Relentless Rhododendron (Part 3 of 6)

Sometimes plans change, and due to stupidity on my part, our plans to explore Molly Creek had changed. The most significant change was that we’d now be bushwhacking down Molly Creek instead of up. We’d begin the last leg of our day hike by picking up the headwaters of Molly Creek near the Russell Field shelter and following it all the way down about five miles to Cades Cove. As it turns out, this was a blessing in disguise. Trying to stay on track going upstream would have been possible but very, very difficult. It’s surprisingly hard to find your way up a creek in a steep-sided ravine. You focus so much on just trying to walk on a steep slope through or around rhododendron thickets and on rugged game trails that you can easily head up a tributary without realizing that you’ve left the main branch. If you hike right next to the river, you can see the main branch and the tributaries, but you rarely hike right next to the river. More often, you are on the slope above the rhododendron thickets and river.

Okay, I’ve mentioned rhododendron thickets a couple of times. Let me just say it again. Rhododendron! That one word changes everything. When you look at the map, you think, “I’ll just stay by Molly Creek all the way up (or down). I’ll see the tributaries and avoid them. I’ll see the cascade when I get to it.” The flaw in that plan is rosebay rhododendron. This is the shrub that blooms beautiful white-pink flowers along the roadside in June and attracts thousands of sightseers. It also grows prolifically in river gorges and moist, shady ravines. It forms a heavy thicket called a rhododendron “hell” because that’s how you feel, what you go through, and what you say (repeatedly) while you are in it.

Rhododendron!

For off-trail hiking, the significance of rhododendron is that it pushes you away from the creek and up onto the slope. Not only is hiking along the side of a 45 degree slope physically taxing – giving you a distinctive set of blisters from what you are used to, mostly on your downhill foot – you also occasionally lose sight of the creek. If you are going down the creek, that may be okay. You’ll sometimes get too high on the slope and have to work your way down, but there’s no question about what you should do – go down. The slopes and creekbeds will funnel you down to the main river.

But if you are on the slope above the creek and going up, you aren’t in a good position to see the main branch of your creek. You might follow the route of your creek, only to find that you have accidentally followed a tributary that is leading you to the right or the left of the main branch. Of course, you might not actually discover this until you get to the top of the ridge three hours later and find that you are at Mollies Ridge, not Russell Field. Or, you may find that you don’t know where you are. This, by the way, is one good reason to stay on one side of the creek, rather than crossing back and forth. If you end up at the top, bewildered, you’ll know that you must have accidentally followed the wrong branch of the creek. If you spent the entire hike on the left side of the creek, then you’ll know that you followed a branch that led you to the left of your intended route. To get back to your intended spot on the ridge, hike along the ridge crest to the right.

So, if you are going up a creek, you’d like to stay near the creek to keep an eye on the main branch, but of course the rhododendron won’t allow that. You can try hiking along the edge of the creek which means slow progress as you climb and slip over rocks and logs. Unfortunately, the higher up you go, the smaller the creek gets, and the more the rhododendron reaches over the creek and blocks your path. One way or another, the rhododendron is going to exert its authority over you… just to remind you whose house you are in. You know how it is: “if you’re going to stay in my house, you’ll have to live by my rules.”  [To be continued.]

Cades Cove on July Fourth: What Were We Thinking? (Part 2 of 6)

 

I had only recently found out about Molly Creek Cascade while reading Memories of Old Smoky by Carlos Campbell. In this book he reminisces about his hiking and camping experiences in the Smokies from the pre-park 1920s through the 1960s. It’s not the greatest piece of literature you’ll ever encounter, but it does give a feel for the park’s early years, when hiking equipment was primitive, facilities were scarce, and men (and women) were men. It’s embarrassing to read about the level of discomfort they simply took for granted as part of a life lived outdoors.

