Three Generations of Hikers (Part 1 of 2)

Not long ago I visited an unnamed ridge and peaks with Keith Oakes, his son Matt, and Greg Harrell. Our route took us a little over a mile up Alum Cave Trail to Arch Rock, a neat spot where the trail passes through a modest “tunnel” in the rock. At this point, we hopped off the trail and wove our way up the ridge that actually ends at Arch Rock. Within a few minutes we were doing our usual off-trail ridge routine: pushing through and under the shrubs and vines. The shrubs are mostly Rosebay Rhododendron, the large-leaved, white-flowered species that is common in all the creek valleys and low slopes in the Southern Appalachians. The vines are mostly Greenbrier (Smilax), thin green vines that look delicate but are about as strong as steel cable, with the added feature of thorns. It’s a brutal combination that you can’t just fight your way through. You have to dodge and weave, tip-toeing and high-stepping to avoid any unpleasant encounters.


About an hour above Arch Rock the terrain opened up and we emerged from the thick forest, shrubs, and vines into the open daylight of small heath-and-rock patches where the Rhododendron changed from Rosebay to Catawba and Carolina and the ground changed from dirt to exposed rock and Sand Myrtle. We walked along the heathy ridgecrest to the first of two open, round, rocky peaks called Parton Peaks, in honor of Dolly Parton. Those aren’t the official names, but that’s what some people call them. Ironically, they aren’t the biggest peaks in the park, but they are… what’s a good word here…? Prominent.

Nothing overly dramatic happened on this trip, just a nice, autumn day with great views and some scrambling up some steep spots. All in all, it was a typical day on an exposed, trail-less ridge. Officially trail-less, I mean. On these ridges there’s usually a bear trail for us to follow. We’ve never actually encountered a bear on these paths, but we have seen plenty of evidence – large, brown piles, usually cluttered with whatever berry or nut is in season.

Several hours later we reached the Boulevard near the east end of Mount LeConte. As we ambled up the trail to LeConte, we came across an Alabama Crimson Tide hat by the side of the trail. I started to pick it up because a bald guy can always use another hat, but one of us who is a rabid UT fan – I won’t name any names – decided that the hat should be properly desecrated. So he desecrated it in a thoroughly disgusting fashion. (Note: The next Saturday, Alabama beat UT 12 to 10, thanks to two blocked field goals. Payback, I think.)

From the point of defilement we walked to a spot somewhere below Myrtle Point, LeConte’s dramatic, eastern overlook where hundreds of hikers watch the sun rise each year. We hopped off the trail one more time and pushed our way through bushes and up a few more rocks and emerged from the tangle to the exposed rock of Myrtle Point. And our timing was perfect – there were six folks sitting there when we arrived. (It’s good for our egos whenever we emerge from the bushes to the stares of skeptical onlookers. Their first question is always: “Where did you come from?” That’s the only invitation we need to begin the tale of our most recent exploits. I’m sure we tell them more than they want to know, but hey, it’s their own fault for asking.)

Greg was the first of our party to arrive at Myrtle, and he was already describing our route when Keith and his son, Matt, arrived to join the conversation. Several minutes later, I emerged panting and sweating from the bushes. I guess none of the tourists were expecting a fourth guy to show up because when I made my entrance, everyone turned and looked. After a brief pause, the young lady of the tourist group smiled and said, “So, are you three generations of hikers?”

It took exactly two seconds for the meaning of that statement to sink in. [To be continued]

Outsmarting the Master

Tim Landefeld, Keith Oakes, and I stood huddled around the old man, waiting for his latest pronouncement. The old flyshop owner looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping and then whispered, “There are a few Drakes showing up on the East Prong.” He looked around again, leaned even closer, and said in a barely audible voice, “It’s about to get cosmic.” Then he slowly backed away so as not to attract attention, as if he’d just revealed a valuable state secret and would now be hunted down by the CIA. (Dick Cheney is a fly fisherman, so it could happen.)

