[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.
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| "Why are we doing this?" |
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| 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.]
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