Sugar Fingers (Part 4 of 4)

On our July hike up the largest of the Sugar Fingers on Sugarland Mountain, Greg Harrell stayed ahead of me, as he usually does, but not too far ahead because he knew that I was really struggling, possibly because he may have heard a little whining from me at some point during the day. Sometimes he was close enough that I didn’t even have to think about what route to take up and over the cliffs and outcrops. I’d just follow his route. Other times, he was far enough ahead that I didn’t know what route he had taken, which was fine. Blazing one’s own path is a fun part of these sorts of trips, if you don’t allow yourself to get spooked by the uncertainty of the challenge. This was one of those trips in which you couldn’t possibly get lost, but you could run into a dead-end every now and then by scrambling up a steep rock face maybe ten or fifteen feet high, only to realize that you can’t finish the last ten feet due to lack of handholds and footholds. You also can’t go easily back down because you can’t see the footholds that you used on your way up. In those moments, you aren’t stuck between a rock and a hard place; you are stuck between a rock and open air… which is just as bad, or maybe worse. It should go without saying that we try to avoid such places. It should also go without saying that those places can’t always be avoided.

This trip was also an adventure because this was all new territory. For the last two or three years, most of my off-trail hiking had been on old, favorite routes – Drinkwater Pool, Trout Branch, Styx Branch, Cat Stairs. Some of these routes are ones that we discovered and created from scratch. Others were old routes from previous generations that were passed on to us, like a torch, which we would pass on to others. I love those standard, familiar trips, but it was good to experience the excitement and uncertainty of terra incognita again, helping to create new paths out of thin air, rock, and dirt.

At the end of our nine-hour day we looked like a couple of coal miners at the end of a long day underground, or maybe chimney sweeps emerging from the fireplace… plus an acre of waist-deep stinging nettle at the end of the trip. My day was miserable. I vowed never to hike again. But now that a few days have passed and it appears that I may live, I’m reconsidering my vow. I may be getting too old for this stuff, but I’ll probably revisit a few of the other Sugar Fingers this fall, when temperatures are friendlier, and I have less grass to cut, and the yellow jackets have died the slow, lingering death they deserve.

And if I find that I’m too old or tired or beaten up to hike up from the valley again, my ace in the hole will be that all these ridges are also accessible from the top, from the Sugarland Mountain trail. I’m sure there are no worn paths yet because this is all too new. But a few hardy souls may find the spots where these side ribs meet the spine, and they’ll wander down as far as their sense of adventure will allow. And maybe I’ll be one of them. Or maybe you.

Sugar Fingers (Part 1 of 4)

The Smoky Mountains have a new addition – the Sugar Fingers. That’s not the official name, but it’s what some online, hiker groups are calling them. They were added to the park recently, not through a donation or purchase of new land. They were created in the past few months by fire and rain.

If you are familiar with the topography of the Smoky Mountains, then you are aware of the string of small, scenic pullouts along the road as you travel up from Gatlinburg toward Newfound Gap. Specifically, between the Chimney Tops Picnic Area and the parking lot of the Chimney Tops trail, there are several pullouts along the right side of the road. When you stop at these pullouts, your eyes are drawn east toward the Chimney Tops, those two rocky spires that are among the most heavily-visited sites in the park. Looking south across the valley gives a pleasant view of the slope of Sugarland Mountain, the long ridge that borders the road from Sugarlands Visitor Center (near Gatlinburg) to the Chimney Tops. In other words, as you drive up this road, just look to your right – you are looking at the slopes of Sugarland Mountain.

In spite of its prominent location, Sugarland Mountain is not very well-known. It’s not the highest or prettiest or “most” anything. Walking the Sugarland Mountain trail along its ridgecrest gives fabulous views of Mt. Le Conte, but Sugarland Mountain itself is kind of plain. Its most outstanding feature is the Chimney Tops; although, most of us think of the Chimney Tops as a separate thing – we don’t usually think of them as an appendage of Sugarland Mountain. Sugarland Mountain is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Smokies. No respect.

But all that has changed in the last few months.

You may also be familiar with Charlies Bunion, that wonderfully epic, rocky outcrop on the AT, four miles northeast of Newfound Gap. If you’ve visited the Bunion then you may also have read a bit of its history. Charlies Bunion (and the other rocky ridges in this part of the park) were created in the 1920s by a fire that swept through this area, burning away the flora and soil. Heavy rains over the subsequent years swept away the rest of the soil, leaving bare, rocky ridges that have only partially recovered over the past 90 years.

That same process is now at work on the slopes of Sugarland Mountain. The Chimneys fire of 2016 burned the upper sections of the Chimney Tops, leaving some burned and bare rocky ridges, then it skipped and jumped its way to Gatlinburg. The fire left most of Sugarland Mountain untouched or lightly-touched. However, the parts of Sugarland Mountain that were heavily burned – and washed bare by winter and spring rains – are the several side ridges that have become the Sugar Fingers.

(Note: I wrote about another “new” site in the park – the Third Chimney – in an earlier article.)

 [To be continued]