Rowan Creek, Smokies Off-trail, 1-28-07

Rowan Creek is one of those off-trail hikes in the Smokies worth repeating. It has easy access from the Cades Cove parking area, and a well-defined manway from Cades Cove to the head of Rowan Creek. The hike is best done as a loop with a return down Anthony Creek. We likely discovered the route by looking through old SMHC handbooks for trip ideas. Rowan Creek had been recently led by our friend Keith, and we were able to get reliable route information from him.

We would go on to hike the manway five times as of 2024, including leading club hikes in 2008 and 2015. Both club hikes had prior scouting trips. Each trip had a unique finish from the end of the manway at the head of Rowan Creek to the intersection with Russell Field Trail. Otherwise, we used essentially the same route each time, with the following exceptions. On the 2008 SMHC trip we turned off of Anthony Creek on the return leg and cut cross country to the Cades Cove Nature Trail most likely on the suggestion of Charlie Klabunde. On the 2014 scouting trip we got lost in the Cades Cove Housing Area, and in 2015 we found a more direct path to the start of the manway along the Cades Cove horse concession trails. We have digital pictures for all trips, and a GPS track for each trip, except for the 2008 trip, where I just have GPS from the end of the manway to the Russell Field Trail.

This narrative will primarily describe our first trip in 2007, and has a brief summary of our later trips.

Our routes up Rowan Creek.

Our 2007 trip started on a cold morning with light snow in the forecast. The crew was Jean and I, plus Claudia who had just started hiking regularly with us. Despite having notes from Keith from his 1996 scouting hike, we found the hardest part of the hike to be the start. We parked in the Cades Cove lot, went right at the ranger station, then left to a T-junction in the housing area. Then we went straight through the woods, across a creek, and up a bluff  to one of the concessionaire horse trails. We went left on the trail and found ourselves on the wrong part of the horse loop. But the horse trail was wide and well-tended, with a fine gravel surface that made for pleasant walking. We spotted a prominent 3-4’ deep trench that we realized was the end of the manway, which must have been an old sled road to have dug such a deep trench.

The manway was dug deeply, and often filled with brush, so we walked on the bank alongside it. This was easy going with sparse blowdowns. We passed some rock piles, especially near the first crossing of the creek, and an old homesite. There was a home site at 2200’ that was shown on the 1931 map.

Rock pile along Rowan Creek.

The manway got a bit obscure on the west side after the second crossing at about 2800’. After the second crossing, it climbed the bank a bit and then returned to creek level and disappeared. We were still following Keith’s route to the head of the creek. On this first trip we did not note the large quartz boulder that marks the head of the creek, and the end of the discernable manway. Though the 1931 and 1949 park maps showed a manway extending to Ledbetter Ridge, we were unable to find this route on any of our five attempts.

On the climb to Ledbetter Ridge the terrain was steep, and the ascent took 30-40 minutes. The climb remained in open hardwoods that were made prettier by a light snowfall. We came out on Ledbetter Ridge on a small ridge just about 100 yards from the main ridge where we found the Russell Field Trail.

Claudia climbing out of Rowan Creek.

Our original plan was to hike back via Spence Field, or to try going cross-country down Hemlock Ridge, but it was too cold for either option. Instead, we just walked the trail back and were chilled by the time we arrived. We saw some recent footprints on the trail, but no people. Total time was about 9:30 to 2 PM with no significant stops.

2-24-08, First SMHC Scouting Trip

I’d enjoyed the first trip up Rowan Creek so much I decided to help lead the next SMHC hike with Phillip Royer. For the scouting trip we added Jean, Claudia, and Mark. I described the mouth of the manway as 6’ deep this time. We also felt the rock piles we saw in the lower creek were simply from clearing fields, and were not chimney piles.

There were two stream crossings, we got a bit mixed up at the second. The best route was to cross where the manway did, and slab across the very steep left bank. Don’t go too low, where some side branches come in. 

Black bear.

We ate lunch when we reached Russell Field Trail, and then took a side trip to the Russell Field shelter. On the return Mark spotted a bear across the creek, and we got a reasonable picture. The only GPS track I have from this trip is for the head of the creek.

Russell Field Shelter.

9-28-08, First SMHC Trip, Rogers and Royer Roam Rowan

We had a group of nine for the club hike. Jean came, along with Ed Fleming, David Smith, and Rick Wagoner.

SMHC crew on Rowan Creek.

We had no trouble getting through the housing complex and the horse trails, which would have been embarrassing misstep with the group. My route notes from the February hike helped a lot. We moved well through the lower part of the manway, and crossed the creek in the same two spots. We used the high route on the left bank to minimize the rhodo.

Rowan Creek.

We took a long rest break at what we were calling Phillip’s white rock (did we discover this in Feb?) before the big climb.

A boulder of quartz marks the head of Rowan Creek.

