This hike was mostly likely part of one of Clyde’s weekend trips to the Smokies. In those days the “Clydathon” was 3-4 days of solid hiking, most of it off trail, as Clyde added to his encyclopedic knowledge of the Smokies backcountry. Jean and I enjoyed our trips with him, both for the knowledge and skills we picked up, and for the companionship.
Along
with Clyde, both Nan (another frequent fan of Clyde’s hikes) and Claudia joined
us. My notes indicate that our original plan was to hike up Buckeye Branch, but
that we had decided on Bunker Hill as a shorter option. I had visited the
Bunker Hill tower site by bike and boot shortly after my move to TN in 1994,
but had not been back since. (1994 Bunker Hill) 
Starting the hike.
We
parked at first gate on US 129 south of the end of the lake. We then took
service road for the adjacent powerlines over a small ridge to Tabcat Creek.
There was a rough road along Tabcat Creek to approximately BM 1179’ (using the
benchmarks on the 1931 park map which I used for my field sheet). There was a broad,
flat area with abundant cane at junction of Tabcat and Maynard.
Blowdown Aerobics.
Above
BM 1179 the creek got rough with steeper banks, more rhodo, and it was harder
to find the old road. At BM 1405’ we turned right up Bunker Hill Branch, which
appeared to be the main stem. This was very slow going, we were forced to walk
straight up the creek. We decided to abandon the creek and went directly up the
very steep north bank to a pine-covered ridgetop. The ridgetop was easier going,
but still had a lot of deadfall and fairly thick greenbrier. It might have been
possible to walk the skinny ridge between Bunker Hill Branch and Tabcat Creek northeast
from BM 1179 to stay on a drier ridge and avoid some of the rhodo, but we did
not try that.
Creek crossing.
We
reached the tower site at 1 PM for lunch. The tower was built in 1941, and was
still standing in a 1969 picture. But I have not been able to find the date
when it was removed. All that was left was two batteries, the four concrete footers
from the tower, and a few metal scraps. We could have used a charge ourselves,
as the hike had been much harder than we’d expected. We decided we did not have
time to explore Panther Creek. From my field sheet, it looks like we had
planned to extend the loop to BM 1616’ on Panther Creek using two old manways
shown on the 1931 park map. I also did not explore any of the old fire tower
access road on Bunker Hill Lead to compare it to the conditions I’d seen on my
1994 bike/hike exploration. 
Trying to stay found.
To
search for easier passage on our return, we started down a small ridge about
due west of the Tower (Nan’s Ridge). This was also very steep. I fell and did
two summersaults before I was able to stop. That was probably the most out of
control I’ve ever been off trail. 
Deadfall on Nan's Ridge.
We
thrashed through sporadic rhodo on our short loop until we closed our loop near
BM 1405’ at the mouth of Bunker Hill Branch. From there we retraced our route
back to the cars. The hike out was long and tedious, at least for our tired
legs. We saw no wildlife or other people on the trip. There were numerous rock
piles in the flat, open area at the Tabcat-Maynard junction. We weren’t sure if
there was an old settlement here, or if the rocks were just the result of
clearing farm fields. The entire 6.9 mile loop had taken us from 8:30AM to 5PM.
“I
guess I would not be especially eager to explore this area again.” But we did
make one more hike to the area in 2011 lured by an enticing social media post,
and the reputation of the Grassy Flats-Revenue Road loop’s as a type example of
Clyde’s Class 2 for off trail difficulty. 
The Tabcat and Shop creek areas.
No comments:
New comments are not allowed.