This
loop illustrates all the great things about off-trail hiking with the SHMC during
this era. We hiked a nine mile loop, almost all of it either unknown manways or
bushwhacking, and saw some amazing features including a section of the pre-WWII
Appalachian Trail and an old plane crash site. Clyde led and the group included
Mark Shipley, Nan Woodbury, Charlie Klabunde, and Alan Householder. I took a
GPS track, made notes on a soon to be soggy field sheet, and have borrowed some
pictures that Nan emailed out after the hike.
Clyde (all pictures from Nan Woodbury)
We
spotted cars for the return at the junction of Parson Branch Road and US129
(aka the tail of the dragon). Next we drove to the mouth of Dalton Gap Branch
to start hiking at 8AM. Despite our preplanning, the hike nearly went wrong
from the start. Charlie immediately took off up a small drainage heading
northeast. By the time Clyde was able to catch up with him and convince him we
were in the wrong drainage, we needed to spend some energy climbing over a
small ridge to reach the correct Dalton Branch Gap to our south. This one of
the few times I ever saw Charlie take a wrong turn. Dalton Gap Branch is marked
as a trail on the 1931 map, and as a manway on the 1949 map, but the old AT
does not show on either map. 
With Mark and Alan.
Dalton
Gap Branch was an old road for its entire length to with about a hundred yards
of the gap, which we reached about 9:15. The gap was an old trashy campsite and
there was a mix of pink flagging and black trash bags above the gap on the AT.
I’d been most attracted to the hike to see this section of the old Appalachian
Trail and was disappointed to see the trash. The AT section had been abandoned
after WWII and the construction of Fontana Dam. Formerly the AT in North
Carolina had extended west across the Yellow Creek Mountains and crossed the
Little Tennessee at Cheoah Dam. Then it kept west of US 129 until a crossing at
Deals Gap, where it then climbed up to Parson Bald. The WWII construction of
Fontana Dam allowed the trail to adopt a much shorter route by leaving the
Yellow Creeks farther east, turning north to cross the Little Tennessee at
Fontana, and climbing Mt Shuckstack to reach the Stateline Crest.
The
footbed for the old AT was mostly apparent, but there were no remnant blazes or
any signs. We kept on the old AT to just short of Parson Bald at about 4400’
where Clyde began contouring north and cross country toward the plane crash
site. 
Debris from the plane crash.
This
was the trip that finally sold me on the use of GPS for off-trail hiking in the
Smokies. Without it I never would have found the spot where Clyde turned off
the old AT to begin the traverse to the crash site, nor would I have been able
to find the crash site on the smooth broad ridge. Clyde used his GPS find both
turns in the featureless slopes of Parson and to keep us on bearing in a very
tricky area. 
The major part of the plane wreckage.
There
was lots of greenbrier on the traverse, making the hiking much slower. But
Clyde worked his magic and we arrived at the crash site about 12 noon, just in
time for lunch. We saw both engines of the plane, a few pieces of the wings,
and other parts. The debris area was over 100 yards across. Nan had been a
private pilot, and told some stories of her flying days. The downed plane was a
twin-engine Beechcraft that crashed killing six people on March 24, 1964. Events
turned even worse as rescue crewman and park employee Frank E. Shults, died
after suffering an apparent heart attack while hiking to the crash site.
After
lunch we contoured back to the north ridge of Parson Bald in more open forest.
But light rain and an advancing cold front had caught up with us at lunch. It is
almost impossible to stay warm while bushwhacking. You get wet from the rain,
and from crashing through the vegetation. We’d have to move well to generate
the heat to stay comfortable. 
Soggy Hikers.
Clyde
again used the GPS to put us on Black Gum Gap, which was part of ridge route
leading to Parson High Top. It was fairly easy going on the crest to Hickory
Top (2PM), then more GPS work to enable the correct turns to get to Parson High
Top (2:30). Our lunch time rain would continue until the end of the hike. The
ridge crests had many dead Table Mountain Pines to slow us down. From the High
Top we followed the main branch, Sweetgum Branch, due south down a very slow,
steep, and rocky route. I’m not sure if this turn was intentional or not. Clyde
and Teri had scouted the route and found rhodo in the bottom of Black Gum. We
plotted to get around it, but were never totally successful. The route got
rhodo choked near the junction with Black Gum Branch, and we battled
intermittent rhodo along Black Gum to the junction with Parson Branch. Creek
flow was high enough that we were barely able to rock hop.
