Thanks Mom.

My wife mentioned something to me the other day that I had never thought about. She was trimming the dead leaves off one of our house plants and told me that this was the original planter, dirt, and roots that came from my mother, who died over 20 years ago. That’s a simple, unplanned connection to the past. My mother didn’t buy this small plant with the idea of passing it on to her one, immediate descendant. No, it was just one of the houseplants that remained after her rather sudden death. It was a remnant, an after-thought, just a plant in an empty apartment that needed to be cleared out by the end of the month. Thankfully, my wife had the foresight to save it.

Most of our connections with the past are like that. Yes, there are statues and plaques and other memorials to help us remember those that went before us, but most of our “memorials” are old plants, old dishes, old pictures, old tools. Stuff that you find in the attic.

And, of course, memories.

One odd memory that sticks with me is my mother’s habit of reaching over to hold me back every time she suddenly hit the brakes. In the days before seat belt laws, my mother made it a habit of protecting me from injury by reaching across and putting her hand on my chest. She continued to do that all of her life, even when I was nearly 30. At the time, I was embarrassed by it, but now I think of it fondly – a mama protecting her child to the very end. Car seats and seat belts have eliminated this endearing reflex from our culture, and although I know our children are now safer in their seats and belts, I still mourn the loss of such an obvious sign of love and protection.

One of my vivid, childhood memories involves the Smoky Mountains. I was about five years old, and my mother and I were traveling from our home in Florida to visit relatives and friends in Ohio. Because there were only a few interstates at that time, we generally drove US 441 from Orlando through Georgia, western North Carolina, and most importantly, through the Smokies. This was my first real road trip, and it was all great because it was all new and different. But the highlight, by far, was the night that we parked our Studebaker in a small, gravel pull-out next to the Oconaluftee River in Cherokee, NC. We slept in the car that night with the wild, relentless sound of the river filling our heads. (Florida’s rivers don’t make noise.) It took me a long time to fall asleep. The sound of the river mesmerized me. That night by the river was magical… and probably illegal. Although, those were simpler times, so maybe there wasn’t yet a law against sleeping in your car on the side of the road.

Did I say that night by the river was the highlight? Well, it was the highlight of my life up to that point. Remarkably, the next highlight of my life came the next morning. How lucky can a kid be to have the two highlights of his 5 years of life happen within 12 hours of each other! That foggy, cool, early morning drive through the Smokies was a step into another, better world. It was love at first sight. I learned new place names as my mother showed me the Chimneys and took me to Cades Cove and Clingmans Dome, all places that I would visit many times as the years rolled by.

My mother wasn’t a very outdoorsy person in terms of camping, but she did love the outdoors enough to make sure that most of our family vacations involved America’s national parks. And somehow, some way her love of the outdoors managed to rub off on me. She and I never talked about that, and I don’t think I ever thanked her for it, but I think she must have realized that the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree. Most of my family vacations now involve national parks – the same ones she took me to – but only in recent years have I come to see that as a memorial to her. Those times and places sunk deeply into who I am and were so important to me that I wanted my two kids to have those same, wonderful experiences: bears, buffalo, geysers, redwoods, birds, red rock canyons, deserts, mountains, cacti, rivers, even the long hours in the car watching the fields and farms pass by. I love them all, and I have my mother to thank. That love and those memories are an unwritten memorial to her.

Thanks Mom.

Freedom on the AT, Parts 1 & 2

Freedom on the A.T., Part 1
Not long ago I did a quick, one-night backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail in the Nantahala Mountains of North Carolina. It was a “bucket list” kind of thing – a section of the AT that I’d been intending to do for about 20 years but hadn’t gotten around to. So my wife and daughter kindly dropped me off at Wayah Bald, and I hiked down to Wallace Gap, spending the night (with half a dozen Boy Scouts from Florida) in one of those old, three-sided shelters that are scattered along the entire 2,100 miles of the AT.