For many years, if the flyshop owner told us to go to the East, we’d go dutifully to the East Prong of this fine trout river. We knew that the Drake Mayflies typically would hatch first on the West Prong for a few days before their hatch moved to the East Prong, and finally after a week or two to the Main Prong. If the fishing would be cosmic on the East, then that’s where we wanted to be. Standing right in the middle of cosmic is every fisherman’s dream.

The problem was that we’d usually get skunked, or close to it. The main bugs would be mosquitos, not Drakes. We’d have plenty of bites – mosquito, not trout. Definitely not cosmic, unless you are a bat.

Given fly fishing’s legacy of secrecy, I suppose I can’t blame the flyshop owner for misleading us. After all, he has a staff of river guides who take paying customers out to the river to catch big trout. His guides go to the hotspots, the places where the mayflies are hatching prolifically and the fish are feeding recklessly. I can’t really blame him for saving the best water for his guys. On the other hand, my buddies and I have spent a few dollars buying flies and other equipment from him, so he does owe us at least one or two small favors.

All that changed last year when he told us to go to the East, but for some reason we went to the West Prong and saw millions of hatching mayflies and caught some good fish. At that moment we finally understood what he’d been doing all these years. He’d been using us as his unwitting scouts. He’d send us not to the spot where it was cosmic, but to the place where it was about to be cosmic. If we came back with a report of lots of bugs and fish, he’d know where to send his guides and clients the next day. If we came back with tales of failure, he’d know that it still wasn’t cosmic on the East Prong yet, and he’d keep his guides on the West.

Clever, very clever. He’d been playing us like a fiddle – a stupid, naïve fiddle. But this past year we discovered a flaw in his plan, a weakness to be exploited. We found a way to outwit the wily master. The secret is his sign by the road.

During the hatch of the Sulfur Mayflies, the sign displayed some poem like: “Fish with Yellow if you’re a wise fellow.” But as soon as the Brown Drake (a larger, higher-status mayfly) hatch began on the West Prong, he’d change his sign to read: “Fish with Drakes for Heaven’s sake.”

The sign! The sign is the answer! It’s the clue that was out in the open, right under our noses, so obvious that we didn’t notice it. So, now we simply ask around to find out when, exactly when, the sign changed from Sulfurs to Drakes. If it’s been within the past 3 or 4 days, then we fish the West Prong because the Drake hatch would still be in its early stages. If the sign changed to Drakes about a week ago, we fish the East, but at the first rumors of Drakes on the Main Prong we’ll move there.

To tell you the truth, we still need to test this strategy a few more years to work out the kinks, but I think we are well on our way to successfully outwitting the flyshop owner. He’ll have to entice other, less-experienced anglers into become his unwitting accomplices. Keith, Tim, and I have unlocked the mystery. We have outsmarted the old master.

But if our new plan doesn’t work, we’ve decided that we’ll just hide in the bushes by the flyshop and follow the guides to the river. Desperate times require desperate measures.

The Low Rhody and The High Rhody (Part 2 of 2)

[In August, 2009, a hiker got lost and was eventually found several days later on the crest of Porters Mountain. This story recounts a bushwhacking trip to Porters Mountain in May, 2008. As you’ll see, I won’t write another story about Porters Mountain because I have no intention of ever going there again.]

The Greenbrier section of the Smoky Mountains is a good place for off-trail exploring. So, in a futile attempt to prove our manhood, Greg Harrell and I spent about six hours on Porters Mountain, pushing our way through rhododendron, mountain laurel, saw briers, sand myrtle, cliffs, boulders, and blowdowns.

Once we reached the crest, we’d occasionally encounter a long, narrow heath bald covered in mountain laurel, Catawba rhododendron, and sand myrtle. The month was late May, so the rhody was starting to show its purple blooms, but the real star of the show was the sand myrtle – a low growing, thick shrub covered in clumps of delicate, white flowers. Those heath bald moments were magnificent and made the dirty, sweaty bushwhacking worth the trouble; although a bit less bush whacking and a bit more heath balding would have been fine with me.

I had once read about an off-trail hike where one of the guys was actually hiking on top of the mountain laurel and rhody bushes while his partner was on the ground below him. To be honest, that didn’t make sense to me, and I couldn’t quite visualize it.

Until it happened to us.

