The LeConte Trip, Day 3 of 3

 To tell you the truth, on our winter trips to Mt. LeConte  I rarely walked to Myrtle Point or Cliff Top to see a LeConte winter sunrise or sunset, partly because I was cold and tired, partly because I had explored LeConte’s ridgetop during other seasons, but mainly because winter hiking in the Smokies provides so many great views, I just didn’t feel the need to walk to one of LeConte’s extremities to see another. I’d have been doing it just to say I’d done it, and that’s something I quit doing several years ago when I realized that I wasn’t going to do anything in life so rare and fabulous that I’d be able to impress folks with the tale of my achievement. Now I just hike or fish or whatever if it’s something that I’ll enjoy or learn from. Besides, all the really good stuff has already been done – first man on the moon, first person to climb Everest, first person to hike the entire AT. Just thumb through any Book of World Records to see all the stupid, pointless activities that people are pursuing, just to say they’ve done it – balancing spinning plates on poles, eating hot dogs, burping the alphabet. I just paused and visited a world records website. Did you know that a guy ate 36 cockroaches in less than one minute to break the old record? How do you practice for something like that?

After our night on LeConte, we always hiked back down to the main road via Alum Cave Trail. This is a very popular trail, and for good reason. It’s one of the best, most varied, most dramatic trails in the park. A lot of people who hike up this trail get only as far as Alum Cave, an impressively large, rock theatre about half way up this five mile trail. It’s a nice spot, but those who stop here miss the best part of this trail.  If you do this hike, don’t turn around at Alum Cave. Make the commitment to go all the way to the top. While you are on the top, visit Cliff Top and Myrtle Point. Trust me on this one.

My favorite part of Alum Cave Trail on our winter trips was that it’s all downhill. My second favorite part is the section of trail that’s cut into a vertical cliff. There’s a hand cable bolted into the rock. The trail is about two or three feet wide and the drop-off to your right is steep and long. It’s awesome, if you don’t slip on the ice that inevitably covers it in January. No, actually the risk is precisely what makes it awesome. Just don’t let go of the cable.

Also awesome are the views from LeConte, from Charlies Bunion, and from Alum Cave Trail. It was on one of these LeConte Trips that we began experimenting with various, colorful adjectives to describe these views. I won’t go into the lurid details. Let’s just say “Boys will be boys” and leave it at that.  

Just so you won’t get the wrong impression, we also discussed a lot of politics and theology, too. We were still trying to figure out why the world was so screwed up and where we stood in it. Over thirty years later, I’m still wrestling with many of the same questions. I’d like to get all mystical here and say that a few days in the Smokies will clear your head and help you to understand reality and your place in the universe. Unfortunately, that never quite happened to me. My time in the Smokies has been a mixture of fatigue, relaxation, meditation, and education. It’s been fine fellowship with some good friends. In some sense, it is always a spiritual time, and I have had some epiphanies, but nature hasn’t given me the answers to life’s great questions.

Maybe that’s all you can expect from the Smokies, but for me that’s enough.

 

The LeConte Trip, Day 2 of 3

 

 

One year on our annual, winter “LeConte Trip,” I went to bed at dusk and just couldn’t get warm. I tossed and turned and struggled all night, dozing fitfully, keenly aware of my chilled body parts. Finally, after a long, restless night I awoke to the sound of voices. Two of my partners were standing at the head of the bunks, discussing the impending uphill hike to Mt. LeConte. My spirits soared. I had survived the long, cold night! I began to crawl out of my bag to eat breakfast. It seemed a bit dark, but I was ready to get going. That’s when I noticed that these guys were taking their boots off. I watched as they unzipped their sleeping bags and crawled in. They were going to bed! It was 8:30 pm, and I had been in my sleeping bag about 2 hours. Morning hadn’t come, and as best I can remember, it never did.

