The LeConte Trip, Day 1 of 3

The coldest I’ve ever been in my life was on the Boulevard Trail leading five miles from the Appalachian Trail to the top of Mount LeConte. I was a novice backpacker in my early 20s, and while I wasn’t completely ignorant, I still didn’t know the nuances of winter backpacking – such as, moisture from sweat is just as dangerous and uncomfortable as moisture from rain and snow. I don’t think GoreTex had been invented yet, but even if it had, I probably wouldn’t have understood what all the excitement was about, but even if I did, I couldn’t have afforded it. In fact, I still can’t afford it, but there’s one big difference – now, I buy it anyway. My kids can pay for their own college education.

My feet had been numb since the previous evening at Icewater Spring shelter, and they were still numb as my three hiking partners and I waded through calf-deep snow toward the top of Mt. LeConte. I was wearing blue jeans and leather boots and had plastic bread bags on my feet, over my socks thinking they would keep my socks and feet dry. This was the trip on which the realities of moisture, condensation, sweat, and cold temperatures all became clear to me. I was the mule, and the wet socks and feet were the two by four that finally got my attention.

We were all unprepared and miserable, but of course that simply reminded us of how masculine we all were, so it was well worth it. In fact, we were all so thoroughly miserable that we made this an annual event. From this moment on, this route would come to be called The LeConte Trip, fully deserving of the capital letters. Every fall, as we’d begin thinking ahead to winter, one of us would suggest The LeConte Trip as our winter excursion, and we’d all pause, remember the cold and fatigue, and nod our heads in agreement. We repeated this adventure several more times until life’s obligations separated our little backpacking fraternity.

For the next several Januarys we’d park at Newfound Gap and hike 3 miles to Icewater Spring shelter for the first night. Before going to bed for the night, we would hike the one mile to Charlies Bunion and scramble around on the rocks, enjoying the view and basking in the knowledge that we were all manly outdoor types who were just a little superior to all those sissies in hotels in Gatlinburg.

Now one problem with winter backpacking is not just the cold. It’s the early bedtime. That might sound like a good thing, but it’s not. It gets dark around 5 or 6 pm, and it’s generally too cold to sit around and talk or play cards. (There’s virtually no firewood around these backcountry shelters. Plenty of trees, but no dead and down, and therefore legal, wood.) By 6 pm you are in your sleeping bag, eating gorp (good ol’ raisins & peanuts) to stoke your metabolism, and praying that morning will come soon.

It never does.

The bunks are hard. Your face sticking out of your sleeping bag is cold. And then you realize you didn’t drink enough during the day. You reach down around your feet to dig out your water bottle. You keep it in your sleeping bag so it won’t freeze. You drink and eat gorp and then drink some more.

Then you have to pee.

Most folks just get up and go. A few others somehow wait until morning. There’s even a theory out there that your body uses more calories keeping your bladder at 98.6 degrees than it does to get up, walk out of the shelter, stand in the snow, get chilled in the process, and crawl back into your bag and try to get warm by doing isometrics. As the theory goes, calorie-wise and warmth-wise, you should get up and go. Personally, I believe that debate fills a much needed gap in the literature of backpacking. I just haven’t reached that level of insight and sophistication. I follow the same rule that I follow in my non-backpacking life: when you need to go, just go.

Anyway, morning never comes... and I have proof.  [To be continued.]

Hepatica and Hope (Part 5 of 5)

After watching the ice melt at Fort Harry Falls, I walked back to my truck, thinking about my visit here last summer and how different this valley looks in the winter and how it might look in the thaw of spring. This small valley should be prime wildflower habitat, although I could be wrong. In April when the initial explosion of wildflowers hits the lower and mid elevations of the park, the distribution of wildflowers seems, to me, to be almost random. For example, you can drive up the Greenbrier road and see a few violets or foam flowers scattered along the roadside, then suddenly you’ll encounter a patch of bloodroot that will take your breath away. Why these bloodroots don’t appear all along the roadside is a mystery to me. The shade, slope, and soil all look like prime habitat, yet the bloodroots show up in just that one spot. Or, a trail that looks to me like ideal wildflower habitat may be remarkably unremarkable during peak wildflower season, for reasons known only to God and botanists.