The bushes were so thick and tangled that it was impossible to push our way through. We found ourselves crawling and slithering our way under the branches, which ain’t easy. Occasionally there would be a tiny gap in the brush, just enough to let us stand up to stretch our backs, and to enjoy the vertical dimension for a moment, hoping to see a gap in the branches a few feet ahead. It was at one of these points that I tried to step over a branch rather than crawl under it. I just instinctively put my foot on a branch that was two or three feet off the ground. Suddenly I was several feet off the ground, standing on a rhody branch. As I prepared to step back to the ground, I noticed that there was another branch at about the same level a few feet away; so I stepped on it. And then I stepped again, and again, and again. I suddenly found myself walking on the rhody instead of crawling underneath. At several points I was a few feet above Greg, looking down on him as he crawled below me. He was travelling on dirt and leaves. I was travelling on branches. It wasn’t something we consciously attempted; it just happened as we each looked for a path of least resistance.

Walking on rhododendron is not an ideal method of hiking. It’s not necessarily faster or easier than crawling on your belly (rhody branches are slick when dry and slicker when wet). It’s really just a change of pace, a respite from the monotony of crawling underneath and being able to see only a few feet in front of you. Crawling through and under rhody is like walking in the dark – you can’t see the route ahead, you just keep going until you run into a wall. Walking on top of the branches is like walking in the dark, using a cigarette lighter for light. You can see a little more, but it doesn’t change the fact that the wall is still there blocking your path.

About seven hours after we left my truck at the trailhead, we reached the Appalachian Trail near Porters Gap. That’s mostly a good thing, except for the fact that we’d been out over seven hours and were only about halfway finished. As we sat on a log on the AT, I told Greg that this was a great trip, I was glad we were doing it, but I was exhausted and wouldn’t do it again.

I once heard a veteran of World War Two say that the war was hell, he wouldn’t wish it on anyone, he’d never want to do it again – but he wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Yeah, some things are once-in-a-lifetime experiences because you’ll never have the chance to do them again, while others – like Porters Mountain and war – are once-in-a-lifetime because you are glad you did them, but once is enough.

Within 48 hours, Greg was talking about when we should do it again. That was well over a year ago, and I still haven’t given him an answer.

Beaten and Bruised on Porters Mountain (Part 1 of 2)

[In August, 2009, an old, experienced hiker got lost and was eventually found several days later on the crest of Porters Mountain. It wasn’t me, but it could have been.]

Looking at the scratches and bruises on my arms and head, the lady asked, “Tell me again why you think that’s fun.” I couldn’t really explain why I enjoyed our hike up Porters Mountain in the Greenbrier section of the Smoky Mountains. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I really enjoyed it until a day or two after it was over, so that made it even harder to explain. I guess I should have told her that I never said it was fun. I had said it was great. Yeah, something can be great without being fun, and bushwhacking in the mountains is high on that list.

Maybe I enjoy off-trail hiking in the mountains because I’m having a mid-life crisis, and I feel the need to prove something. But I really don’t think that’s it because I had my mid-life crisis several years ago and have pretty much gotten over it; although I suppose an occasional relapse isn’t out of the question. Either way, there are worse ways to spend a mid-life crisis than hiking.

Or, maybe it’s because I’m a map guy. I’ve always enjoyed looking at maps, planning trips, considering options. I get the same satisfaction out of planning a road trip or hike that some people get out of crossword puzzles or Sudoku. The main difference is that my puzzles have topographic lines, rivers, and ridges instead of numbers and letters.

Whatever the reason, Greg Harrell is afflicted by the same map-related disease, so we set out on the Porters Creek Trail early on a Saturday morning. After an hour and a half we reached the Porters Flats campsite, where the trail officially ends. At the campsite’s wooden marker, the trail splits. To the right is the campsite. To the left are the remnants of Porters Creek Trail, Part 2. This is the part of the trail that was described in old guidebooks, but is no longer officially maintained by the NPS and has disappeared from the trail guides. One of those remnants [the one the lost hiker probably wandered off on] leads toward the western slope of Porters Mountain. Our plan was to follow this path to the crest of Porters Mountain and to follow this ridgecrest southeast to its junction with the AT at Porters Gap.

