Smokies, Greenbrier Pinnacle Off Trail, 11-20-93

Greenbrier Pinnacle was one of the first hikes I did with the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club. Despite many return visits, and many new variations, I never really took good notes on any of the trips, at least not enough to make a good story out of. So instead of typing up a single trip report, I’ve combined notes from all my trips into a single record. This will include four ascents up and down the old fire tower access trail (now the Greenbrier Pinnacle manway), two trips up the Cat Stairs off trail route with descents of the Greenbrier Pinnacle manway, and one trip up Ed’s Devils Den off trail route where we also descended the Pinnacle manway. Finally, I’ll also include a trip with the SMHC led by Mike Harrington where we started up the Cat Stairs route to Barnes Cemetery and Copeland Divide. But on this trip instead of going up the Cat Stairs, we continued down the north face of the Pinnacle to reach the Old Settlers Trail via Soak Ash Creek. A similar trip with Ed, but going up Soak Ash and down Little Bird Branch, will have its own write up.

The Greenbrier Pinnacle manway is one of several trails removed from the park trail map just before I moved to Tennessee in 1993. Some of these trails including Blanket Mountain and Bunker Hill were removed after their fire towers were dismantled and because there was now no high impact feature to justify maintaining the access trail. In the 1993 SMHC handbook Elsie Dodson described the Greenbrier Pinnacle Trail as “taken off the most recent NPS map.” Here’s my description of that 1993 club trip.

11-20-93 Greenbrier Pinnacle #1

10 miles, with SMHC group about 20

We had a beautiful clear day for this 10 mile hike. The first 1.5 miles are a steady climb along an old access road, the next 3.5 are a little steeper along the remains of a very old jeep road to the old tower site. The entire route is probably runnable, but would be tough. The foundation of the tower and another building are still in place, but the tower was removed 10-12 years ago. Along the trail there are two good overlooks with views into Greenbrier Cove and toward Guyot. I talked to one guy who once hiked along Pinnacle Ridge to Guyot, but he said it was extremely difficult. I'm starting to recognize some of the SMHC regulars and will probably join the club if they send me an application.

Greenbrier Pinnacle vista 2006, Steven Miller.

3-10-02, Greenbrier Pinnacle #2

10 miles, w/ Jean

We did this hike before wildflower season, but when the high country trails were still too snowy to hike. We found the old manway in good shape all the way to the overlook. The lower third climbed through rhodo, while the middle third was in open forest, and the final third in rhodo. I noted a nice sandstone outcrop near a stream crossing about 0.3 mile in. There was a piped spring about 2.9 miles in with a small pool of water. Just down the trail is a great overlook of LeConte at about 3.1 miles. We saw two old barrels at the switchback just beyond the overlook. The tower footings were intact, and there was a concrete cistern and rock wall foundation near the tower site. We saw two other hikers plus two sets of people with backpacks digging ramps on the lower trail.

3-16-03, Bird Branch & Soak Ash Creek with SMHC

8.5 miles, SMHC led by Mike Harrington

My next hike into the area was a SMHC trip led by Mike Harrington. The hike did not go to Greenbrier Pinnacle, but started on the old road to Barnes Cemetery and Copeland Divide that is the approach to the Cat Stairs, the main off trail alternative to the Greenbrier Pinnacle manway. Jean was on this trip along with Charlie Klabunde and Ronnie McGaha.

We started from the Old Settlers Trailhead and walked up the Ramsey Cascade Road to the manway leading to the Barnes Homesite. I took route notes on a field sheet and later got GSP data from Mike, though the GPS data didn’t quite match the field mapping drawn on my sheet. My early attempts at compiling GPS data were hampered by a lack of strategy. I now GPS an entire route and save it as a field file. I then add the route to a master map, and try to edit the master map for clarity. It’s also been helpful to include a picture of the master map with my images that shows the latest route highlighted in order to quickly refresh my memory on which trip went where. The manway to the Barnes Home site and Copeland Divide is shown on the1931 and 1949 park maps.

Barnes Cemetery 2006, Steven Miller.

The trip was too early for good wildflowers, though we saw lots of buds and some spring beauties, pussy toes, violets, and bloodroot. The manway was well defined all the way to Copeland Divide. Here the route to the Cat Stairs and Greenbrier Pinnacle splits off to the right, but we kept straight down the north side of the Pinnacle. The forest was clear and open through the entry to Soak Ash Creek all the way to a junction with the Old Settlers Trail. My notes include advice from Chris Hamilton to stay out of the upper end of adjacent Snakefeeder Branch due to rough cliffs.

It was a long ways back to the cars via OST, but that is one trail that always seems longer than it should be.

11-8-03, Greenbrier Pinnacle #3

10 miles, SMHC Trip led by Jean and Doris Gove, ~20 hikers

I joined Jean for what we expected to be an easy hike to the old fire tower site. We found the old trail to be in good shape to the overlook, then slightly overgrown beyond it. My hike notes were very brief, and again I did not take a GPS track of the route. Jean ended up sweeping, and spent the entire climb with one very slow hiker who nonetheless had enough wind to keep talking all the way up the mountain. Doris didn’t stop for a break, and so the main body of hikers had reached the tower, eaten lunch, and started back down when Jean and the last hiker reached the overlook. It would have been too long a wait for the hiker to go up to the tower, so we turned him around, which did not make him happy. However, he was fine hiking downhill amid the pack, giving Jean a much less stressful descent.

11-13-05, Greenbrier Pinnacle via the Cat Stairs #1

7.3 miles, SMHC group of 17

The hike started about 100 yards down the Ramseys Cascade Road and then turned off onto an old farm road to the left. The road remained easy follow to the Barnes Homestead. We came to a bog, then the cemetery, and then an old chimney. The route had received recent work to keep it open.

