the Conasauga with very little patience about it, and the name is a fair warning about the brush in the growing season.
Going down is hard on the knees and going back up is hard on everything else. Most people use it as the fast way into the river corridor for an overnight rather than as a day hike, and that is the right use for it.
Marquee feature
The steepest sustained descent to the Conasauga
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
- Tearbritches, Conasauga River, and Chestnut Lead
10.5 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