Within about 10 minutes that plan fell apart as this Porters Mountain trail fizzled out. It didn’t end; it just disappeared. “Ending” and “disappearing” may seem like the same thing, but they’re not. Ending implies that you’ve reached a destination, a site at the end of the trail; such as, the Appalachian Trail ends at Mt. Katahdin in Maine or the Ramsey Cascade Trail ends at Ramsey Cascade. These trails end when they reach the place where they go. That’s not what this Porters Mountain trail does; it just disappears among the leaves, logs, and bushes long before it reaches Porters Mountain, like a “lost creek” that just vanishes into the ground. In other words, there’s not a Porters Mountain Trail. There’s just a brief footpath that points you uphill, then disappears beneath your feet and before your eyes, leaving you on your own.

It was like a father teaching his young son to ride a bike. He runs alongside his young, wobbling bike rider and gives him a push… and his son is on his own, trying his hardest but unsure how this adventure will turn out. That’s how this disappearing path felt. Oh, and let’s not forget that the bike ride often ends with some bumps and bruises, plus a few drops of blood and tears.

So for the next six hours Greg and I walked, crawled, slithered, pushed, and slipped through, under, over, and around rhododendron, mountain laurel, saw briers, sand myrtle, cliffs, boulders, and blowdowns. Hence, the bruises and scratches. It was slow and hard. It wasn’t exactly fun, but it was great; although I must confess that several times I had to ask Greg, “Remind me again. Why are we doing this?” He didn’t have any convincing answers; just something about being stupid or being manly, which are often the same thing.

"Why are we doing this?"

An open, rocky heath bald, lined with Sand Myrtle.
(The reason why we do this.)

This kind of hiking can give you a screamin’ case of claustrophobia. It’s relentless, even disheartening. You force your way through 50 feet of mountain laurel, walk about 10 feet in relative peace and freedom, and run into another cliff or another wall of rhododendron or another laurel thicket or another blown-down tree or another patch of briers. The astonishing thing is that in the early days of the park, hikers did this sort of thing on a regular basis. I’m tempted to say that the peer pressure from this past generation of hikers kept us pushing and shoving our way through the tangle, but I’m not sure it’s accurate to call them my peers. They were tougher than I am. I’m not their peer; I’m just a wanna-be. [To be continued.]

Anakeesta Conniption (Part 3 of 3)

On our off-trail hike along the crest of Anakeesta Ridge, I had hidden my daypack by the side the trail so I could slither through the obstructions on the ridgecrest. I would retrieve it as we backtracked our way out a few hours later. Unfortunately, after about an hour of slithering, Greg Harrell and I had somehow managed to wander off the main ridge and onto a small, obscure side ridge. We had stayed on what seemed to be not merely the main ridge, but the only ridge. There was just no other route to take. And yet, there we were, on that small, unnamed side ridge wondering how we got there.

In the distance below us an occasional car would pass along the base of Anakeesta, to the south, at the end of this side ridge. Greg pulled out his map, and we discovered that we were only about a half mile away from Newfound Gap Road. Greg later told me that at that moment he saw the gears start turning in my head as I began considering our options and doing the math: we could push our way for an hour back to the Boulevard then hike two miles up the Boulevard and another three miles on the AT, or we could hike about a half mile down hill and catch a ride back up to the truck. In my mind, the choice was obvious – hike down, then hitchhike.

I explained my thinking and my preference to Greg, who just stood there, listening patiently. He listened as I went on and on about daylight, gravity, old age, and travelling new paths. I went on for so long that I probably even covered some politics, history, and theology. PhD dissertations have been shorter and simpler than my impassioned monologue.

When I finally paused to take a breath, thinking that I had an airtight case and that we would be going down, not up, Greg looked down in the direction of the road and said, “Sounds good to me.”

I was a bit surprised at how easily he agreed with my analysis of the situation, but I assumed that even he, when faced with the overwhelming weight of unadulterated logic, had no alternative but to yield to the inevitable. Then he paused for effect and said, “Hey, pal…” – another pause, for even greater dramatic impact – “… where’s your pack?”