From the Barnes homesite we continued on the old manway to Copeland Divide. Here we turned east, and away from the route used on Mike Harrington’s 2003 traverse. We followed a narrow ridge crest which became progressively steeper, but we could still see short sections of old trail. Some sections were exactly on the crest. The Cat Stairs begins at a small, sharp saddle at the base of a tall rock wall. It was imposing, but made a good lunch spot.

The Cat Stairs from Bobby Trotter.

The first move on the climb up the rock wall was the most difficult. The route was left of the main crest and required a wide stem move to climb it. Bobby Trotter got a good shot of me here that won the club’s “People in the Outdoors” category for the photo contest. There were a few other tricky spots further up, but the route was clear up through the rhodo and heath. There was only one other move as tough as the first one. We found the ridge crest to flatten dramatically at the top. Then there was still a very faint trail through thick laurel before reaching the intersection with the Greenbrier Pinnacle manway, but the final section required some crawling.

On the manway we went a short distance to the overlook. The return was back down the Greenbrier Pinnacle manway, and then back to the Ramsey Cascade Trailhead. My notes do not mention a trip to the fire tower site. Overall, the trip was easier than I expected, partly because of the fearsome reputation of the Cat Stairs, and partly because the route was reasonably easy to follow. I thought that Jean would like the route and hoped to take her there soon.

4-9-06, Greenbrier Pinnacle via the Cat Stairs #2

7.4 miles, w/ Jean and Steven

On this trip I did the same route as the SMHC trip that previous fall with Jean and our friend Steven. This time I measured the start of the Barnes manway as about 0.5 mile up the road from the Old Settlers TH. We followed the old farm road to the Barnes homesite, and then on to Copeland Divide. There was poor manway to the base of the Cat Stairs, where we had lunch at the base of the stairs.

Leaving the Barnes Cemetery, 2006, Steven Miller.

There was some ice on the stairs, but the main issue was that Steven was not comfortable with the exposure on the route, especially at the start, and on the main rock band. But we made it through the climb and began the thrash through the underbrush toward the Greenbrier Pinnacle manway. We saw another party in the woods who were looking for the head of the stairs. We got off route looking for them. In turn we surprised them, which also led to some confusion. 

At the Greenbrier Pinnacle Overlook, 2006, Steven Miller

Steven sent us copies of some of his pictures, but we took slides of the trip. Somehow I still had no GPS info for the Cat Stairs or Pinnacle. My notes do not mention a trip to the fire tower site.

Big tree along the Greenbrier Pinnacle manway, 2006, Steven Miller.

8-17-08, Devils Den

6.0 miles, w/ Jean and Ed

Jean and I joined Ed to scout a hike that he had proposed for the SMHC. We would hike to Devils Den, then explore the ground above it. Basically, we would climb a ridge through Devils Den to join the Greenbrier Pinnacle manway and return to our cars via the manway. Jean took pictures, and I finally recorded a GPS track for our trip.

From the Ramsey Cascade Trailhead, we crossed the first bridge, and then very quickly went off trail to the north on an old settler road. We soon lost that road, but we went left again and found another decent manway. We followed the manway to a small ridge, then ascended on the ridge.

We passed a tall “Pulpit” like outcrop that Ed called Buzzard Rock. We continued up to 3375’ which marked the start of Devils Den, which turned out to be a small flat area perched below the small knob. The August foliage was too dense to see much, but Ed was able to follow evidence of old farms even in this small, isolated valley. The valley was obviously popular with bears. I saw more bear scat here than I ever had in my life, with the possible exception of a spot on the western end of the John Muir Trail in Pickett State Forest.

Buzzard Rock on Devils Den.

At the “den” the old trail ended, and we went directly up the next ridge. The climbing was very steep. We were able to work around the rockiest sections, but there was one area where short legged Jean had some difficulty. But the rhodo and laurel were not too thick, and we got to eat some early blueberries. We hit a final easy flat stretch before intersecting the Greenbrier Pinnacle manway about three hours after we’d started. We turned left on the manway to have lunch. My GPS map shows we did not go to the tower site.

On the descent we did a little light clipping on the manway. There was lots of rhodo, laurel, and hemlock closing in on the upper section. Our pictures show one massive snake on the return.

Snake seen on our return hike.

We saw one hiker on Greenbrier Pinnacle. Some hikers we talked with on the Ramsey Cascade Trail had just seen a bear, but we could only hear it rattle through the underbrush.

1-22-12, Greenbrier Pinnacle #4

10 miles, w/ Jean and the Henns

On this trip we went off trail with Ed, Claudia, and our friends from the Barkley, Karl and Kathy Henn,  along with their son Kyle. The Henns had just finished the Smoky Mountains 900 miles and were looking for some new things to try. We caught a break with a sunny morning in a long spell of nasty weather.

The Henns at the trailhead.

The Greenbrier Pinnacle manway was still in good shape. Karl and Cathy thought it was better than some official park trails. The group was a bit slow, so Jean and I did some clipping as we walked along.

The group at the former lookout tower site.

We passed several nice cliffy spots along the trail, and one overhanging “lunch break’ sized rock. We could also see several remaining rock retaining walls. But our favorite spot was very open forest with a grove of huge poplar in the center section.

Big tree in the middle section of the manway.

We ate lunch at the overlook, then went up to the tower site. There was a large metal trash can along the way. At the site was an old junction box. The chimney from the old lookout’s cabin has toppled, but the cistern was still intact. We had good winter views on most of the trail.

Cistern at the firetower site.