This is probably the moment where you are expecting me to whine a little bit about the crowded shelter and having to share it with several others, mostly kids, from Florida. (They might have been Gator fans for cryin’ out loud!) But, believe it or not, I didn’t mind their company. First of all, they were mostly Juniors and Seniors in high school, so they were beginning to show subtle glimpses of maturity. (If they had been middle school boys, then yes, I’d be whining right now.) Second, they were Boy Scouts, so they were interested in the outdoors and didn’t talk about video games and reality TV the entire time. And finally, crossing paths with kindred spirits (we all were hiking the AT, after all) in these shelters usually has a good, communal feel to it. It’s a reminder that the world hasn’t gone completely crazy, and there are still people who can sit around and be entertained by the wind, stars, trees, campfires, and civil conversation. There is hope for the future, and you’ll sometimes discover that hope in these old shelters on the AT.

Oddly enough, my 20 hours on the AT between Wayah Bald and Wallace Gap started out unenthusiastically. It was raining; the trip was a last second, hurried decision; the scenery and topography would be average. In short, I was doing this mainly to get it done, not because I was drawn to the magnificence of the scene, but after an hour or two I began to get my groove back. I began to feel an old familiarity that I hadn’t realized that I had ever lost.

It soon occurred to me that it had been quite a few years since I had hiked on the AT outside of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Since we live only an hour from the Smokies, I’ve spent the past 20+ years fishing and hiking mostly in the park. Sure, I fish some other rivers, and I’ve also visited Maine, Michigan, and the Rocky Mountains a few times, but most of my regional camping has been inside the Smokies – mainly because the Smokies are higher, more majestic, and wilder than anything else in the south. I keep going back to the Smokies for the same reason that you keep returning to your favorite restaurant and ordering the same meal. It works. It ain’t broke. Don’t fix it. It’s not quite an obsession; it’s more like a habit, but a good habit. And since so many of our habits are immoral, fattening, or just plain stupid, whenever you develop a good one, it’s in your best interest to ride it as long as you can.

But it was good to be on the AT outside of the Smokies again. Part of the familiarity that I was recovering was the rural feel of the surroundings. I was reminded that most of the 2,100 miles of the AT is not raw wilderness. On the AT outside of the Smokies, you will encounter more roads, towns, farms, and fences. Not enough to be annoying, but enough to remind you that you are on a carefully planned trail that twists and turns not only because of the lay of the land but also to avoid roads, private property, and “no trespassing” signs. There are glimpses of semi-civilized, rural America scattered all along the AT.

Another part of the familiarity that I recovered on this trip was a sense of freedom. There’s absolutely no paperwork, no itinerary, required to hike the AT outside of the Smokies. No park ranger will arrive after dark and check your papers – because there are no papers to be checked.


Freedom on the A.T., Part 2

On a recent backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail in the Nantahala Mountains, a few miles south of the Smokies, I was reminded of the freedom that is an essential part of that experience.

When I’m camping or fishing in the Smokies, I don’t resent being checked by park rangers occasionally because I’m always legal. In fact, I’m glad they stop and check, just as I like the cashiers at Lowe’s to check my ID when I use my credit card. If someone steals my card and tries to use it, I’d want those cashiers to refuse the purchase and to notify the authorities. Likewise, I want the park rangers to catch guys who are (illegally) using corn and worms to catch trout in the park. Tennessee has very, very few rivers with any sort of “artificial only” fishing restrictions and absolutely no “fly fishing only” rivers, so in those rare places where there are a few, meager restrictions, I want those restrictions to be enforced. Otherwise, the rivers would be emptied of their fish pretty quickly.

On the other hand, the one time I was checked by a park ranger, my joy that he was enforcing the rules evaporated pretty rapidly as he continued to ask me what kind of vehicle I was driving, where I was parked, whether I’d be spending the night, did I have a fishing license, and was I carrying any live bait. I began to wonder if he would be taking out the waterboard to extract information on my links to al Qaeda. But once he was convinced of my innocence, we chatted awhile about the mountains and rivers. We both loved the Smokies, so we had that in common. We parted amicably. (But not as buddies. I pointed out a hornets’ nest in a nearby tree and said, “Hey, you wanna throw rocks at it?” He didn’t realize I was kidding and began to lecture me about our responsibilities to care for the natural world, and of course, the dangers of aggravating hornets. Note to self: Guys with badges and guns have no sense of humor.)