It was my reading of Campbell’s book along with Harvey Broome’s Out Under the Sky of the Great Smokies that had re-ignited my interest in off-trail hiking. I had used a map and compass to do some off-trail hiking before, but quite a few years had passed since then. Reading Campbell’s and Broome’s descriptions of their off-trail hikes was interesting. Although, they didn’t call it “off-trail hiking.” They just called it “hiking” because back then there were fewer trails; and most of their hiking was, by default, off-trail. Many of their descriptions of their hikes involved crawling over downed trees, through shrubs and brush, over boulders, and up rock faces. It was a very different experience from our hikes today in which we have maintained trails with names and written descriptions in trail guides that we can carry with us on our hikes. To tell you the truth, reading their simple descriptions (they weren’t bragging of their accomplishments; they were merely telling where they went and how they got there) of their hikes and their simple equipment made me feel like a sissy. I decided it was time to hike like a real man – on my hands and knees, through rhododendron thickets, in creeks, over boulders, without a GPS. There was actually a time when hikers did this on a regular basis, with more primitive equipment. It was simply the way things were.

So we got up early on a Wednesday in July and arrived at Cades Cove at 8:30 am. And it was crowded. More so than I had ever seen it. The picnic area at Cades Cove was full at 8:30 in the morning! The reason was that it was the fourth of July, and it was a Wednesday. We had known that it was the fourth of July, but the significance had not fully sunk deep down into the part of our consciousness that plans hiking trips. I had actually never bothered to visit the Smokies on the fourth of July, and today’s crowds reconfirmed the wisdom of that strategy.

The other planning error we made was really, really stupid. It was Wednesday. We knew that the Cades Cove loop road is closed until 10 am on Wednesdays to give walkers and bicyclists a few traffic-free hours in the cove. Our problem was that neither one of us had known it was Wednesday. I’m a teacher and my buddy is a self-employed engineer. Neither one of us was working that week, and we weren’t in the position of needing to know what day it was – so we didn’t.

We arrived at Cades Cove, but we couldn’t drive to Molly Creek until after 10 am. We’d have to sit and wait for 1½ hours, which wouldn’t have been a major flaw except that we intended to not only find Molly Creek Cascade but also continue up the creek to the Appalachian Trail. From there we would hike west to Gregory Bald. We’d then backtrack and hike back down the Russell Field Trail back to the car. The day could very easily stretch into a 12 hour hike. You can do the math and see that starting at 8:30 and hiking for 12 hours would get us back at the car before dark. Starting around 10:30 wouldn’t. So we changed our plans.

We decided to begin our hike outside the loop road. We’d start on the Anthony Creek Trail from the picnic area. It would take us to Bote Mountain Trail, which would take us to the AT near Spence Field. From there we could hike about a mile east to some of our favorite spots in the Smokies – Thunderhead and Rocky Top – rocky, open peaks with panoramic views of Gregory Bald, Cades Cove, the Eagle Creek watershed, and even a small sliver of Fontana Lake. These are great, great spots, so neither of us was disappointed by our change of plans. [To be continued.]

 

Up the Creek, Almost Clueless (Part 1 of 6)

Our destination felt like it was unknown, but in fact it was just the opposite. It was precisely known: 35° 33’ 44” N and 83° 48’ 2” W. But my hiking partner, Greg Harrell, and I didn’t know exactly where on our map those coordinates lay, so it felt like we didn’t know anything about Molly Creek Cascade. It seemed safe to assume that Molly Creek Cascade was on Molly Creek, so we weren’t completely ignorant. The most obvious starting point would be the spot where Molly Creek crossed Forge Creek Road on the southwest corner of Cades Cove. The problem was that this waterfall was not on any recent map that we could find, and there was no clear trail along Molly Creek. We planned to bushwhack (aka “off trail hiking”) up Molly Creek until we found the cascade. Sounds simple enough, right?

