A little late with the response.. just seeing this topic. When I ride that area I always do one "triangle" or the other: Neel's/Wolf Pen/Woody or Unicoi/Jack's/Hogpen. I usually choose the latter, and more often than not, go up Brasstown Bald, too. What can I say - I'm stupid. When I do that loop, I usually start at the top of Unicoi since it's the closest to Helen (food/beverages afterward). But you can park at the top of any of the three since there are trailheads and gravel lots. I've done that loop in both directions and don't really have a preference as far as difficulty goes, but I think counter-clockwise is the nicer ride. Climbing that steeper side of Hogpen is a real challenge tho.

When doing Neel's/Wolfpen/Woody I usually start at the little trailhead/parking lot that's about a half mile below the top of Neel's to the north (can't think of the name, but it's a gravel loop on the left when going downhill towards Vogel State Park). As Menel said, riding from Turner's works great too.