My overnighter on the AT in the Nantahalas was fairly quick and routine – walk on the trail, sleep in a shelter, finish on Old US 64 just west of Franklin. But as I walked along the trail, I would occasionally see a simple, worn path leading off to the side, ending at a small, worn campsite. These obscure campsites don’t show up on any maps. There are no cables to hang your food bag on, no facilities of any sort, unless you call a spot worn thin by previous hikers and a simple rock, fire-ring “facilities.”

These side trails and campsites are 100% unofficial, unsanctioned, undeveloped, unauthorized – and completely legal. And pleasant. I’d turn off on one of these short, side trails and find just a worn spot in the grass and a campfire ring – and a good view, or a level spot, or a small spring, or an opening in the trees providing an unhindered view of the stars. There was always something there to attract a hiker. There was always a reason why the path led where it did. I’d walk down the path, arrive at the campsite, look around, and think, “Yeah, I see why people camp here.” Then, at that moment, I’d realize that my footsteps had just added to the worn path. It was a great example of many different individuals making separate, individual decisions, yet making the same decision. That’s how these unofficial trails and campsites are made and maintained. You see the same thing – informal paths in the grass – in cow pastures and on college campuses. Students and cows voting with their feet. Simple, primitive, laissez-faire democracy.

It’s funny, isn’t it, that a small, worn spot in the woods can provide a taste of the fundamental American values of freedom, choice, and even a little risk. Those worn spots aren’t just a metaphor for freedom. They are the result of freedom. They are freedom. Not the crazy, selfish, irresponsible freedom that harms self and others. No, it’s the simple, healthy liberty that enables you to relax and breathe because no one is looking over your shoulder. There’s no one in a suit or uniform to exert their authority, to check your papers. There’s also no one to protect you because freedom entails risks. It’s just you and that haphazard campfire ring. That, my friends, is a good reason to get out of the Smokies every now and then and bask in the harmless, healthy anarchy of the Appalachian Trail.

High Rocks: There's No App For That (Part 4 of 4)

The seven mile hike on Bear Creek Trail up the eastern slope of Welch Ridge was wonderfully, deathly calm. It was so serene and lonely that if a tree had fallen, it would not have made a sound, regardless of whether or not I had been there to hear it. The solitude caused me to stop several times to simply appreciate the fact that this is how it would have felt in October, 1491, or October, 3,000 BC. Same birds. Same clouds and fog, although a bit less acidic than now. Similar trees, but probably not the identical species – all the chestnuts are now gone, and the hemlocks are fading fast. Definitely the same quiet, the same feel. That’s the kind of stuff you think about when you are lucky enough to spend an entire day in the mountains without seeing another human being. Even if you aren’t the contemplative type, the stillness and loneliness forces it on you, if for no other reason than there’s nothing else to do.

About three hours after leaving Melissa and John at the Forney Creek campsite, I arrived at the Welch Ridge Trail. This portion of Welch Ridge is very easy, but I was only on it for about half a mile. As I began walking on Welch Ridge, I was hoping the trail to High Rocks would be well-marked and obvious. If I missed it, I would be alerted by Cold Spring Gap Trail which would be about half a mile past the High Rocks side trail. If I reached Cold Spring Gap, I’d just turn around and try again.

After a few minutes I changed my mind. I began to hope that the High Rocks side trail was obscure and poorly marked. Maybe the trail would be overgrown and the wooden sign would have rotted and washed away. After all, the point of this trip is to have this peak all to myself, right?

Well, no such luck. After a mere ten minute stroll on Welch Ridge, I came to the well-maintained side trail to High Rocks, marked with a solid wooden sign pointing the way. For about two seconds I considered tearing the sign down and throwing it in the bushes, but my conscience intervened at the last second, as it occasionally does in moments of severe temptation. Hikers tend to be good, altruistic people. They love wilderness and solitude, but they tend to be accommodating of other hikers, too. Just one, big, happy family. That’s why the sign was still standing there for me to see.