 

That all happened at the Icewater Spring shelter. The next day we hiked on the Boulevard trail to the Mt LeConte shelter, where we spent the second night. There’s a cozy lodge on top of Mt. LeConte with a central dining hall and sitting area. There are several small cabins with beds, mattresses, pillows, and linens. Supplies are carried in via helicopters and lamas. It’s not luxurious, but it’s rustic and comfortable. And, most importantly, it’s not where you stay on a backpacking trip to LeConte.

 

Backpackers stay in a three-sided rock and mortar shelter with hard wooden bunk beds. Did you catch the part about three sides? The front is open to the elements, and in January in the Smokies there are a lot of unfriendly elements, cold wind being at the top of the list, right above black bears and skunks. Of course, that’s why you are backpacking in the Smokies in January. You are doing it to prove something to yourself, to your backpacking partners, and to your frail acquaintances back home. They don’t have what it takes. You do. At least, that’s what you keep telling yourself. Otherwise, sleeping in the cold and snow on top of a mountain in January begins to seem like a stupid idea.

 

Mount LeConte is a big, dominant mountain covered mostly by virgin forest. It’s either the tallest mountain in the park, or the third tallest, depending on how you want to measure it. If you start at sea-level, it’s the third tallest at 6,593 – that’s 50 feet shorter than Clingmans Dome. If you start at the base of the mountain, it’s the tallest, rising 5,300 feet from its base. In fact, measured this way, it’s the tallest mountain in the eastern US. Whenever I’m on the top of LeConte, it doesn’t bother me that two other mountains in the park are higher than I am. If you are the obsessive-compulsive type then such details might keep you awake at night, so you’d be better off driving to Clingmans Dome and making the half mile hike on the paved trail (along with the hundreds of other people) to the top, just to say you’ve been on the highest mountain in the park. I know I shouldn’t do this… but you O-C folks need to remember that there are two other peaks in the eastern US outside the park that are taller than Clingmans Dome. There, let that fact keep you awake.

 

LeConte is about 30 miles south of Jefferson City, as the crow flies. I can’t see it from my house, but there are several locations nearby from which it is clearly visible. Or, I should say, it’s clearly visible on a cool, crisp, clear day. From May through September the air is usually too warm and hazy to see it, but during cool weather it stands in the distance as a pleasant reminder that life is still good because there are mountains nearby.

 

To get a good look at it, go to picnic area at Cherokee Dam on a cool day and look to the south, directly over Jefferson City (in line with the double water towers). LeConte has a distinctive shape to it – a broad, ridgetop about 1½ miles long with three or four or five humps (depending on how you define “hump”). The main humps are West Point, Cliff Top, High Top, and Myrtle Point, some of which are popular spots to watch sunrises or sunsets. [To be continued.]

 

 

The LeConte Trip, Day 1 of 3

The coldest I’ve ever been in my life was on the Boulevard Trail leading five miles from the Appalachian Trail to the top of Mount LeConte. I was a novice backpacker in my early 20s, and while I wasn’t completely ignorant, I still didn’t know the nuances of winter backpacking – such as, moisture from sweat is just as dangerous and uncomfortable as moisture from rain and snow. I don’t think GoreTex had been invented yet, but even if it had, I probably wouldn’t have understood what all the excitement was about, but even if I did, I couldn’t have afforded it. In fact, I still can’t afford it, but there’s one big difference – now, I buy it anyway. My kids can pay for their own college education.

My feet had been numb since the previous evening at Icewater Spring shelter, and they were still numb as my three hiking partners and I waded through calf-deep snow toward the top of Mt. LeConte. I was wearing blue jeans and leather boots and had plastic bread bags on my feet, over my socks thinking they would keep my socks and feet dry. This was the trip on which the realities of moisture, condensation, sweat, and cold temperatures all became clear to me. I was the mule, and the wet socks and feet were the two by four that finally got my attention.

