Our hike to the top of Anakeesta Ridge would be steep, ascending 1,000 feet vertical in 3/10 of a mile horizontal. It wasn’t dangerous, but it was dirty, tiring, and slow. Greg the Statistician told me the next day that this was the slowest hike we had ever done. We covered one mile in five hours; although, in our defense, there were more than the average number of stops for pictures which is a sure sign of a memorable trip.
There was a lightly worn path running right up this narrow crest, meaning that this route was occasionally used by others. Who these others are and how they discovered this route are mysteries to me; although, I have a hunch that not all of them are human. Sometimes a path is clear from head to foot, but others are only about knee high. Those knee high tunnels through the brush are almost certainly bear paths, which adds another layer of drama to the trip. Walking on a trail is fine. Walking on a manway has a greater sense of discovery to it. Walking on a bearway is wildly enticing, as long as the bear is black, not grizzly.
Whoever they are, human or ursus, they keep their secrets well, and I found myself thanking them for their covert trailblazing. Pushing one’s way through a pathless tangle of rhododendron and mountain laurel is the hardest, most frustrating part of off-trail hiking. Yes, off-trail hiking is a lot easier when there’s a path… and I’ve been surprised at how often there is one.
On the other hand, the presence of rhododendron, mountain laurel, and sand myrtle means that you are in a beautiful, wild place that becomes outrageously beautiful in May, June, and July. In fact, when it’s all said and done, I think these lonely, rocky, narrow ridges covered in heath thickets are my favorite places in the Smokies. There’s always a good view of the surrounding terrain, there’s always work and sweat involved which makes the destination all the more special, and there’s a gradual progression of spring blooms which is so outrageously outrageous, so extravagantly extravagant, that redundancy is necessary but not quite sufficient.
After about two hours of hiking, scrambling, and picture-taking, Greg and I reached Anakeesta’s main crest, and we found the spot where a month earlier we had taken a wrong turn and stumbled upon this side ridge. We followed the faint trail leading west along Anakeesta’s crest, giving magnificent views across the Alum Cave and Styx river valleys. The broad crest of Mount LeConte was visible: Myrtle Point, High Top, Cliff Top, West Point, Balsam Point. Looking down we could clearly pick out Alum Cave Trail leading to Inspiration Point and Peregrine Peak. There are many reasons why people hike, but views like this are high on everyone’s list. It’s good to know early in the day that your hike has paid off handsomely in the form of vast panoramas, and this one had. If we had quit right then, the hike would still have been a success.
There have been several large landslides since the park was established in 1934, and numerous smaller ones. A storm on September 1, 1951 and another on June 28, 1993 struck the south slopes of Mount LeConte around Peregrine Peak. From our vantage point on Anakeesta Ridge, rocky scars from these downpours and subsequent landslides were clearly visible high on the south slopes of Mt. LeConte.
Another large landslide was actually a pair of landslides that occurred on August 10, 1984. After a heavy, evening thunderstorm two sections of mountainside slid off the southern slope of Anakeesta Ridge and onto Newfound Gap Road, between Alum Cave Trail and Newfound Gap. About 30 cars were trapped on the road between these two slides for several hours. Amazingly, while there were several near-misses, no one was seriously injured. These are the prominent rocky scars that are visible from the Morton Overlook parking pullouts. It was these scars that we were walking above today.
My wife is skeptical when I tell her this, but it’s true: those rocky scars are not quite as dangerous as they appear. Looking at them from a mile away, they look slick and vertical, but as we walked on the ridge above them we could see that some spots were dangerously vertical, but plenty of others were not. Many of these scars had small shrubs beginning to repopulate their cracks and gullies. In fact, small spruce forests were developing along the edges of these scars where there was enough soil to support trees.
As the day wore on, Greg and I began to ask each other what our plans were. We had originally thought that we’d hike along the ridgecrest, enjoy the views, and be flexible. We might follow the entire crest all the way to the Alum Cave Trail parking area. Or, we might hike down some other side ridge or creekbed. But as we looked down the rocky scars we began to consider another possibility: would it be really, really stupid to scramble down these rocky scars? And if so, should that stop us? [To be continued]
No comments:
Post a Comment