 Just as these thoughts had finished crossing the synapses of my brain, I stuck the end of my walking stick under a small, rock ledge, and I saw a flash of green. I pushed the thin layer of snow away and saw the very distinctive, three lobes of a Hepatica – one of my favorite wildflowers. I have a warm spot in my heart for Hepatica because my mother used to speak of them as one of her favorite flowers when she was a young girl growing up in Depression-era, northern Ohio. (That was only a couple of generations ago, but it seems like dozens because it was a time when kids actually noticed wildflowers and even knew their names.) She loved them because they are one of the earliest-blooming wildflowers. They make their white-pink appearance in early spring, while the weather is mostly cold but gives an occasional glimpse of the warm weather that is yet to come. In God’s list of virtues, I’d identify Hepatica with Hope. They are reminders that resurrections happen and that earth’s annual resurrection is just days away.

 The poet Robert Frost once wrote of a wasted, dying man who had “nothing to look backward to with pride and nothing to look forward to with hope.” Hepatica is just the opposite. It’s a promise of hope that the green warmth of spring will soon arrive, it’s a reminder of the sensuous pleasures of past springs, and it’s a sign of pride in making it through yet another winter. So because of my mother and because of the hope of spring, I love Hepatica. It also happens to be one of the few wildflowers that I can identify just by its leaves. They are so distinctive that even a guy like me who suffers from wildflower amnesia every spring – in April I have to start almost from scratch with my wildflower book in hand – knows a Hepatica when he sees one, even without its bloom.

 

The distinctive leaf of Hepatica

 In a typical year, I don’t see many Hepaticas in bloom. They aren’t rare, but they bloom in March or early April, so early that most of us aren’t yet thinking about wildflowers. The real wildflower show peaks a few weeks later, in mid-April. That’s when Phyllis and I will spend a few extra days in the Smokies walking through some of our favorite spots, looking for Trilliums, Trout Lilies, or Bluets. By then, the Hepaticas are fading, and spring is bustin’ out all over. When I do see Hepaticas in bloom, it’s usually accidental. That is, we get some warm days as early March slides into late March, and that gets my blood flowing again. That seems to be when the Hepaticas’ blood gets flowing, too. We both make our appearance in the mountain valleys at about the same time. We aren’t looking for each other, but we find each other nonetheless. 

 

Where There's Hepatica, There's Hope

 

 So now I have another special, secret spot – a patch of soil under a rock by an unnamed creek accessible via an unassuming parking lot on the main road through the Smokies. I’ll be back in a few weeks, when March begins acting less like February and more like April, looking not only for water falling over a cliff but also for a small, white-pink sign of hope that earth’s annual resurrection is just around the corner, and the Hepaticas and I will find each other once again. 

Spring Begins Early at Fort Harry Falls (Part 4 of 5)

 

The little valley leading to Fort Harry Falls is short and easy – rocky, mossy, and open. There is some rhododendron on the upper, side slopes of this valley but the lower parts near the creekbed are blessedly open and tangle-free. The incline is a bit steep in a few places, so there’s always the possibility of a slip and tumble, but these steep spots are never more than a few yards in duration. It’s the kind of walk you can do in tennis shoes (during warm weather) but probably not sandals. There will be a few moments of heavy breathing, but you’ll sweat only if you are visiting during summer or you are wearing a bit too much clothing on a cold, winter day.

 

I suppose there could be a rattlesnake or two in among the rocks during the green months – it has that sort of jumbled, snakey look to it – so if it weren’t winter, I’d be poking carefully with my walking stick and looking to see if anything slithers or rattles. In other words, the best time to visit this spot is probably November to March, when those cold-blooded critters will be cloistered away, doing whatever it is they do during the cold months, trying not to freeze to death.

