Hiking Alone...With Friends (Part 5 of 7)

We covered the first four miles of our 33 mile day hike in two hours, so we now knew that we were averaging about 2 miles per hour. Thus began our debate: how fast should we try to go? Greg lobbied for 3 mph, which is a pace that I could manage on level, paved ground but not in the mountains, and not all day. Keith said we needed to travel at LEAST 2.5 mph. I, being the old mule, suggested 2.5 mph at MOST. What we soon discovered was that the debate didn’t matter. We’d make the best time we could. Calculating our speed wouldn’t help us to get done any faster, but it would give us an idea of when we would get to the end. We didn’t know it yet, but our overall speed for the entire day, including rest and scenery stops, would be a little better than 2 mph. Although, I have to admit that Greg and Keith had to wait several times for me to catch up. And, being good friends whose bark is bigger than their bite, they did have to wait, because Greg had the only water filter. (If I had been hiking with lesser friends, I would have carried the filter.) They would wait patiently for me so that we could all fill our water bottles together. Otherwise, I would have spent the entire day waterless and several miles behind them. This was definitely the “weakest link” principle in action. How long would it take us to finish this 33 mile hike? The answer: As long as it takes the slowest member of the group. That would be me.

If you want a nice, solitary hiking experience, hike with someone who walks at a different pace than you, either faster or slower. Not only did we not see a single other person for the entire trip, but we didn’t see each other much either. I tried for awhile – out of pure peer pressure and male ego – to keep up with Greg and Keith, but I just couldn’t do it. Peer pressure can be a powerful motivator, but it can’t work miracles. I spent the vast majority of the day walking by myself, which was fine. It added to the wilderness feel of the trip. When we got home and a woman asked me what we talked about all day (a typical female misunderstanding about men), I could not only say that we didn’t talk much; I could also say that we hardly even saw each other – a concept incomprehensible to females who can’t even go to the bathroom unaccompanied.

It was now daylight as we made our way along the rocky ledges of the Sawteeth, crossing back and forth from the North Carolina to the Tennessee sides of the ridge crest. On the topo map, the Tennessee side of the ridge consists of crowded contour lines, indicating a steep drop into the Greenbrier portion of the park. It’s ironic that this rugged, mostly-untouched part of the park has farms, fields, roads, and Pigeon Forge as a backdrop. There is a 20 mile portion of ridge stretching from Mt. LeConte to Mt. Guyot which has no side trails connecting the ridge crest with the Greenbrier area below. The terrain is too rough to build and maintain trails here. This Greenbrier area is the watershed of the Middle Prong of the Little Pigeon River and is one of the best places in the park for off-trail exploration. You can walk on the Porters Creek or Ramsey Cascade trails and simply wander off in any direction into trail-less wilderness. Looking down into it from above is a beautiful, raw scene. In retrospect, that semi-civilized background of towns and farms actually accentuates its wildness.

The forest along the ridge crest is mostly 15’ firs and 30’ to 70’ spruce. There are also occasional beech gaps – low spots in the ridge that are small, flat, and a bit grassy – and filled with beech trees, plus a few birches. These high, windy gaps must be perfectly suited for these trees because virtually every southern Appalachian ridge in the 5,000’ elevation range has them. There are high gaps named Beech Gap all over the southern mountains from Virginia to Georgia.

[You guessed it… to be continued.]