What followed can only be described as a conniption for the ages. I jumped and screamed and spun and kicked. Greg laughed. I wailed and moaned and ranted and spit. Greg laughed. Like Job, I recounted the unfairness in life, the capriciousness of fate. Greg laughed. Coyotes howled in the distance. Mothers in Gatlinburg covered their children’s ears. Rabbits and bears fled in terror. My disappointment was deep, reaching to the marrow of my bones and the core of my being. Greg laughed. He showed no pity, no sympathy. He seemed happy with our fate. Backtracking up through the tangle and rocks of Anakeesta Ridge was a small price to pay to witness my tantrum.

Then I paused and began a mental inventory of the contents of my daypack. Could I just leave my pack where it was? It was old and ratty. It held a water bottle and a fleece jacket, so I’d be losing a few dollars, but it might be worth it. It was hidden well, so I could even come back in a few weeks and retrieve it if the mood struck. Yes, there was a ray of hope, a chance for redemption --- which Greg saw written on my face.

At that moment Greg became a mind-reader and a sadist. He seemed to know what I was thinking because he looked at me as I pondered, paused for effect, and said rhetorically, “Hey… (another pause to heighten the drama)… where are your keys?”

In my pack. My keys were in my stinkin’ pack.

I swooned as the sun was blotted out and the moon turned to blood….

Our hike back to my truck was long and somber.

South Happens (Part 2 of 3)

Our hike along the narrow ridgecrest of Anakeesta Ridge was difficult to manage but easy to see. Greg and I would simply follow the ridge as far as daylight would allow, looking for interesting sights, and then backtrack to the Boulevard and the Appalachian Trail before it got dark. So simple even a caveman could do it.

After a particularly difficult section which kept us descending faster and farther than we had expected, we stopped to rest and wonder. I looked at my watch and commented, “It’s three o’clock. We’re gonna run out of daylight.”

Greg muttered, “Yeah, I know.”

“Just out of curiosity… how long have you known?”

“Since we stepped out of the truck,” Greg responded. I giggled under my breath and braced myself for yet another comment about my age or pace or propensity for frequent rest stops – all of which are favorite topics of Greg’s commentary during our hikes. Instead, Greg added, “And that’s not our only problem.”

“What’s the other problem?”

“We’ve been heading south for the last 10 minutes.”

I understood the significance immediately: “No way! Are you sure?”

“Yep. At least 10 minutes.”

Greg and I both like compasses, and we use them often on these hikes. I don’t recall where Greg carries his. Probably in one of his pockets. I hang mine around my neck, tucked under my shirt so it won’t get caught on branches. So Greg held out his compass to show me. I looked back north up the ridge we’d been descending and looked south down the ridgecrest in front of us. Yes, south.

Anakeesta is an east-west ridge with an occasional north-south wiggle, but not a tenth of a mile, and not where we were standing. South just wasn’t supposed to happen. So I did something that I hate to do on these hikes because it feels like I’m cheating – I pulled out my GPS and poked around on it until the electronic bread crumb trail popped up on its topo map. And there it was, a straight blue line about a tenth of a mile long showing us travelling straight down toward the bottom of the screen – south, straight south.

The next five minutes involved a lot of staring down the foggy ridge, staring back up the foggy ridge, staring at each other, shaking the compass, poking more GPS buttons, and general bafflement. It’s like those moments when my car dies, and I open the hood and stand there staring at the tangle of wires and metal wondering what it all means. Because I know nothing about the mysteries of internal combustion engines, I have no business looking under the hood, but I do it anyway in hopes that there will be a flashing, neon sign with an arrow pointing to the problem saying, “Replace this.” There’s never a flashing arrow under the hood, and there was no flashing sign for us on that side ridge.

Without going into the details of our conversation, I’ll just say that we had no idea how we wandered off Anakeesta’s main ridge and onto an obscure, southern side ridge. No idea whatsoever. We had stayed on what seemed to be not merely the main ridge, but the only ridge. There was just no other route to take. I’ve sometimes seen the trail under our feet just disappear into the dirt, rocks, and leaves, but this was the first time an entire ridge simply dissolved into clouds and thin air. I wondered if we had wandered into the Anakeesta Triangle where planes, ships, hikers, and ridges disappear. I don’t know. I didn’t get it then, and I still don’t get it.