 

I trudged and slid up the valley through the snow and arrived at the base of the cliffs in just 15 minutes. These cliffs are perhaps 60 or 80 feet high and are mostly vertical and even past vertical so the water really does fall rather than cascade. During warmer, less-slippery months it’s possible to crawl and slide to the thin veils of water at the base of the falls, but today there was too much ice both above and below. But not enough ice to form a solid column of merged stalactites and stalagmites of frozen water. The ice column I had hoped for was not to be.

 

Instead, there were hundreds of five or six foot, dangling icicles scattered across the upper reaches of the cliffs and a ragged, car-sized block of ice at the bottom. Even without an ice column, it’s an impressive scene – the kind of place you vow to come back to during other seasons to become better acquainted. After all, every outdoor lover needs a secret spot with which he or she is comfortable and well acquainted; the kind of spot you could show to a friend or keep all to yourself. And either way, you’d feel no guilt.

 

 

Perhaps the most impressive part of the day was caused by the fact that this is a south-facing valley. Today’s temperatures were gradually rising into the 40s, and the mid-day sun was shining directly on the cliffs. So the melt was on. Icicles were dripping, then cracking and falling onto the ice slab and rocks below. Most of the falling ice was thin icicles that would clatter and tinkle like delicate wind chimes as they cracked and shattered. Occasionally a thin sheet of ice, maybe the size of a piece of notebook paper, would float and flutter down – something I had never seen before. I didn’t see any of the large icicles break and crash, but during my walk back to my truck I heard a couple of shotgun blasts that were made not by guns but by large icicles crashing and exploding on impact on the rocks below.

 

I’ve seen the same thing happen on sunny, winter days at Alum Cave Bluff just a few miles up the road. It’s an intimidating moment – even more so if you’ve just walked through the line of fire without thinking about it. You noticed all the shattered pieces of ice on the ground as you followed the trail into or out of the huge, rock alcove, but you didn’t think about what all that broken ice meant. A few moments later, when you see or hear a huge icicle fall and shatter, you realize that you’ve barely avoided being crushed by a hundred pound spike of ice. Timing is everything: in comedy and, apparently, in cheating death.   [To be continued.]

A Winter Day at Fort Harry Falls (Part 3 of 5)

After a week of on-again, off-again snow and constant sub-freezing temperatures, I hopped in my truck and drove to the Smokies. The plan was to visit an easily accessible wet cliff. Some folks call it Fort Harry Falls, but the word “falls” seems to me a bit of an exaggeration, although technically true. There is water, and it does fall, but the really impressive thing is the cliff that it falls over. After a week of frigid temps, I wondered if maybe the two or three spots where water slides over the edge might have formed a solid, ice column from top to bottom, much like Rainbow Falls on the other side of Mount LeConte during the depths of winter.

The road past the Sugarlands Visitors Center was icy, but the gate was open, so I popped my truck into four-wheel drive and headed up the road – past the Campbell Overlook, past the Chimneys Picnic Area, and past the Chimneys viewing pullouts. Midway between these Chimneys overlook pullouts and the first tunnel, there’s a small parking lot on the left side of the road. There are no special signs or markers, which gives visitors the sense that there’s nothing here – just a spot for slow drivers to pull over to let the hurried pass, or maybe a spot for an elderly couple to park their small camper and take a lunch break because all the good spots have been taken.

But there is something here – a small, nameless creek in a short, narrow valley. As far as I can tell, there’s no official hierarchy of terms in naming flowing water, but there does seem to be an informal rule of thumb: A river is bigger than a stream, a stream is bigger than a creek, and a creek is bigger than a branch. But what’s next? What do you call something that is smaller than a branch, something that barely stays wet during the dry months of late summer, and is so small that it’s hardly noticeable during the wet seasons? A rivulet? A trickle? A ravine?

I’ll call it a creekbed, even though Microsoft’s spellcheck on my computer insists that there’s no such word as “creekbed” yet the word “spellcheck” is perfectly fine. I’ll take that as one more shot in modern society’s war against the wilderness. Although, I may be overreacting just a bit.