The side trail to High Rocks was quick and easy. There was an interesting spot where a few stairs had been cut into some rocks. There were shrubs growing in and around the steps. It looked like part of an old, undiscovered Mayan temple.

A few yards beyond the Mayan stairs was the site of the old firetower (four concrete pads) and a deteriorating cabin with a large blue tarp over the top of it, probably a sign that the NPS is trying to save the cabin and would soon repair the rotting roof and floors. Nevertheless, the inside of the cabin was still partly intact. Windows, paint, and even a few old tools. Someone had taken an old metal chair out of the cabin and set it up on the exposed rocks next to the cabin. I’m thrilled and amazed that it’s possible to find hidden jewels like this – old cabins that have not been ransacked by looters and defaced by vandals. High Rocks is a good, lonely spot.

High Rocks

The view? Well, it’s good, I suspect. High Rocks is one of the highest spots in this neck of the woods, but thick clouds were speeding across the peak, so the visibility was about 30 feet. It would be a good view, weather permitting – but keep in mind that in the Smokies weather often does not permit. Even on a clear day, the view would not be 360 degrees, but I can say with confidence that the trip was well worth the effort. A pleasant hike on a beautiful trail. A good variety of experiences – rivers, ridges, a fine view (“weather permitting”), an old cabin, mist, wind, and isolation. It’s the real world at its best, or to quote a recent commercial: “There’s no app for that.”

Fall Colors on Welch Ridge (Part 3 of 4)

On a crisp October afternoon, my daughter, her husband, and I had paddled across Fontana Lake to the Lower Forney Creek campsite. As evening approached, Melissa and John sat in their camp chairs by the small fire they had built. Wood is not plentiful at these backcountry sites, but we can always find enough downed wood if we’ll just search away from the trail. I’m not much of a fire builder, which gives the appearance of a thoughtful, low impact, wilderness ethic, but the truth is simpler – I’m lazy. I like a campfire, but I can do without it. Fortunately, just about every other person on the planet enjoys a good camp fire, so unless I’m camping alone, I usually have a fire provided for me. I felt guilty for letting Melissa and John do all the work, but not guilty enough to actually get up and help. In their youthful enthusiasm, I don’t think they even noticed.

Later that night, well after we had settled into our tents and sleeping bags, it started to rain. Rain on a tent fly, one of life’s best sounds. We all slept well. Mud in the morning is a small price to pay for rain at night.

The next morning was cloudy and wet, but not rainy. I ate a brown and orange breakfast – cheese crackers, granola bars, ginger snap cookies, and filtered river water. Lunch will be the same, plus some peanut M&M’s. One of the best things about hiking is that I can eat chocolate and peanuts with reckless abandon – a guiltless pleasure with no consequences; although, I have discovered that if I hike more than 12 hours, something amazing and unexpected happens – I get tired of the chocolate and peanuts. That’s something that has never happened in the other, civilized part of my life. It’s one of those indescribable mysteries that can happen in the mountains.

After breakfast I took off on another excursion – a seven mile hike up Bear Creek Trail to Welch Ridge and High Rocks. Melissa and John had decided to lounge around the campsite and attend to three essential campsite chores: eating, reading, and napping. Through self-discipline and sheer determination they managed to accomplish all three in the seven hours I was gone.

I didn’t necessarily expect High Rocks to be the most dramatic spot in the mountains because I don’t think there is a “most dramatic spot” in the Smokies. There are numerous great spots, and I don’t waste my time debating which one is the very best. However, it did seem that High Rocks could be one of the most isolated spots in the park – a site rarely visited even by avid hikers. It’s not a famous or dominant peak; although it is high, almost 5,200’. It is too far from any roads for it to be the destination of a reasonable day hike, the shortest route being a 10 mile (one way) walk from the Road to Nowhere. Twenty miles is beyond the upper limit for a day hike for most folks.

And, High Rocks is not really “on the way” to anything famous. It’s sort of on the way to Hazel Creek; although it’s near just one of several trails to Hazel. Actually, High Rocks is at the end of a half-mile, dead-end, side trail off Welch Ridge Trail, so to go there you have to intend to go there. All I can say is, I didn’t see anyone else at High Rocks or on the trails.