You’ve probably learned by now that nothing in life is ever as quick and easy as it seems: computers, tax forms, fast food. You estimate how long it will take, then double it. The same thing applies to bushwhacking in the Smokies. Make your best estimate of the time, energy, and obstacles involved, then double it, then add some sort of injury, equipment failure, topographic oddity, or good, ol’ stupidity, and you’ll be in the right ballpark.

Our hike to Molly Creek Cascade would have several challenges. First, we knew exactly where we would start. The point where Molly Creek crossed Forge Creek Road was clearly indicated on the map. No problem. However, we didn’t know exactly where our destination was. We knew the general area, but as Molly Creek twisted and wound its way down the slope from the main ridgecrest, we didn’t know which twist or turn held Molly Creek Cascade. So, our compass couldn’t tell us the precise direction we needed to follow.

Second, our intended route to Molly Creek Cascade would be uphill. There might not be countless forks in the river, but there would probably be several. The shorter the hike to the cascades, the less likely that we’d encounter many forks in the river. A longer hike would mean more forks, thus more chances for a wrong decision. And we didn’t know whether our hike would be one mile or five, or somewhere in between.

We’d do the best we could in trying to figure out where we were and where we were going. We’d try to make the right decisions at each fork in the river by following what appeared to be the larger of the two. If we encountered a split in the river with two equal creeks flowing together, then we’d stop, look at the map, eat a Snickers bar, and discuss our options. If still undecided, we’d eat another Snickers bar under the assumption that chocolate is the solution to many of life’s problems.

That was our initial plan. But then, with the help of the folks in the Smokies Backcountry Office, we found a website that told us not only the exact coordinates of the cascade but also the location based on an old, 1931 map. According to the map, the cascade was right on the 3,000 foot contour line. We had several useful gadgets: specifically, a GPS and an altimeter. If we got in a bind we could use one or both of these to get oriented and find the cascade. Greg and I are both old-school, map & compass guys, so using barometric pressure and satellites to find our way seemed like cheating. John Muir and Daniel Boone didn’t need those electronic toys, so why should we? (The fact that those guys knew what they were doing, but we didn’t, hadn’t yet occurred to us.)

So with a guilty conscience, we entered the coordinates of the cascade into the GPS, and stuffed it and the altimeter into Greg’s daypack. We didn’t want to resort to using them, but they were there if we got desperate. They were our dirty, little secret.

[To be continued. ]

 

On the website only: The confession is that I’ve withheld the real name of the creek and cascade. It’s not Molly. The clue is that everything else in this and subsequent articles about M--- Creek Cascade is true and accurate (including the fact that the world really would be a better place if, when confronted with a problem, we’d just sit down and eat some chocolate).  

 

Wanderlust

I have favorite trails, favorite fishing holes, favorite songs, favorite roads, favorite movies, favorite books… the list is long. But it wasn’t until recently that I decided on a favorite word: wanderlust. Or, wanderlust! with an exclamation point. It’s a word that, if enunciated properly, should have sort of a growling drawl to it – it’s of German origin, after all – with a bit of lingering emphasis on the “s” in “lust.” It should also be accompanied by some sort of vigorous hand gesture, like a fist pump. Of course, the fact that the word “lust” is a prominent part of it adds the sort of sauciness to it that makes it almost inappropriate around children or gentlewomen. I can picture a guy with a cigar clenched between his teeth. I can’t picture my preacher’s wife saying it. (Okay, actually I can picture Molly saying it, but she’d at least look over her shoulder first to make sure no one else was listening.)

 

Settling on a favorite word has not been a life-long quest. I haven’t lain awake at night wondering and wrestling over my options. In fact, I’m not sure having a “favorite word” is something to be proud of or to bother writing about. After all, only a nerd would have a favorite word, and although nerds are actually the ones who will run the world, no one wants to be called a “nerd.” So writing about a favorite word is an exercise in treading on thin ice.