So on this Saturday in early March, I parked at this obscure parking lot – the park service had been so kind as to clear this spot as it plowed the road after the recent snow. The sky was a crisp, deep blue. The trees were bare. I could almost see the Fort Harry Falls as I stepped off the pavement and into the snow, but not quite. These cliffs are about 200 yards from the road, making them easily accessible but not visible. They are so close, I didn’t even put on my day pack. All I carried was my walking stick to help me maneuver the snow-covered rocks and a knit hat that I’d sometimes wear and sometimes carry if I got too warm.

The snow in this tiny valley was pristine – a smooth, white, unblemished blanket about six inches deep. The only signs of activity were a few, small animal tracks. I have no skills at identifying these tracks, but the fact they were small, symmetrical, and tended to begin and end at trees would suggest red squirrels as the perpetrators.

During the green months, there’s a light path that leads up this valley. During the white months there’s no obvious path, but there is an obvious route: just follow the path of least resistance up the creekbed, which means you simply stay a few yards to the right or the left of the creekbed, going wherever the rocks and trees push you as you follow the water toward its source. 

This little valley has the same look that many creek valleys have in this part of the park – rocky, mossy, and open… as well as short and easy.  [To be continued.]

 

Take A Walk On The South Side (Part 2 of 5)

 

The best reason to live in the South is March. While it can be fickle, by the end of March we’ve traded our house slippers and our ice scraper for T shirts and lawn mowers.

The fact that the Smoky Mountains are several thousand feet higher than the surrounding countryside means that their temperatures are more like Boston than Knoxville. So to get a good taste of springtime in the mountains in March you must plan your visit carefully. It’s best to visit the park at a time when the sun has been shining for several days, so the cold front that blew through has time to melt into the warmth of several days of sunshine.

It’s also wise to focus on low elevations and south facing slopes that get more sunshine than north slopes. This makes Cades Cove a good springtime destination because the road is about 1,800’ in elevation – only about 700’ higher than my home and 3,200’ lower than Newfound Gap. Of course, as the name “cove” implies, it’s relatively flat and open as well, so it gets lots of sunshine.

Phyllis and I keep an eye on the Daffodils in our yard. Once they begin blooming, we’ll wait about two weeks and head to Cades Cove. While daffodils are not a native, mountain flower, they are scattered throughout the park because the families that used to live in the park loved Daffodils growing outside their homes. The roadsides and trails of the park sparkle with Daffodil yellow, giving evidence of the spots where mountain families raised kids, corn, hogs, and flowers.

Even the CCC workers loved Daffodils. There’s a spot in Cades Cove (about three miles from the start of the loop road, across the road from Cades Cove Missionary Baptist Church) where the Daffodils sprout in a pattern that outlines the location of the old CCC camp site, including a patch that spells out a yellow-green “Company 5427”.  It’s a pleasant little detail that few people notice because it lasts for only a few weeks, and it’s just far enough off the road to be out of the way. (To see it, cross the road from the white frame church building, find the small CCC plaque on the knee-high rock, then walk about 50 yards toward the lone cedar tree in the field. The Company 5427 site is just beyond the cedar tree.)

Cades Cove Daffodils, Company 5427

The park’s black bears also get the urge to get outside sometime in March, especially if March is acting more like April and less like February.  Most den up (most of us would call it hibernation, but the biologists say that, technically, it’s just a very deep sleep – metabolism slows to about 50%) in hollow spots in trees above the ground – warmer and safer than under rocky overhangs. When cubs emerge with their mothers they weigh about five pounds – so to see a tiny cub, go out in the warm, late weeks of March. The sunny, low terrain of Cades Cove is a good spot to get an early season glimpse of these iconic, Smokies inhabitants.

There are also numerous nooks and crannies in the park which, because they face south, will warm up much sooner than their north-facing cousins across the valley. On south-facing slopes and valleys, March looks and feels like April. On north-facing sites, March resembles February.