So I set off on this cloudy, cool, almost-drizzly morning. I soon arrived at Bear Creek Trail and began ascending the eastern slope of Welch Ridge with Bear Creek flowing next to the trail. Like many trails in the Smokies this one is wide and smooth because it was once a railroad bed for the lumber companies of the early 1900s. The fall colors were vivid – mostly yellows at these lower elevations, with brilliant reds and corals kicking in at the higher elevations. I love all the colors, even brown, but there’s something about the reds and corals that just make me stop and stare, as if God had just invented them and was showing them to me to see what I thought about the idea.

I paused for a second to tell Him that I was impressed and pleased. [To be continued]

Forney Creek (Part 2 of 4)

My daughter and her husband and I wound along the twisting two-lane to the shores of Fontana Lake. We had my kayak and canoe in tow as we passed a variety of cabins, houses, and trailers in varying stages of disrepair. This is by no means a resort community. It’s one of those poor-to-working-class, rural areas that has a lot of simple, local character. Every home has a pickup truck in the yard, and it would not be a bit out of place to see a dead bear hanging from a tree branch and a pen of Plott hounds out behind the house. I’m pretty sure they all have indoor plumbing; although, an outhouse wouldn’t be a complete surprise either.

We easily stored two night’s worth of camping gear in our canoe and kayak and paddled about a mile west down the main channel and about two miles up the Forney Creek channel. When the water finally ended, we were at the moveable mouth of Forney Creek. It was mid-October, so the water was low, and the mouths of the rivers flowing out of the park and into the lake were covered with a lot of soft, muddy, bare land that would be underwater during the spring and summer. When the water levels are high from the spring rains, the mouth of the river will move fifty yards or more upstream to the edge of the forest.

So the most pleasant time to visit is the summer because you can paddle right to the edge of the forest. As soon as you step out of your boat you are surrounded by trees, shrubs, and flowers. By October the water level has dropped and you step out into a moist, lunar landscape. It’s just one more reminder that this lake, as beautiful as it is, is human-made and human-controlled. If scenic beauty were the main point, TVA would keep it full, but the phrase “scenic beauty” probably doesn’t show up in TVA’s mission statement. It’s all about power – electrical power, that is. The beauty of the lake is merely a pleasant by-product.

That used to offend me until I realized an inescapable fact: most of life’s necessities and conveniences have been manipulated by humans. Homes, clothes, and roads come most immediately to mind, but even our food and pets are joint efforts between nature and people. Corn began as a grass that we selected and cross-pollinated, resulting in the large ears of corn we have today. Or, your dog started out as a wolf or jackal that was genetically molded by people who wanted a domesticated canine for some specific purpose, such as herding sheep, retrieving ducks, or chasing badgers. That’s why there are no packs of wild poodles roaming the mountains and no “Do Not Feed The Dachshunds” signs in the backcountry. Like corn, those creatures don’t exist in the wild. They were created by humans for humans (although, I’m struggling to understand the purpose of poodles). Human ingenuity is often amazing, sometimes beneficial, and on rare occasions beautiful, as in the case of art, poetry, and Fontana Lake.

Even though this was prime leaf season, we saw only three trucks and trailers at the boat ramp and just one boat on the lake this afternoon. All the leaf watchers were clogging Cades Cove and Newfound Gap Road, as well as the roads in Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, Townsend, and Cherokee. The sky was a crisp, robin egg blue, so at least all those folks stuck in traffic had a nice day to do it in. In my more generous moments, I feel a tinge of sympathy for them because at least they tried to get outdoors and enjoy something without wires, silicon chips, and electricity, but that sympathy is quickly overshadowed by the sense of superiority that arises in the heart of anyone who has inside information about the secret workings of life, the best way to see the colors of a Smoky Mountain autumn being just one salient example.

