The Dry Sluice Gap (aka Porters Creek) Manway is one of the
best known manways in the Smokies. These long abandoned, but often still discernable
paths through the Smokies aren’t on most maps or in most guidebooks. Still the
Smokies manways are provide access to some otherwise trailless areas, and are fun
to explore on their own. This trip came about as the result of a failed first attempt
to complete a loop run around LeConte using Dry Sluice Gap.
Among off trail hikers, Dry Sluice is not considered an especially
tough trip. But information on Dry Sluice is readily available online, and the
route is even mentioned in the old Smokies “blue book” trail guide, so it has a
particular amount of renown. This wealth of information has drawn many hikers
to the route. There are two tricky spots on the manway. One is at the base of
the final headwall climb, where the path starts up one draw and then abruptly
cuts left back into another. People who miss this turn usually end up
scrambling up an exposed slope directly below Charlies Bunion. My hunch is that
the original route headed directly up that left fork and then was blocked by landslide
debris, making the short jog to the right necessary.
The other tough spot is at the start. Two manways leave the
end of the Porters Creek Trail, and unfortunately the more obvious one heads
east and climbs up Porters Mountain. This route was the site of a rescue in
2009 of a backpacker who got himself stuck on Porters for 8 days before being
rescued by helicopter by the NPS. It is an easy mistake to make. On our first
trip up the manway, Mark and I started up Porters Mountain briefly before
realizing that it was leading us astray. The correct route goes south and
gradually leads down toward Porters Creek.
I found out about the first running attempt later that week
talking to Shane at Haw Ridge. He asked me if I’d heard about the trip up the
manway to LeConte. I was thinking a bit literally, and thought there really
aren’t any manways up LeConte, but Shane thought Dry Sluice sounded right. I e-mailed
Tony and the full story came out. It took me awhile to believe, but finally
Tony sent me his GPS track which showed a six hour, three mile ordeal. The
group got sucked onto the Porters Mountain manway right from the start and didn’t
turn back when the manway started to climb and then essentially disappeared. They
ended up crawling and thrashing their way up the ridge expecting to reach the Appalachian
Trail, and not the crest of Porters Mountain. Though they realized their error
once on the crest, they didn’t want to turn back and instead headed to the Appalachian
Trail. It took the about six hours to reach the AT, and they were in rough
shape, out of water, and pretty cut up. Since they’d expected to run, some of
them were wearing gear inappropriate for rhodo wrestling. I guess they
basically evicted some backpackers from the spring at Icewater, and then headed
for Newfound Gap and hitched a ride back to the Roaring Fork Road where they
had started. About half the group vowed never to return, but some of the rest
wanted to try the route again. Since Mark and I had done the route a couple of
times, we offered to lead.
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| On the manway. |
For the second try, our group with Tony, Mark M, Leah, and Kathy
started at 7:30 and walked/jogged 2.7 miles to CS 31 in an hour. Mark and I had
a bit of an issue finding the start of the manway, we almost dove back down into
the creek, but we retreated (lesson one), and picked up the manway easily after
that. Another group we passed along the way had left ribbons, we should have
removed those. It took four creek crossings to reach the mouth of Lester Prong.
In one open section the manway pulled left away from the creek. The manway was
pretty grown up, but otherwise no troubles.
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| Ed and I at the Mother Cairn. |
The valley lost stream flow below the Mother Cairn which
marks the start of the steep climbing. The leftward traverse was cairned, but
very overgrown, I wondered if a lot of folks still miss it. Our group had no
trouble on the steep sections which turns into a series of steep, narrow, and
wet ledges. Mark showed off his prowess on the climb. We reach the AT in 3:11,
a very fast time.
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| Climbing the headwall. |
We stopped at Charlies Bunion for views and filled up with
water at Icewater Springs. I saw volunteer Pete Bernsten working on the trail.
The Boulevard Trail was very runnable, though I seemed to be the only one who needed
to walk the climbs. I hadn’t hiked that trail for a while and spent most of the
time looking for the spots where I’d emerged onto it after other off trail
routes. The head of Lowes Creek looked much more overgrown than I’d remembered,
maybe there’s something solid to hang onto now on the top of that headwall. I
was last to the lodge by a good 15 minutes. We saw Alan Householder at the
Lodge, and it was good to introduce him to some new off trailers.
About ten minutes down Trillium Gap Trail from the Lodge, I
stubbed my right toes badly enough to hear them crunch. Even more painfully, I
smacked them again pretty hard a few minutes later. That hurt even more, and exhausted
my vocabulary of suitable words. That left me half running, half jogging down
the trail while trying to baby both my feet. My left foot already had a
possible neuroma, and a cracked knuckle bone on the outside of left big toe,
and now I was sure I’d broken a couple toes on my right. To make it worse, the
upper part of Brushy Mountain Trail was badly postholed by horses, but thankfully
the lower trails were fairly runnable. I took some walking breaks to protect my
knees, but they held up fine. I guess I was 30 minutes behind the group arriving
at the trailhead. I went down to the creek to join the group for some washing
up/cooling off. My blue and purple toes gave me a decent excuse for my slow
time of ~8:20.
It turned out my toes were only sprained, but had to stay
off my feet a long while nevertheless to let the sprain heal. I have no images
from the trip (not even the purple toes) so the few images shown here are from
prior trips.
Route Summary:
Porters Creek Trail, Dry Sluice Gap Manway, Appalachian Trail,
Boulevard Trail, Trillium Gap Trail, Brushy Mountain Trail, Porters Creek
Trail.
