090513 Hemlock Bluff Trail, Andersonville TN

Mac Post and I finally got around to exploring this really nice lollypop trail. The advertising on it says it's 6 miles; the trail head marker says 5 miles; with our backtracking, we put in 8.9 miles, with a 1280' elevation gain/loss. That must be why we were tired.
So, the trail is in a TVA Small Wild Area, on a peninsula, in Union County. TVA has done an exceptional job of blazing trees and putting up signs. The only trouble that we had finding our way was when we seemed to exit the trail, after hiking clock-wise. There were 2 signs facing away from us. There was one sign across from where we exited that indicated "trail" with an arrow; however, that area looked like anything but a trail. We tried it. We must have gone 1/2 - 3/4 of a mile, then backtracked. So, we went left, which came to a dead-end. Why waste the experience - take pictures - since we were on the East end of the peninsula.
We back-tracked and tried the area across from the 2 backward-facing signs - again. This time we kept on going. There were lots of wildflowers, some we had not seen before. Of course, Mac had brought a wildflower book and researched each flower as we went.
Finally, we came to the lollypop stick, turned left, and back to the cars in about another 1/2 mile. We were off trail at about 5pm. A very long day, but it was a great experience.