 

Nevertheless, a strong desire to travel is something I somehow picked up from my mother, either through nature or nurture or both. When I was just a kid, she’d entrust the road maps to me as we’d drive from Florida to California or New York. I was the navigator, and I still am. I enjoy surrounding myself with maps and planning a trip almost as much as I enjoy actually travelling.

 

But I lust after the travelling, too. The actual getting in the car and driving for days, noticing the odd names of the towns and roads, hearing the change in accent of the waitresses in the restaurants, watching the landscape change, asking for tea and getting a cup of hot tea (instead of iced tea as God intended). I’ve never been very interested in flying, mainly because it’s like being in a time – or in this case, a space – machine. You step into the chamber in Tennessee, sit in a seat for a few hours, and step out in Colorado. It’s magic.

 

People who prefer to travel by air don’t really have a serious case of wanderlust. They have destinationlust, I guess. They like to visit new places, without truly travelling. They like to be there, but they don’t like to actually go there. I know that sometimes flying just makes more sense – both time-wise and money-wise – but I still prefer a long, hard road trip that starts at dawn and ends well after sunset, and maybe even dawn tomorrow. I’ll blame it on my Dutch and English ancestors who apparently had strong Puritanical tendencies which require a dose of pain and suffering in every meaningful life experience.

 

I’ve been on a few hikes with folks who seem totally unconcerned about where we started, where we’ll end, and how we’ll get there. They just enjoy being outdoors. While the rest of us huddle around the map to check the names of creeks and ridges and the topo lines that define them, they sit quietly, eating an apple and staring at the trees or listening to the river sing. Now that I’ve written that, I see that just walking and then sitting is a perfectly reasonable approach to a day outdoors, but I can’t do it. I’ve gotta know where I am and where things are.

Which reminds me… a rather significant event in my life happened at 35° 33’ 44” North and 83° 48’ 2” West. It was the Fourth of July… [To be continued.]

 

 

 

Dark Water, Part 3 of 3

Making a night paddle (or hike) work depends on the cooperation of the moon, which in turn depends on your knowledge of its phases. A new moon is low and setting in the west when night comes. So, you’ll only see a new moon in the sky for the first hour of the night. As the week progresses and the moon approaches its first half-moon phase, it gets higher and higher in the sky each night at sunset. When the moon is at exactly its first half-moon point (one week before a full moon), it will be directly overhead when the sun sets and night comes. So this “first half-moon” will light the night sky from sunset to midnight, sinking over the western horizon around midnight. My paddle tonight is under this first half-moon, so when I stepped into my kayak soon after sunset, the moon was already high in the sky.

 After an hour of drifting, I decided it was time to go back to the mouth of Forney Creek, so I turned around and began paddling into the wind. The night sounds changed from insects, frogs, and owls to the hum of wind in my ear. All I could now hear was the blowing of the breeze, the “kurrl” of my paddles dipping alternately into the water, and the “plink, plink” of the ripples against the hull of the kayak. I pulled my hat down tighter on my head so it wouldn’t blow off. My favorite headlamp is clipped to it, and I’d hate to lose them both in the water. If my hat blew off, I could probably paddle back and pick it up as it lingered on the surface, but it’s an experiment that I’d rather not try, especially at night.

 As I paddled back over 65+ years of mud and sediment that have been accumulating below me, I began to hear the sound of the moving water again. I think about the many, many years that this erosion from mountains to seas has been going on. I ponder how our civilization has changed this process. Fontana Dam has created a lake where none previously existed. How many years will it take for the muddy entrances to all these feeder rivers to expand to fill in these channels? This mud should be in the Gulf of Mexico by now, but instead it’s under and around me.