 

The Lower Forney Creek campsite was less than a quarter mile from the mouth of the creek, so we brought a little more equipment than we normally would – a couple of folding camp chairs being the main additions to our sparse backpacking paraphernalia. Setting up camp was familiar and pleasant. My small tent smelled of dirt, leaves, and smoke, which is exactly how a tent should smell. Whenever I set up my tent, I think of where the dirt in it came from, and I spend a moment reliving that previous trip. This time it was Hazel Creek in May. It was the fishing trip that got blown out by a full day of rain. As I recall, I caught one small brook trout on a Parachute Adams, probably a size 16, in Sugar Fork before the water got too muddy and high. [To be continued]

The Road To Nowhere (Part 1 of 4)

I’ve never walked to Forney Creek because there are lots of places in the Smokies you can walk to, but there are only a few places to paddle to – and Forney Creek is one of them. So I paddle a kayak or canoe across Fontana Lake to the mouth of Forney.

Walking to Forney is perhaps a little easier than paddling. In fact, it was almost incredibly easy. We all came within a whisker of being able to drive to Forney and beyond. Just go to Bryson City and find Lakeview Drive – also known as the Road to Nowhere – and drive to its end, which is abrupt. I’m pleased that the Road to Nowhere goes by that name rather than the Road to Forney Creek or the Road to Hazel Creek. In fact, I suppose my favorite kind of road is the kind that goes to Nowhere rather than Somewhere, preferably the Middle of Nowhere.

Why is it called the Road to Nowhere rather than the Road to Somewhere?

The original boundaries of the park when it was established in 1934 were very similar to what they are today. The main exception was in this southwest quadrant of the park. The original boundary was a few miles north of its present location. The Little Tennessee River, Forney Creek, Hazel Creek and Eagle Creek were, for the most part, not in the park. In 1943 Fontana Dam was built, flooding the Little Tennessee River from Fontana Dam east to Bryson City. It also flooded the road that ran along the banks of the Little Tennessee, connecting Bryson City with points west. When the Federal government annexed the north shore of the new Fontana Lake, thus expanding the park’s boundary all the way to Fontana Lake, it promised to build a new road through this annexed portion to replace the road that now lay at the bottom of the lake. This new road would not only provide access to Fontana and beyond, it would also provide access to the numerous family cemeteries scattered along the creeks flowing out of the park and into Fontana Lake. These are the small cemeteries that you’ll bump into whenever you hike along a river in the Smokies.

The road construction finally began in the 1960s and extended about five miles into the park from Bryson City, across Noland Creek, but it stopped about two miles short of Forney Creek. Construction was stopped due to budget problems and environmental concerns; various studies were done and proposals were made in the subsequent years, and the project is now in the final stages of being completely abandoned. The Lakeview Drive will forever go to Nowhere In Particular. Forney Creek will remain a three mile walk from the end of the road.

Most folks nowadays are glad that the road project was aborted. About the only people who are upset are those who have loved ones in those cemeteries and those folks who think that the government ought to keep its promises. Under normal circumstances, keeping promises is a good thing, but we’ve all been in situations where we’ve made a stupid promise and later regretted it. This, I think, was one of those times. For many years I was worried that the government might actually keep its promise to build the road, thus ruining one of the great wilderness areas in the eastern US.

If it had been completed I would have grieved long and deep for the loss. Generally, I think the government should keep its promises; however, in this case, the promise was so potentially useless and destructive that I just hoped and prayed that the government would do what it often does – promise and not deliver. And, thankfully, that’s exactly what happened. In retrospect, as I think about politicians’ track record in keeping their promises, I don’t know why I was worried.

Why go to Forney Creek? Well, other than the fact that it’s a wild, pretty place, the fishing is pretty good. Another benefit is that it provides a great starting point for a hike to one of the most isolated, least visited spots in the park – High Rocks. [To be continued]

Remembering the Barnes Girls, Part 2 of 2

There is one place in the Smokies, one obscure set of grave stones, that strikes me with a deep sadness, the sadness that comes with the death of children…

After about an hour on the trail that begins on the road to Ramsey Cascades, you will arrive at the saddest place in the Smokies: the Barnes graves. Some folks call this the Barnes Cemetery, and I suppose that’s technically true, but I can’t bring myself to call three small graves a cemetery. The entire gravesite consists of a small plot about 6’ x 6’, so it’s a tiny monument to human frailty in a vast ocean of ancient forests and mountains, not unlike the tiny speck called Earth floating in the midst of that vast expanse we call the Universe.