We were all unprepared and miserable, but of course that simply reminded us of how masculine we all were, so it was well worth it. In fact, we were all so thoroughly miserable that we made this an annual event. From this moment on, this route would come to be called The LeConte Trip, fully deserving of the capital letters. Every fall, as we’d begin thinking ahead to winter, one of us would suggest The LeConte Trip as our winter excursion, and we’d all pause, remember the cold and fatigue, and nod our heads in agreement. We repeated this adventure several more times until life’s obligations separated our little backpacking fraternity.

For the next several Januarys we’d park at Newfound Gap and hike 3 miles to Icewater Spring shelter for the first night. Before going to bed for the night, we would hike the one mile to Charlies Bunion and scramble around on the rocks, enjoying the view and basking in the knowledge that we were all manly outdoor types who were just a little superior to all those sissies in hotels in Gatlinburg.

Now one problem with winter backpacking is not just the cold. It’s the early bedtime. That might sound like a good thing, but it’s not. It gets dark around 5 or 6 pm, and it’s generally too cold to sit around and talk or play cards. (There’s virtually no firewood around these backcountry shelters. Plenty of trees, but no dead and down, and therefore legal, wood.) By 6 pm you are in your sleeping bag, eating gorp (good ol’ raisins & peanuts) to stoke your metabolism, and praying that morning will come soon.

It never does.

The bunks are hard. Your face sticking out of your sleeping bag is cold. And then you realize you didn’t drink enough during the day. You reach down around your feet to dig out your water bottle. You keep it in your sleeping bag so it won’t freeze. You drink and eat gorp and then drink some more.

Then you have to pee.

Most folks just get up and go. A few others somehow wait until morning. There’s even a theory out there that your body uses more calories keeping your bladder at 98.6 degrees than it does to get up, walk out of the shelter, stand in the snow, get chilled in the process, and crawl back into your bag and try to get warm by doing isometrics. As the theory goes, calorie-wise and warmth-wise, you should get up and go. Personally, I believe that debate fills a much needed gap in the literature of backpacking. I just haven’t reached that level of insight and sophistication. I follow the same rule that I follow in my non-backpacking life: when you need to go, just go.

Anyway, morning never comes... and I have proof.  [To be continued.]

Hepatica and Hope (Part 5 of 5)

After watching the ice melt at Fort Harry Falls, I walked back to my truck, thinking about my visit here last summer and how different this valley looks in the winter and how it might look in the thaw of spring. This small valley should be prime wildflower habitat, although I could be wrong. In April when the initial explosion of wildflowers hits the lower and mid elevations of the park, the distribution of wildflowers seems, to me, to be almost random. For example, you can drive up the Greenbrier road and see a few violets or foam flowers scattered along the roadside, then suddenly you’ll encounter a patch of bloodroot that will take your breath away. Why these bloodroots don’t appear all along the roadside is a mystery to me. The shade, slope, and soil all look like prime habitat, yet the bloodroots show up in just that one spot. Or, a trail that looks to me like ideal wildflower habitat may be remarkably unremarkable during peak wildflower season, for reasons known only to God and botanists.

 Just as these thoughts had finished crossing the synapses of my brain, I stuck the end of my walking stick under a small, rock ledge, and I saw a flash of green. I pushed the thin layer of snow away and saw the very distinctive, three lobes of a Hepatica – one of my favorite wildflowers. I have a warm spot in my heart for Hepatica because my mother used to speak of them as one of her favorite flowers when she was a young girl growing up in Depression-era, northern Ohio. (That was only a couple of generations ago, but it seems like dozens because it was a time when kids actually noticed wildflowers and even knew their names.) She loved them because they are one of the earliest-blooming wildflowers. They make their white-pink appearance in early spring, while the weather is mostly cold but gives an occasional glimpse of the warm weather that is yet to come. In God’s list of virtues, I’d identify Hepatica with Hope. They are reminders that resurrections happen and that earth’s annual resurrection is just days away.

