Old Trails and No Trails

It all began with a passing reference about a waterfall by Carlos Campbell. There apparently used to be a trail to it, but not now and not in 1967 when he wrote about it in Memories of Old Smoky. Although I am pretty well acquainted with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, I’d never heard of this waterfall before. In fact, I’m embarrassed to say that I’d never given much thought to the fact that there might be some decent waterfalls and peaks around the park that didn’t have official trails going to them. I had assumed – without realizing that I was assuming anything at all – that if there was a dramatic or pleasant spot in the Smokies, there was a trail to take you there. But this reference by Campbell was the first crack in that wall.

I next read Out Under the Sky of the Great Smokies by Harvey Broome and found that his hikes were frequently to places that I’d never heard of. I wondered why he kept hiking to places like Woolly Tops or Drinkwater Pool or Mount Winnesoka. Why all those obscure locations?

Then it occurred to me that perhaps these locations weren’t so obscure back in the early days of the park. Broome and Campbell both lived in the Knoxville area and spent a great deal of their outdoor time in the northeast portion of the park. These obscure locations were their backyard, and they played in this backyard frequently and got to know it intimately. If the CCC and the NPS chose not to build trails to these places, that didn’t mean these places were unworthy of being visited. It simply meant that for some reason, men in offices in Gatlinburg and in Washington, DC, had decided that a trail would be built to site Y but not to site X. I began to understand that there were a lot of site X’s, and if we’d read the writings of men and women from the 1930s and 40s, we’d learn where some of these X’s were.

One thing led to another, and before long I found myself looking for that old 1973 Sierra Club Hiker’s Guide that used to be my Smokies Bible, but had been replaced by the more recent Hiking Guide published by the Great Smoky Mountains Association. I wondered if a 35 year old hiking guide might have descriptions of a few trails that had been decommissioned by the NPS. Yes, it did. I also discovered that the 1949 map of the Smokies that hangs on my wall had a few small, dashed lines that didn’t appear on recent trail maps. This was starting to feel like a treasure hunt. I was uncovering clues about a parallel universe or a secret kingdom that our forbearers had known about, but the secret had been somehow misplaced. Nicholas Cage could play me when the movie is finally made. They could call it something like, I don’t know, maybe National Treasure.

As I began to explore a few of the manifestations of this secret kingdom, I got spoiled. These places were beautiful, uncrowded, and quiet. My hiking partner and I were always alone – dirty, scratched, and bruised, but alone. I could get used to this.

Now this is probably the point at which I should start listing all these hidden, off-trail jewels. But I’m not sure I’m going to, at least not right now, for several reasons. First and foremost, I’m selfish. I’m reluctant to blab everything I know (even though it wouldn’t take very long). Second, the NPS discourages off-trail hiking. They don’t prohibit it, but they don’t especially like it, for reasons like soil erosion and potential injuries. I guess it’s their job to worry about things like that. Third, I don’t want to deprive you of the fun of finding old maps and trailbooks in search of old trails and sites. Fourth, I’ve about reached my 700 word limit.

So if you enjoy a good treasure hunt, here are a few clues to chase: Greenbrier Pinnacle, Mill Creek at 3,000’, Porters Creek and Dry Sluice Gap, Drinkwater Pool on Ramsey Prong, and Three Forks Pool in National Geographic, October 1952. And don’t forget the books by Harvey Broome and Carlos Campbell. Happy hunting!