Near the top we found a bear trail that went right toward the ridge crest and had much easier going there. It took about three hours total to reach Ledbetter Ridge. We took a side trip to the Russell Field Shelter to eat lunch.

Ed at Russell Field.

On the return leg, Phillip led a cross country cut-off between the campground water tower and the campground nature trail that allowed us to avoid some road walking on the return. We bought ice cream at the campground store to top off a great day.

12-7-14, Second Scouting Trip

We had volunteered to lead this route again in 2015, and needed to scout it after six years away. Claudia joined Jean and I for the trip. We got mixed up on the horse trail again onto the feeder trail for the horse concession. Just as we approached the mouth of the manway, a large limb fell into the trail with a resounding “crack”, so maybe the side trip kept us from getting flattened.

Rock pile along Rowan Creek.

We saw some old orange flags on the manway up to Cork Branch. The manway was in good shape, but had a lot of downed limbs. The water was up, and both Jean and Claudia waded the first crossing. We saw one hog wallow and other boar signs. We crossed to the right side after Cork Branch, but this was mistake. Claudia spotted a manway high on the left bank that was likely the way we’d gone on previous trips. Our route became troublesome due to rhodo.

Rowan Creek.

From the white boulder we went straight up the nose of the ridge and well off our previous lines. This route had more rhodo than I remembered from our more easterly routes. The bottom half was really steep, the upper part was gentler with some relict footway on it.

Approaching the head of Rowan Creek.

It was cold foggy and in the 40’s, so we lunched at the ridge top and skipped the side trip to the shelter. Our return route was down via Russell Field and Anthony Creek. The two old horse trails shown on my old map of Cades Cove are no longer apparent, so we skipped those. Our return drive home was delayed by 75 minutes when we got backed up behind the unannounced (at least to us) Townsend Holiday Parade.

3-8-15 SMHC Trip #2

This club trip included Jean, Ed Fleming, and Bill Heaton. Jean and I were the leaders. The weather was cold and only four hikers showed up. Ed found an old home site in the lower creek far back on the left side that we had not seen before. 

Chimney marks a home site on Rowan Creek.

The creek was way up, and even though we were able to find the high left side route, we got into some decent rhodo. I took a GPS waypoint for the end of this detour.

Hiking along Rowan Creek.

From the quartz boulder at the head of the creek we were able to follow the trace of the old trail farther uphill than in previous trips, but we finally gave up due to rhodo, and climbed straight up the ridge. This brought us to the main ridge much further north than usual. 

Smokies, Spruce Flats and Old Meigs Road Off Trail, 1-14-07

The Old Meigs Road was one of the last of the classic manways left for us to tackle in Tremont. As described by Clyde It started at Upper Buckhorn Gap on the Meigs Mountain Trail, wound along the west shoulder, then nose of Meigs Mountain, and ended at a junction with the Marks Creek railroad grade near the ford of the Middle Prong. The Smokies 1949 map shows it as a trail, but it does not appear on the 1931 map. On this trip I took a GPS track, and we took pictures.

We decided to start by hiking up the Spruce Flats Falls manway from Tremont to Buckhorn Gap, then by trail to Upper Buckhorn Gap. At the end of the Old Meigs Road we would ford the Middle Prong, then walk down the upper Tremont Road back to our car for a 12 mile loop.

Spruce Flats Falls.

Jean, Claudia, and I left Tremont about 9:15. The Institute had relocated the start off their Spruce Flats Falls (aka Buckeye Trail) trail to a short way up the Lumber Ridge Trail to keep hikers from wandering through their campus. We took a quick stop at the falls, forded the creek, and then climbed up the steep bank to the old Spruce Flats RR Grade. The grade was wide, and well groomed, except at the junction with Honey Cove. We walked about a quarter mile up Honey Cove before realizing that we were going the wrong way. We should have followed the main RR left across Spruce Flats Branch, and then back up the bank to rejoin the grade. We saw lots of RR artifacts along the grade, and one potential side spur. The grade was occasionally used for guided hikes as part of Wilderness Wildlife Week, and it appeared that it got some maintenance in preparation for these trips.

We reached Buckhorn Gap about 11:20 and saw three parties there. At Upper Meigs Gap we found the start of Old Meigs Road, not an easy task as we would discover on subsequent trips. It started exactly at a T-junction just south of the gap. It was faint at the start, but definitely road width wide. There was a brier filled area, perhaps an old burn, just above the head of Honey Cove Branch.

A CCC-built rock wall.

The hard began near Bowman Stand Branch with a long stand of dead, presumably beetle-killed, pine. The pines had been down long enough for greenbrier to weave itself in, but not long enough for the limbs to have fallen off. I did my best to push through all the limbs and snags, but this was slow, unpleasant, and often bloody travel. This mess prompted a rest break about 1:45. But we were rewarded with some good views off to the west, and there were some CCC-built rock walls for us to admire. We did not see any evidence of recent work on the manway. Eventually the route drops off of Wilkinson Ridge and became overgrown with laurel and pine.

