Hiking to the Heart of the Sipsey Wilderness; Ship Rock and Needle's Eye

In this video, Jacob and I lead a group of friends on their first ever hike to the Ship Rock and Needle’s Eye in the Heart of the Sipsey Wilderness. We started at the Thompson Creek Trailhead and hiked south down Trial 206 through beautiful forest along the edge of Thompson Creek. This route has very little elevation gain but passes through a variety of forest and canyon environments.
We passed by Auburn Falls, which is dry this time of year, and arrived at the amazing Needle’s Eye which is a hole in the canyon wall created by an earthquake in 1909 that you can pass through to go from the Thompson Creek Canyon to the Sipsey Fork Canyon. Ship Rock is right adjacent to this, but is hard to see with the leaves all still on the trees. Later in the fall or in the winter, it is also a dramatic site as you come down the trail.
We then proceeded down to the Sipsey Fork Rapids where we enjoyed eating our lunch on the huge rocks above the babbling stream.
After hanging out at the Sipsey Fork for a time, we started back by a different path, circling around the stern of Ship Rock, past many good camp sites, and then returning back up Thompson Creek on the path we came in on.
This is a fairly easy 6 mile (9.65 km) round trip hike and we had beautiful, if still warm, late October weather. I highly recommend this route to the Heart of Sipsey if you want to get out and experience some lovely canyon country.

The Sipsey Wilderness (#sipseywilderness) lies within the Bankhead National Forest in northwestern Alabama. Sipsey was the first designated wilderness area in Alabama in 1975 and now encompasses about 24,922 acres (10,086 ha). Rivers and streams have carved canyons and valleys in the limestone and sandstone of the local plateau resulting in a wide range of micro-climates in a short hiking distance, some amazing natural features, a few historic sites, as well as endless nooks and crannies to explore. Wilderness camping, building campfires, hunting, and fishing are permitted. Drones are not allowed. Sipsey is a "Leave no Trace" area (https://lnt.org/why/7-principles/) with, despite appearances, no designated fire rings, camp sites or facilities. Unfortunately, there are many traces of the hundreds who hike and camp here every year. Please be considerate and do not add to the already extensive damage in this special place.

My custom maps of the Sipsey Wilderness: https://drive.google.com/drive/folder...

My other videos of the Sipsey Wilderness:
   • Sipsey Wilderness  

Trail info: https://www.alltrails.com/explore/tra...

Equipment:
Camera: GoPro Hero12 Black: https://gopro.com/en/us/shop/cameras/...

Title card music by Lobo-Loco: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lob...

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