One particularly good stretch of south-facing slopes that get plenty of sun is the stretch of Newfound Gap Road between mile markers 7 and 8. As you drive up this road (toward North Carolina) the left side of the road has numerous rocky slopes and valleys that absorb the sun’s warmth, so even though 3,000’ to 3, 500’ is a bit high, this piece of the landscape bursts into bloom in March. Spring Beauties, Hepaticas, and Yellow Violets decorate the ground. The annual Reawakening that really hits its stride in April begins showing itself in March. It happens in fits and starts, but it does happen – March finally begins acting more like April and less like February, and the on-again, off-again mood swings of March finally settle into the warmth of April.  

One particularly lovely, south-facing slope is Fort Harry Falls…

[To be continued]

A Tale of Two Seasons (1 of 5)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was hot, it was cold, it was rainy, it way snowy, it was sunny, it was stormy. It was March.

Here in East Tennessee the month of March is the time when we dare to get our hopes up. It’s the month when the seagulls leave Cherokee Lake. It’s the month when the Daffodils typically bloom (although, Daffodils are a gullible breed who can be tricked into blooming just about any time after the New Year). The Serviceberry tree at the end of my driveway blooms a brilliant, delicate white. Many of us get our first, glorious sunburn in March, usually from doing yard work in a T shirt.

It’s also the month that we get the most snow, tornados reappear after their winter hibernation, and we get back to pulling weeds and cutting grass. March is the month when I try to sleep with our windows open about six inches so I can hear owls and mockingbirds at night and wrens in the morning, but then must get up in the middle of the night to close them because the heater has kicked on. I’m willing to endure numerous hardships to enjoy the great outdoors, but burning propane unnecessarily isn’t one of them. Yes, March is the time when we dare to get our hopes up, only to have them crushed by the tilt of the earth in relation to the sun, only to have them raised again the next day.

March is a fickle month, but not completely unpredictable. If it’s cold today, it will be warm in a couple of days. If it’s warm today, it will be cold soon. In that respect, March is as predictable as a pendulum. It’s two seasons shuffled into a single month.

March, acting like February

I’ve heard some folks say that they couldn’t live in New England or the Rockies because of January. There’s just too much snow and cold and ice in the middle of the winter. Their winters are too dang deep. Not me. As much as I love the coast of Maine and the mountains of Colorado, I couldn’t live there because of March. In those places, winter is just too dang long. In Tennessee, March is the month in which it becomes obvious that winter won’t last forever.

March, acting like April

Having lived a winter-deprived childhood in Florida, I don’t mind a deep winter with respectable amounts of snow and ice. I like walking around in my home with fuzzy slippers and a mug of hot chocolate. (Winter is the only time of year I wish I liked coffee.) I like watching the Robins form winter flocks as if they intended to migrate south, but then never quite getting around to leaving. Juncos and White-throated Sparrows make their brief, winter appearance under our bird feeder. I don’t even mind scraping the windshield in the morning.

But by March, it’s time to move on. I’m ready to keep the windows open all night. I’m ready to put my slippers away for another year. I’m sick and tired of scraping my windshield. In other words, I love winter… but only for a couple of months. By the middle of March, I’m over it, and thankfully, East Tennessee is pretty much over it, too. Yes, we’ll still get some ice, and maybe some snow, but by late March the back of my neck is peeling from too much sun, and it has become obvious that spring has returned to East Tennessee. In the Rockies, people are beginning to think that their memories of spring are merely hazy remnants of a previous life.

Of course, in March all those hardy souls in Maine and Colorado still have their snow tires and chains on, are still burning wood in the fireplace, and are walking around in fuzzy slippers and robes, trying not to descend into a screaming case of March Madness. As March grinds along, that beautiful blanket of snow starts feeling like quicksand, and a lot of folks probably trade their hot coffee for hard liquor because desperate times require desperate measures.

In one of Robert Frost’s poems, he scolds April for sometimes acting like March instead of May. If he had lived in the South instead of New England he would have shifted his time frame a month earlier. He’d have scolded March for sometimes acting like February. In New England they look forward to April; here, we look forward to March.

Ahh, March! It’s the best reason to live in the South. [To be continued.]