This sense of isolation is enhanced by the fact that it takes some effort to reach this spot – about an hour-long walk on an old trail. Just as a waterfall or vista is better if it requires some effort to reach, the impact of a lonely cemetery is magnified by sweat and distance. And, like most sites in the park, the more sweat and distance, the lonelier the destination will be. Death and loneliness are a powerful combination, and nowhere in the park is that more apparent than at the Barnes cemetery.

But the real impact of the Barnes cemetery is the names and dates on those three, small graves: Delia Lenora Barnes, Oct 25, 1897 – Dec 25, 1898; Julies Barnes, Dec 25, 1899 – Feb 7, 1901; Rosey Barnes, Aug 18, 1915 – Sept 17, 1922. Two fourteen month old girls, one seven year old girl. Being a guy with a precious, young granddaughter, that hits me pretty hard.

The Barnes Girls

This is one of those moments where an historically-informed, vivid imagination can help us to experience the sadness of the tragedy that hit the John and Isabelle Barnes family, perhaps the entire Greenbrier community, in the winters of 1898/9 and 1900/1. Maybe those two winters were no worse than any other, but for the Barnes they were devastating. The days and sleepless nights in December, 1898, nursing a sick child. The tears. The prayers. The loss. Then on Christmas Day one year later having the chance to start over with little Julies. It must have felt like a gift from God to give birth to a second child exactly one year after the death of their first. Merry Christmas! And then, the following winter, their family history was repeated, with a vengeance. Their second little girl, gone after fourteen months, just like the first. Imagine the fear and apprehension that must have accompanied their third pregnancy.

Local oral history says there were several more children and several death-free years after Julies. Perhaps John and Isabelle thought they had finally moved past their personal tragedy, or knowing the vagaries of life in the mountains, perhaps they knew better than to assume that their tragedies had come to an end. Then came 1922 and the death of seven year old Rosey. I’ve been told that she somehow became lost and died of exposure, perhaps in an early snow. If you read much Smoky Mountain history, that’s a scenario that has happened many times in the past 100+ years – farmers, herders, hunters, hikers, and children lost outdoors and dying of hypothermia in these dangerously beautiful mountains.

It’s the kind of thing that gets you to thinking about the brevity and meaning of life and our feeble efforts to be remembered by those who are yet to come – the same things that Solomon was thinking when he wrote “all is vanity, a chasing after the wind.” All of us will end up in graveyards marked with stones that will erode and that people will forget. These mountain cemeteries are full of stones that are so old and worn that no words are visible, the final, fitting remnants of lives lived quietly and unremarkably in a mountain cove.

It’s ironic that one of the simmering controversies arising from the creation of the national park has been providing adequate access to these cemeteries. Some Smoky Mountain families still resent the government intrusion that took their land and family cemeteries from them. And yet, knowing the way children and grandchildren move away to jobs in the city and lose their connection to the family homeplace, if the land had not been taken by the government and a national park created, these rocks and graves today might be covered by pavement, condos, and strip malls, and thus gone forever. Instead, the forced sacrifice by those mountain families has provided us all with the opportunity to put on our boots, walk to a quiet corner of the mountains, to imagine the lives and tragedies of those families… and to keep their memory alive.

Note: I recently (spring, 2013) made an unusual discovery... one of the Barnes girls is a boy! Julies is perhaps misspelled. Should be Jules or even Julius. I spoke to a Barnes descendant recently. Julies is a boy, born to John Barnes first wife. The other two are girls, born to John and his second wife. See my August 16, 2013 blog for the correction.

 

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On the dirt road in the Greenbrier section of the park, there’s a split in the road. Straight goes to the Porters Creek Trail; left goes to Ramsey Cascades Trail. Go left. Almost half a mile from this split, on the road that leads to Ramsey, there’s an obscure, but visible, trail that departs from the left side of the road. (The GPS coordinates are 35.70668, 83.37505.) This is the trail to the Barnes homesite; although, it is sometimes called the Cat Stairs trail because it actually passes through the Barnes homesite on its way up the western end of Greenbrier Pinnacle. Like many great sites in the park, the NPS pretends that the Barnes homesite doesn’t exist. It’s never mentioned in any of their tourist information, and the trail is not marked on any of their maps.