But there we were, on that small, unnamed ridge. As we stood there dazed and confused, the only reasonable option was to backtrack up to the main ridge. We’d try to find the split in the ridge where we had made our mistake, but because it was getting late – we still had about five miles of hiking to get back to the truck – we’d have to hustle back to the Boulevard and the AT. The point where we were standing would have to suffice as our “destination” for the day. But then we heard cars below us… [To be continued]

Anakeesta Ridge (Part 1 of 3)

On one of our very first off-trail hikes, Greg Harrell and I looked up the creek valley which we were to follow and commented, “Just follow the creek. Easy. Only an idiot could get lost.” Of course, we both knew what that meant for our impending hike: we could get lost.

“What if there are two idiots? Does that make it half as likely or twice as likely?”

A couple of years later on Anakeesta Ridge we discovered the answer: twice as likely….

Greg and I stepped out of my truck at Newfound Gap on a Saturday morning in the middle of February. We were on the tail end of an unseasonably warm stretch, so the weather was bearable, although a bit on the moist side. Our plan was simple: hike about three miles northeast on the Appalachian Trail to the Boulevard trail and then about two miles on the Boulevard to its intersection with Anakeesta Ridge. That would be the point where the real fun began because we’d step off a popular, maintained trail and onto a ridge that had no official trail, so it would probably be littered with blown-down trees, mountain laurel, and briers. It would also be rocky and narrow, with a smattering of sand myrtle and rhododendron.

If you’ll look at Anakeesta from the road just below Newfound Gap, you’ll see huge, rocky scars where landslides of the past 60 years have scraped and scoured the ridgecrest. Greg and I thought it might be interesting to see those scars from above.

This stretch of the AT and the Boulevard is often fairly crowded, being a good route to Mount LeConte. The fact that there is a backpacking shelter near their junction means that many a hiker has made this route into a two night trip, the first night being spent at Icewater Spring shelter and the second on top of LeConte. The fact that the Jumpoff, Charlies Bunion, and the Sawteeth are nearby adds to the appeal of this route.

So at about 1:30 pm, Greg and I stepped off the Boulevard and into the tangle of Anakeesta Ridge. Because we’d be gone maybe two or three hours at most, I decided to fill my pockets with granola bars and my GPS and stash my daypack by the side of the trail. I’d be waterless for a few hours, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t die of dehydration, and it would be nice to squeeze my way through laurel thickets without being encumbered by my pack.

Our first order of business was to crawl and push our way over logs and through mountain laurel and briers to the top of Anakeesta Knob. We then began a steady descent down the narrow, rocky ridegcrest toward a deep swag in the ridge about a half mile away. As with many of our off-trail jaunts, there was a remnant of an old trail along the crest, occasionally visible and clear, more often overgrown and tangled. It was dirty, wet work as the wind and lingering clouds kept us and the underbrush dripping wet. Forty degrees and wet is not one of my favorite combinations, but the exertion of pushing and weaving our way down this steep ridge kept hypothermia at bay.

The route was difficult to manage but easy to see. It was a nice change of pace from those off-trail excursions where you aren’t really sure which ridge to climb or which creek to follow. This route was obvious – stay on this narrow ridge. We didn’t have any particular destination in mind. We would simply follow the ridge as far as daylight would allow, looking for interesting sights, and then backtrack to the Boulevard and the AT before it got dark. So simple even a caveman could do it.

So for the next hour and a half we enjoyed the challenge of a steep, rocky, tangled, ridge hike. On a clear day, the views toward LeConte to the north and the main crest to the south would have been fabulous, but today the clouds and mist meant that visibility was 25, maybe 50, yards. I would have preferred warm sunshine, singing birds, blooming flowers, panoramic views, and a tailwind, but clouds and mist are useful for reinforcing our delusion that we are a couple of manly guys who aren’t afraid of some scratches, bruises, blood, and mud. [To be continued]