 

 

Durant's Ghost (Part 3 of 3)

It was pitch black and the voice of an old man – who was completely invisible except the orange glow of his cigar – had instructed me to the only rising fish that I had heard all night. I waded within 10 feet of the fish which is possible at night, but not considered proper technique by some, including the old man.

 

To make a short story longer, the fish rose, I waited about 15 seconds, then I dropped my fly just upstream of the sound and let it drift down. A few seconds later I heard a small splash about where my fly probably was. I set the hook gently. The fight was not an epic battle. It was more like a brief test of wills. He made a few short runs and broke the surface a few times, but he mostly sat and sulked, too proud to surrender. Typical for a good-sized brown trout. After a minute or two he relented, and I scooped him into my net. A deeply-colored, sixteen inch, wild brown trout. Not a huge fish, but large enough that he should have known better.

 

I turned toward the dock to tell my elderly guide that the fish was a flawless sixteen inches, but he was gone. No cigar glow, no congratulations, no “how big is he?” Nothing. Silence. He seemed to have simply vanished into the darkness.

 

What kind of fisherman would leave without seeing how the encounter turned out? Would the Southern guy catch the fish? If so, how big was it? Maybe he knew how big the fish was because he had caught and released it many times over the past few years. Maybe he was disgusted that I wasn’t fishing as a gentleman should and left because he couldn’t bear to listen. Maybe he had to be somewhere before sunrise.

 

I waded across the river and onto the dock and shouted for him: “Woo, thanks! Sixteen inches!” No answer. Just the sound of water flowing against sand, grass, and fallen trees. No sound of footsteps on the path, no car driving away down the dirt road. I walked a little farther to the grassy meadow where Durant’s Castle used to stand and shouted again. Nothing… except darkness, a billion stars, and the sound of a cool breeze rustling the tops of the pines.

 

The old dock from which the glow and the voice had emanated is the riverside access for the old house – Durant’s Castle, a French chateau with fifty-six rooms and seven fireplaces – where Mr. W. C. Durant, the chairman of General Motors, had lived briefly in 1930.  In February, 1931 the mansion burned down, and although he continued to come to the AuSable to fish, Durant never rebuilt, and his riverside property eventually passed into the hands of the State of Michigan which now maintains it as a fly fishing only, primitive area.

 

The AuSable River is the center point of this local community. It is loved and tended and respected. The fact that the fishermen and canoeists who are drawn to it provide jobs and income to this rural area probably helps, but there’s clearly more to the community-river relationship than just dollars and cents. The local folks love this river the way you’d love your mother, not your bank account.

 

One sad-but-true fact about many other rivers – including many of our East Tennessee rivers – is that they are used but not loved. The amount of trash, old tires, junked cars, plastic WalMart bags, beer cans, and bags of garbage on our local rivers is just plain embarrassing to those of us who care about such things. While those rivers are places where people dump their trash, the AuSable is a river where people dump their ashes… of loved ones. While fishing the AuSable we’ll occasionally encounter a guy sitting reverently on the riverbank, paying his respects to the final resting place of his father, whose ashes had been scattered on the waters of his beloved river.  This happens more often than you’d think.

A few miles from Durant’s Castle there’s a stretch of the AuSable called “the Holy Water.” While people don’t come here to bathe and be miraculously healed, this name does show the depth of respect the locals hold for this river. If a community can have a soul, this river is it.

I don’t think much about ghosts, and I’m not sure I believe in them. However, I do believe in the supernatural which does open up a world of possibilities, one of which might be an occasional visit by the ghost of a man who once lived by this river and fished its waters. Rather than being punishment for a profligate life, spending a few years as a disembodied spirit wandering the banks of the AuSable might actually be a reward for good behavior. It’s certainly closer to Heaven than Hell.

The river by the site of Durant’s Castle is a pleasant spot, and if I were a ghost, I’d spend some time there, too. And if the mood struck, I might even point out a rising fish to a passing fisherman so he’d have a story to tell his buddies when they all reunited at the old wooden dock after a night on my river.