 But I can’t be too critical of modern civilization. In small doses, it can be comfortable, even beneficial. It’s modern civilization that has given me not only this lake, but a plastic kayak to explore it with. It’s given me the roads and the truck to turn a week-long trip from Knoxville to Bryson City into a two hour drive. It’s the glitz and glitter of modern life that attracts people to malls, movies, and TVs, keeping them off Fontana Lake so I can be alone tonight. Civilization has created many of the environmental problems that we face today, but it has also given us the equipment and opportunities to enjoy those parts of our world that we haven’t yet despoiled. It’s even allowed us to get beyond the day to day battle to feed ourselves and to elevate our thoughts to pursue things like education, health, and love of the outdoors – the very outdoors that we almost eradicated. I hate irony. How ironic that life should have so much of it.

 After my night paddle, I walked back across the mud flats and toward the opening in the woods where the trail to the campsite begins. When the lake is full in July, that opening would be at the water’s edge, and this mud flat would be under water, but on this October night I have to walk about a hundred yards to get there. Stepping out of the moonlight and onto the trail in the trees is like stepping into a dark tunnel. I turn on the headlamp on the brim of my hat and walk about ten minutes back to the campsite.

 The only sounds I hear are the crunching of leaves under my feet and the relentless roar of the river a few yards to my right. They are the same sounds that a mountaineer would have heard 100 years ago, or the Cherokee 300 years ago. I feel the weight of nature and history surround me.

 It’s good to be alone in the mountains and to sleep by a river that flows into dark water.

Dark Water (Part 2 of 3)

 

On the water tonight, things are calm. I feel the breeze on the back of my neck. It’s strong enough to push me along in my kayak, but not strong enough to blow my hat off my head. The scene gets quieter as I glide 50 then 100 yards away from the mouth of Forney Creek. The sounds of moving water are disappearing in the distance, and the quiet of the still water is taking over.

The channel is about 50 yards across, and there are small ridges on both sides of me – I’m in a river valley, after all – so there’s not a sense of vast expansiveness. That’s a feeling that you get only on high mountain perches with those vast, panoramic views. Nevertheless, tonight my personal space is huge, having expanded from the few square feet of civilized life to a few square miles, thanks to being on a mountain lake at night.

The feeling in these flooded creek channels is one of length, height, and depth, but not breadth. I am actually sitting where the treetops should be. I imagine the rocks and logs and fallen timbers below me. Snuggled down in my kayak seat on the surface of the lake, I am actually up high, and my view is that of someone who has climbed to the top of a tree in a river valley to survey the landscape.

Of course, the night sky provides a sense of expansiveness above. The moon is bold and dominant, enhancing the wildness of the scene, but at the same time it gives me a sense of security, like a little boy with a night light in his room. Sure, it helps you to see in the dark, but it also provides a sense of safety far beyond its tiny glow. It keeps the monsters in the closet where they belong.

Drifting on the lake at night is like a dream. The breeze creates a slight ripple on the surface of the water, and the glow of the moon on the ripples gives the effect of thousands of tiny flashbulbs – an array of random flashes, not quite simultaneous, a glistening that lasts and lasts and lasts as long as the breeze blows and the moon shines. Staring at it creates a psychedelic effect, so I stare for awhile and time stands still.

Over the years since this Forney Creek trip, I’ve experimented with moonlit and moonless nights on Fontana, and I’ve come to prefer a bright moon. The reason is not entirely for the security of the night light to keep the monsters at bay. When I go out on the lake without a moon, I am hoping to experience a starry, starry night on the lake. I want to see the constellations and maybe a few meteors. I want to be overwhelmed by the Milky Way and the Big Dipper and all the other nighttime sights.

But moonless nights on the lake aren’t quite as overwhelming as you’d expect. Sure, they are great, but the view of the stars is actually better once you get back on land and away from the lake. The reason is that the lake surface is like a mirror; yes, a dim mirror, but definitely a mirror. It creates a glow, not a bright distracting glow like city lights, more of a background ambiance that just sort of gets in the way. The stars can’t quite blaze and dazzle because of the interference from the lake’s surface. It’s like trying to watch a movie while some guy in the audience is whispering to his buddies. You can see and hear the movie, but you also hear the low pitched drone of his voice, and you can’t tell where it’s coming from. It’s somewhere between subliminal and peripheral.