 The poet Robert Frost once wrote of a wasted, dying man who had “nothing to look backward to with pride and nothing to look forward to with hope.” Hepatica is just the opposite. It’s a promise of hope that the green warmth of spring will soon arrive, it’s a reminder of the sensuous pleasures of past springs, and it’s a sign of pride in making it through yet another winter. So because of my mother and because of the hope of spring, I love Hepatica. It also happens to be one of the few wildflowers that I can identify just by its leaves. They are so distinctive that even a guy like me who suffers from wildflower amnesia every spring – in April I have to start almost from scratch with my wildflower book in hand – knows a Hepatica when he sees one, even without its bloom.

 

The distinctive leaf of Hepatica

 In a typical year, I don’t see many Hepaticas in bloom. They aren’t rare, but they bloom in March or early April, so early that most of us aren’t yet thinking about wildflowers. The real wildflower show peaks a few weeks later, in mid-April. That’s when Phyllis and I will spend a few extra days in the Smokies walking through some of our favorite spots, looking for Trilliums, Trout Lilies, or Bluets. By then, the Hepaticas are fading, and spring is bustin’ out all over. When I do see Hepaticas in bloom, it’s usually accidental. That is, we get some warm days as early March slides into late March, and that gets my blood flowing again. That seems to be when the Hepaticas’ blood gets flowing, too. We both make our appearance in the mountain valleys at about the same time. We aren’t looking for each other, but we find each other nonetheless. 

 

Where There's Hepatica, There's Hope

 

 So now I have another special, secret spot – a patch of soil under a rock by an unnamed creek accessible via an unassuming parking lot on the main road through the Smokies. I’ll be back in a few weeks, when March begins acting less like February and more like April, looking not only for water falling over a cliff but also for a small, white-pink sign of hope that earth’s annual resurrection is just around the corner, and the Hepaticas and I will find each other once again. 

Spring Begins Early at Fort Harry Falls (Part 4 of 5)

 

The little valley leading to Fort Harry Falls is short and easy – rocky, mossy, and open. There is some rhododendron on the upper, side slopes of this valley but the lower parts near the creekbed are blessedly open and tangle-free. The incline is a bit steep in a few places, so there’s always the possibility of a slip and tumble, but these steep spots are never more than a few yards in duration. It’s the kind of walk you can do in tennis shoes (during warm weather) but probably not sandals. There will be a few moments of heavy breathing, but you’ll sweat only if you are visiting during summer or you are wearing a bit too much clothing on a cold, winter day.

 

I suppose there could be a rattlesnake or two in among the rocks during the green months – it has that sort of jumbled, snakey look to it – so if it weren’t winter, I’d be poking carefully with my walking stick and looking to see if anything slithers or rattles. In other words, the best time to visit this spot is probably November to March, when those cold-blooded critters will be cloistered away, doing whatever it is they do during the cold months, trying not to freeze to death.

 

I trudged and slid up the valley through the snow and arrived at the base of the cliffs in just 15 minutes. These cliffs are perhaps 60 or 80 feet high and are mostly vertical and even past vertical so the water really does fall rather than cascade. During warmer, less-slippery months it’s possible to crawl and slide to the thin veils of water at the base of the falls, but today there was too much ice both above and below. But not enough ice to form a solid column of merged stalactites and stalagmites of frozen water. The ice column I had hoped for was not to be.

 

Instead, there were hundreds of five or six foot, dangling icicles scattered across the upper reaches of the cliffs and a ragged, car-sized block of ice at the bottom. Even without an ice column, it’s an impressive scene – the kind of place you vow to come back to during other seasons to become better acquainted. After all, every outdoor lover needs a secret spot with which he or she is comfortable and well acquainted; the kind of spot you could show to a friend or keep all to yourself. And either way, you’d feel no guilt.