The hike from the road to the Barnes cemetery takes about an hour. For the first minute or two the trail parallels the road but quickly turns left, away from the road. For the next five or ten minutes the trail is obvious, paralleling old rock walls. (You should be headed north.) After 10 or 15 minutes from the start of this hike the trail crosses Bird Branch, a modest creek a mere five or six feet wide and usually only about ankle or calf deep. (It’s important to take special notice of this spot where the trail crosses Bird Branch, perhaps marking it with a bandana or pile of rocks or a GPS waypoint, because if you happen to get lost or bewildered, your exit strategy would be to walk downhill (south) back to this creek, and follow it downstream until you reach this spot, where you would leave the creek and rejoin the trail back to your car.)

The trail can get a bit hazy at this spot where you cross Bird Branch, so pay attention. When you cross the creek go straight uphill for about 10 yards. The trail will reappear and will bear right, paralleling the creek. If in doubt, keep this in mind: for the next 15 minutes the trail generally parallels Bird Branch, staying about 10 or 20 yards above and to the left of this creek as you walk upstream which is generally northeast. In other words, the creek will be below you and 10 or 20 yards to your right for the next 15 minutes.

About 15 minutes after you crossed Bird Branch, the worn path turns left away from Bird Branch. (This left turn can be hard to see because there’s actually a split in the trail. One fork goes straight and continues to parallel the creek. The left fork is the one you should take. There’s a small remnant of a wall or modest pile of rocks at this split.) If you’ll look carefully, you’ll see an X carved about eye level into a tree (a dying hemlock) just 10 or 20 feet up this trail to the left. (For the next 30 minutes you will follow this path which is usually very obvious, but does occasionally get a bit vague.) About five minutes after you turn left away from Bird Branch, you’ll join a different, smaller, unnamed creek. At this point you are about half way to the Barnes graves. You’ll follow this small creek up, so if the trail gets hazy, just keep following this creek’s small valley uphill. (This creek might be waterless in dry seasons. If so, just follow the creekbed where the water would have been.)

For the final 10 minutes of this hike, the trail heads to the right, away from this small creek. At this point in the hike the trail is well-worn and obvious, so when you notice the trail bear to the right away from the creekbed, follow the trail. It leads directly to the graves. The GPS location of the Barnes Cemetery is: 35.71828, 83.35930.

Beyond the graves, you can follow the trail a couple of minutes to the old homesite where a chimney still stands.
 

Note: This is a fairly tame adventure, but the trail does get hazy in a few places. Always bring a map and compass or, preferably, a GPS (and knowledge of how to use them). Always tell someone at home where you are going and when to expect you back. It’s best not to do this or any off-trail hike alone. When lost, two heads are usually better than one. For this particular hike, spring and summer are the best options because the trail is less likely to be hidden under several inches of freshly fallen leaves.

Exploring farther: If you look carefully, the trail continues from behind the chimney. It goes north to a spot on Copeland Divide where you can make a sharp right turn and follow this ridge up through the Cat Stairs to the top of Greenbrier Pinnacle. The GPS location of this sharp right turn is 35.7259, 83.3619. But beware, if you return by the same route you came up, the path down Copeland Divide through the Cat Stairs can be tricky. In short, it’s almost impossible to get lost when you go up a ridge. However, it’s very easy to get off course when you go down a ridge. (It’s the same reason – but in reverse – that it’s easy to get off track when you go up a creek, but not down.) If that doesn’t make sense, you probably haven’t done enough off-trail hiking to try the Cat Stairs section of this extended hike (unless you have a GPS that you can use to mark routes and waypoints).

By the way, there are other, harder, interesting routes among the cliffs on western face of Greenbrier Pinnacle.

For more info, you can contact me at gahoov55@icloud.com .