Fording the Middle Prong.

We reached the Marks Creek RR grade about 3PM, then forded the Middle Prong near the mouth of Marks Creek. We walked the Upper Tremont Road back to our car at Tremont arriving about 5 PM, finishing with 12 miles. I noted that my GPS track was partly incomplete. The weather had been cooperative, 60F and sunny. We all thought that this would make a great SMHC trip.

2-24-12 SMHC Trip

This club hike was led by Michael and Jenney Bennett and attracted 19 hikers. Despite the large size the group moved well. A few things had changed. The start of the Old Meigs Road was above where I remembered it. But the “road” was in great shape, having received recent clipping by the Thursday Hiking Group. We were able to move without problems through the pine deadfalls that we had struggled so much with in 2007.

The club trip repeated the route of my 2007 trip with Jean and Claudia, except at the end of the Old Meigs Road. Instead of continuing all the way on the old road to the Marks Branch RR grade intersection, this version split off the manway to the right soon after crossing Wilkinson Ridge. Then we descended a super steep ridge directly down to the upper Tremont Trailhead. This route had the advantage of cutting off mileage, but also avoided the ford of the Middle Prong, a special inducement for winter hikers. The club trip also used a short car shuttle, reducing the overall distance to 6.5 miles.

I took a GPS track of the route, but did not take pictures. My notes from the hike are brief.

Smokies Off Trail, Marks Creek and Meigs Crest, 1-6-2007

The previous few years had given Jean and I a wealth of exploration off trail in the Tremont area of the park. Jean had wanted to finish up our exploration of the Marks Creek area, and Clyde had given us some great data for a route over the crest of Meigs Mountain. We decided to combine all that into a single loop trip.

At the upper Tremont Trailhead, we ran into Dick Ketelle and Ann Farrar who were headed up to Derrick Knob for some AT maintenance work. I was recording a GPS track and Jean had the camera. This was one of the first times we used the digital camera on a serious off trail hike. We forded the Middle Prong across from the mouth of Marks Creek. One of our crossings of this ford was at 17F, but I failed to record which trip that was. The ford was thigh deep for us.

Once across the Middle Prong we again found the manway about 50’above us at a T-junction with the end of the Old Meigs Road. The Marks Creek RR grade went quickly with few changes from our previous trip. However, the hog trap had been crushed by a fallen tree. At the approximate end of the RR grade, we found a 10’ stump with cable wrapped around it, and coarse cable piled nearby. We should have crossed here to the left side of the creek, but we kept to our previous route on the right. By the time we realized our error we needed a nasty rhodo-choked traverse across 2-3 small branches to the north to get us back on track. 

The crushed boar trap.

Once back on track, the north fork started east as a wide RR grade, but soon narrowed and began climbing toward Bearpen Gap. The climb took a half hour and was mostly on the right side of the creek. We eventually lost the path near a side creek, but by then we were close enough to see the gap ahead of us. The climbing was relatively gentle and open. We ate lunch at the gap.

A bear-clawed tree.

Next we would traverse northwest, then west along the crest of Meigs Mountain using waypoints supplied by Clyde. The start of the crest route was a bit brushy and hard to find, at least until we were past point 4004’ and below the “n” in mountain on the topo. Beyond that, the ridge top was open, and we had continuous good views, a rarity in the Smokies. The crest had a faint trail almost all the way back to Marks Creek. Where the ridge bends south we found an old swing blade type weeder hanging from a tree. We suspected the folks at Tremont did some minor clearing of the manways around the Institute, but we’d seen nothing that would have called for using that tool on the mountain.

Jean refording the Middle Prong.

Soon we began a steep descent down the ridge crest to Clyde’s Gap at about 2800’. The descent was steep enough to cause the IT band in Jean’s knee flare up. We recrossed with no issues and back at the trailhead at 8.5 miles and reflected on a great day with good weather and end temperatures in the 60s. 

The Upper Tremont area.

Start 9AM

Finish first ford 9:30

Leave Bearpen Gap 12:15

Clyde gap 2:30

Return to TH ~3:45

11-30-21

I would repeat much of this trip in 2021 with Mike and Steve Dickinson as they scouted for a planned SMHC trip. For the start and finish of the hike we went directly from the upper Tremont Trailhead to the extension of the old Meigs Road, skipping the need to ford the Middle Prong.

The major change was at the end. Instead of hiking the crest of Megis Mountain around to Clyde’s gap, we dropped off the north face of Meigs Mountain on a beeline for Campsite 19. From there we went to Upper Buckhorn Gap and took the old Meigs Road back to the Upper Tremont Trailhead. Here’s a link to the blog of that trip.

2021 Meigs Circuit