 

 

Perhaps the most impressive part of the day was caused by the fact that this is a south-facing valley. Today’s temperatures were gradually rising into the 40s, and the mid-day sun was shining directly on the cliffs. So the melt was on. Icicles were dripping, then cracking and falling onto the ice slab and rocks below. Most of the falling ice was thin icicles that would clatter and tinkle like delicate wind chimes as they cracked and shattered. Occasionally a thin sheet of ice, maybe the size of a piece of notebook paper, would float and flutter down – something I had never seen before. I didn’t see any of the large icicles break and crash, but during my walk back to my truck I heard a couple of shotgun blasts that were made not by guns but by large icicles crashing and exploding on impact on the rocks below.

 

I’ve seen the same thing happen on sunny, winter days at Alum Cave Bluff just a few miles up the road. It’s an intimidating moment – even more so if you’ve just walked through the line of fire without thinking about it. You noticed all the shattered pieces of ice on the ground as you followed the trail into or out of the huge, rock alcove, but you didn’t think about what all that broken ice meant. A few moments later, when you see or hear a huge icicle fall and shatter, you realize that you’ve barely avoided being crushed by a hundred pound spike of ice. Timing is everything: in comedy and, apparently, in cheating death.   [To be continued.]

A Winter Day at Fort Harry Falls (Part 3 of 5)

After a week of on-again, off-again snow and constant sub-freezing temperatures, I hopped in my truck and drove to the Smokies. The plan was to visit an easily accessible wet cliff. Some folks call it Fort Harry Falls, but the word “falls” seems to me a bit of an exaggeration, although technically true. There is water, and it does fall, but the really impressive thing is the cliff that it falls over. After a week of frigid temps, I wondered if maybe the two or three spots where water slides over the edge might have formed a solid, ice column from top to bottom, much like Rainbow Falls on the other side of Mount LeConte during the depths of winter.

The road past the Sugarlands Visitors Center was icy, but the gate was open, so I popped my truck into four-wheel drive and headed up the road – past the Campbell Overlook, past the Chimneys Picnic Area, and past the Chimneys viewing pullouts. Midway between these Chimneys overlook pullouts and the first tunnel, there’s a small parking lot on the left side of the road. There are no special signs or markers, which gives visitors the sense that there’s nothing here – just a spot for slow drivers to pull over to let the hurried pass, or maybe a spot for an elderly couple to park their small camper and take a lunch break because all the good spots have been taken.

But there is something here – a small, nameless creek in a short, narrow valley. As far as I can tell, there’s no official hierarchy of terms in naming flowing water, but there does seem to be an informal rule of thumb: A river is bigger than a stream, a stream is bigger than a creek, and a creek is bigger than a branch. But what’s next? What do you call something that is smaller than a branch, something that barely stays wet during the dry months of late summer, and is so small that it’s hardly noticeable during the wet seasons? A rivulet? A trickle? A ravine?

I’ll call it a creekbed, even though Microsoft’s spellcheck on my computer insists that there’s no such word as “creekbed” yet the word “spellcheck” is perfectly fine. I’ll take that as one more shot in modern society’s war against the wilderness. Although, I may be overreacting just a bit.

So on this Saturday in early March, I parked at this obscure parking lot – the park service had been so kind as to clear this spot as it plowed the road after the recent snow. The sky was a crisp, deep blue. The trees were bare. I could almost see the Fort Harry Falls as I stepped off the pavement and into the snow, but not quite. These cliffs are about 200 yards from the road, making them easily accessible but not visible. They are so close, I didn’t even put on my day pack. All I carried was my walking stick to help me maneuver the snow-covered rocks and a knit hat that I’d sometimes wear and sometimes carry if I got too warm.

The snow in this tiny valley was pristine – a smooth, white, unblemished blanket about six inches deep. The only signs of activity were a few, small animal tracks. I have no skills at identifying these tracks, but the fact they were small, symmetrical, and tended to begin and end at trees would suggest red squirrels as the perpetrators.