So, to get the full effect of the stars, stay on dry land. To get the full effect of the brightness of the moon, go to the lake. [To be continued]

Dark Water (Part 1 of 3)

On most backcountry camping trips I’m ready to crawl in the tent and sleeping bag soon after darkness settles in, maybe reading for awhile, but tonight will be different. The moon is high and bright, and the sky is clear, so I’m going to take advantage of it by walking back out to my kayak and paddling around Fontana Lake for an hour or two. This will be the first time I’ve done a night paddle, so I’m a bit apprehensive, even though there’s no rational reason why it should be risky. Nevertheless, darkness adds a sense of uncertainty to just about any activity, even more when that activity is paddling in a kayak on a cold, deep lake, alone.

As I walked out of the woods and into the muddy expanse, the silver glow of the moon gave the landscape a lunar look – silver, bare, alien. But the moon was so bright that it gave me an unexpected sense of security. My apprehension disappeared as soon as I stepped into the moon light and realized that visibility would not be a problem. My shadow dropped solidly behind me as I searched for solid spots in the soft, black dirt.

After about 10 minutes I reached the kayak I had wedged between some exposed rocks a few feet above the shoreline. As I picked up my kayak, it banged against the rocks, scaring an animal in the woods about 100 feet away. It sounded loud enough to have been a bear, but I’ve been fooled before by the sound of a squirrel bounding through dry leaves. I’d guess that if the sound of thrashing leaves lasts only a few seconds, then it’s a squirrel who quickly found safe haven in a tree. If the thrashing goes on and on, it’s probably a bear or deer running for its life. It’s almost always a squirrel, which a little disappointing.

I perched like a clumsy heron on a small, shore-side rock and set the kayak in the water, parallel to the shore, never perpendicular with one end on land and the other in the water. That’s a lesson that’s quickly learned by every novice paddler, hopefully at a time and place with no witnesses. This is the only tenuous moment because I’m trying to stay on this small rock to avoid the knee deep mud at the water’s edge. Stepping into the kayak, it wobbled a little, but it’s a very stable craft so there were no Wile E. Coyote moments.

I pushed out into the still water and noticed for the first time that a slight breeze has been blowing from north to south. I didn’t even have to paddle. I let the breeze push me slowly, almost imperceptibly, down Forney Creek’s flooded channel and toward the main channel of Fontana.

The main sound of the night was the rush of the creek flowing into the lake behind me. There were also the usual sounds of various insects and tree frogs. We’d had a few cold nights so far, but not enough to shut down their chorus for the season. There was also the sound of the breeze in the trees, rattling the drying leaves, but it was still too early in the season for there to be a heavy shower of leaves falling to the ground.

In the distance I hear an owl. It’s a Great Horned Owl asking, “Who, who’s awake? Me too.” It’s the classic owl hoot, and I consider hooting back, but before I can begin I hear another Great Horned answer from the other side of the channel. I listen to them ask and answer for several minutes. I’d like to think that they are reassuring each other that they are not alone in this big, cold world: “Be of good cheer; there are other kindred spirits haunting the dark woods.” But I doubt that owls are that poetic, and knowing what I know about animals (including humans), it’s more likely that they are taunting each other, establishing the boundaries of their territory – like gang graffiti sprayed on walls in rough, urban neighborhoods or bellicose politicians threatening one another. Fortunately, no fights break out tonight. Peace reigns on the lake. Although behind the scenes in the depths of the forest, mice and moles are dying at the hands of owls and foxes. We live in a fallen world where death and domination are the rule, not the exception. It’s a jungle out there, but the water ahead of me is dark and still. [To be continued]

Getting There, Up Forney Creek's Channel
 

 



Taking a Break



Muddy and Barren Landscape When the Water is Low