Smokies, Timber Ridge, Stove Camp and Marks Creek, 10-29-05

Stove Camp Branch is an obscure tributary of Lynn Camp Branch in the Tremont area of the Smokies. Though the 1931 park map shows a trail up Stove Camp, these days the creek probably doesn’t get as much as a visit a year. But as our knowledge, ability, and ambition grew for exploring the Smokies off trail, I had the opportunity to visit Stove Camp twice in just a little over two months. As so many of our hikes in the backcountry of Tremont led to ideas for other new hikes, these two trips make a fine pair for a single report

10-29-05

This hike was part of a “Clydathon” where Clyde had arrived for a multiday feast of off trail exploration. I got lucky and was able to join his usual crew of Michael and Teri to help explore what they thought might be a good SMHC trip. They had devised the route by looking at maps, and had no idea what these new off trail sections would bring. The trip was set up with a shuttle. We left a car at Upper Tremont, and drove over to Elkmont to start our hiking there. We started the hike by taking the Jakes Creek Trail to Jakes Gap. We would then hike off trail back to the Middle Prong Trail.

The upper Tremont bridge in 2021.

At Jakes Gap a manway leads north to the site of the removed fire tower on the top of Blanket Mountain. We started toward Blanket Mountain, but as soon as the manway turned right we continued ahead cross country along contour into the rhodo and laurel. The 1931 park map show a trail from Jakes Gap down to upper Marks Creek, but we recognized no trace of that.

Clyde was doing the leading, or in this case the following, as his GPS dictated our route around the slopes of Blanket Mountain. This was another lesson for me in using GPS, there would have been no good way to find the start of Timber Ridge by map and compass alone. I recorded a GPS track of the route, by we were still too cautious with our digital camera to expose it to the risks of serious off trail hiking.

After an hour, the nav work brought us to the crest of Timber Ridge, which was narrow and well defined, but also covered with greenbrier. Once on the ridge we could occasionally discern a faint trail. I found one small piece of the heavy gauge wire used for old phone lines, indicating that the faint trail might mark the phone line for the old fire tower.

We followed Timber Ridge for one knob past the point where the ridge began to bend south. Here we used the GPS to turn west again, aiming for the small saddle at the head of Stove Camp Branch they called Hemlock Gap. There was some debate about the route at the gap, but we made the decision to descend Stove Camp. Michael found the old manway shown on the 1931 map on the right side of the draw, but fairly high up. The manway would come and go, but stayed right. Eventually we reached an old campsite below a large boulder that we assumed was the stove camp. From the camp we found a path through the rhodo and dog hobble to Lynn Camp Prong. The water was very low, and we rock hopped easily. The crossing was about 100 yards downstream of the old car that marked the east end of the Green Camp Gap manway. Total distance for the hike was 7.3 miles.

We all thought that the cross country thrash from Jakes Gap to Timber Ridge was too brushy and too hard to find to make a worthwhile SMHC trip. But still this was a great adventure for me to experience exploring a new area, and an opportunity to do that with a highly experienced group of off trailers.

The Timber Ridge, Stove Camp, and Marks Creek routes.

 1-7-06, Marks Creek and Stove Camp

After our trip up Timber Ridge, I was eager to get out and explore more routes in Tremont. Michael agreed to accompany Jean and I on a trip up Marks Cove, but he had to cancel with illness. But we had good route data from him, and thought we could hike up the old Marks Creek railroad grade to Bearpen Gap and back. I took a GPS track, but we have no digital images.

From upper Tremont we hiked to the ford of the Middle Prong leading to Marks Creek. The air temperature was 25F, but we would soon ford again in colder weather. After the knee deep crossing, we found the old railroad grade about 50’ above, on the left or north bank. The grade was wide, easy to follow, and had a trampled look like it got regular traffic. A light dusting of snow brought out the terrain features, and revealed a surprising amount of animal tracks, mostly from coyotes and mice.

There are two close switchbacks on the grade about a mile in, we ignored a path heading northwest from the second one. The grade then passes a flat area with room for a camp, but we did not look hard enough to see if there were any remains. We did see two culverts (Marks Creek apparently had a short history as a NPS road), old cable, some metal pieces, and a boar trap. The boar trap used an old road sign for its trap door.

Mike and Steve at the boar trap in 2021.

The grade was easy to walk and easy to follow to its end at a low angle, walk over crossing of Marks Creek. Beyond that point it is more of a faint manway, but is still easy to follow. We found the fork in the manway shown on the old map and went ahead. We went a bit beyond the fork where the grade began to climb and stopped there for lunch. I assume that this was the right, or south, fork of the grade that shows on my maps as a dead end. That grade was heading more in line with Jakes Gap, than with Bearpen Gap, which was our nominal target.

On the way back we decided to return via Stove Camp, to show Jean a bit of what I’d seen on my October trip with Clyde. The 1931 park map shows a manway from the Marks Creek side to the gap in Timber Ridge. We thought we had found the manway before getting caught in some unfriendly rhodo, and deciding just to follow the drainage up as it was clearer. The climb was reasonable, with a steep pitch at the top.

At Timber Ridge we were getting tired and could not find the elusive Stove Camp manway from October on our descent. But we did arrive at the same rock shelter campsite, and found the path through the greenery leading to Lynn Camp Prong. Jean found a log spanning the creek and we butt scooted along with dry feet. The cold and the extra energy of the all the navigating decisions had left us more tired that the 7.7 miles of the hike would have indicated.

Jean crossing the Middle Prong.

Though we would head up Marks Creek on other adventures, this would be the last time we would visit Timber Ridge or Stove Camp. But this hike had reinforced the idea that we could plan and execute off trail hikes on our own, as long as we had good route information.