During the green months, there’s a light path that leads up this valley. During the white months there’s no obvious path, but there is an obvious route: just follow the path of least resistance up the creekbed, which means you simply stay a few yards to the right or the left of the creekbed, going wherever the rocks and trees push you as you follow the water toward its source. 

This little valley has the same look that many creek valleys have in this part of the park – rocky, mossy, and open… as well as short and easy.  [To be continued.]

 

Take A Walk On The South Side (Part 2 of 5)

 

The best reason to live in the South is March. While it can be fickle, by the end of March we’ve traded our house slippers and our ice scraper for T shirts and lawn mowers.

The fact that the Smoky Mountains are several thousand feet higher than the surrounding countryside means that their temperatures are more like Boston than Knoxville. So to get a good taste of springtime in the mountains in March you must plan your visit carefully. It’s best to visit the park at a time when the sun has been shining for several days, so the cold front that blew through has time to melt into the warmth of several days of sunshine.

It’s also wise to focus on low elevations and south facing slopes that get more sunshine than north slopes. This makes Cades Cove a good springtime destination because the road is about 1,800’ in elevation – only about 700’ higher than my home and 3,200’ lower than Newfound Gap. Of course, as the name “cove” implies, it’s relatively flat and open as well, so it gets lots of sunshine.

Phyllis and I keep an eye on the Daffodils in our yard. Once they begin blooming, we’ll wait about two weeks and head to Cades Cove. While daffodils are not a native, mountain flower, they are scattered throughout the park because the families that used to live in the park loved Daffodils growing outside their homes. The roadsides and trails of the park sparkle with Daffodil yellow, giving evidence of the spots where mountain families raised kids, corn, hogs, and flowers.

Even the CCC workers loved Daffodils. There’s a spot in Cades Cove (about three miles from the start of the loop road, across the road from Cades Cove Missionary Baptist Church) where the Daffodils sprout in a pattern that outlines the location of the old CCC camp site, including a patch that spells out a yellow-green “Company 5427”.  It’s a pleasant little detail that few people notice because it lasts for only a few weeks, and it’s just far enough off the road to be out of the way. (To see it, cross the road from the white frame church building, find the small CCC plaque on the knee-high rock, then walk about 50 yards toward the lone cedar tree in the field. The Company 5427 site is just beyond the cedar tree.)

Cades Cove Daffodils, Company 5427

The park’s black bears also get the urge to get outside sometime in March, especially if March is acting more like April and less like February.  Most den up (most of us would call it hibernation, but the biologists say that, technically, it’s just a very deep sleep – metabolism slows to about 50%) in hollow spots in trees above the ground – warmer and safer than under rocky overhangs. When cubs emerge with their mothers they weigh about five pounds – so to see a tiny cub, go out in the warm, late weeks of March. The sunny, low terrain of Cades Cove is a good spot to get an early season glimpse of these iconic, Smokies inhabitants.

There are also numerous nooks and crannies in the park which, because they face south, will warm up much sooner than their north-facing cousins across the valley. On south-facing slopes and valleys, March looks and feels like April. On north-facing sites, March resembles February.

One particularly good stretch of south-facing slopes that get plenty of sun is the stretch of Newfound Gap Road between mile markers 7 and 8. As you drive up this road (toward North Carolina) the left side of the road has numerous rocky slopes and valleys that absorb the sun’s warmth, so even though 3,000’ to 3, 500’ is a bit high, this piece of the landscape bursts into bloom in March. Spring Beauties, Hepaticas, and Yellow Violets decorate the ground. The annual Reawakening that really hits its stride in April begins showing itself in March. It happens in fits and starts, but it does happen – March finally begins acting more like April and less like February, and the on-again, off-again mood swings of March finally settle into the warmth of April.  

One particularly lovely, south-facing slope is Fort Harry Falls…

[To be continued]