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.
