Bearpen Hollow, along with Roaring Fork and Alum Cave, is
one of the older routes up Mt. LeConte. When the Smoky Mountain Hiking Club
went this way in the 20’s and 30’s they described Bearpen as a rough trail,
which matches the description in the 1933 McCoy and Masa guidebook to the
Smokies. By the early 1930’s the CCC had built the Rainbow Falls and Alum Cave
trails to LeConte, and Bearpen gradually became less used. The club’s handbook trail
inventory still listed Bearpen Hollow as a trail through the early 1940s. By
1946 it is described as an “old” trail, but the route is described as marked by
a telephone cable. The last mention of that era is in 1949 when the club
planned to descend down the old, primitive trail.
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| The McCoy and Masa guidebook entry. |
Bearpen Hollow disappears from the club handbooks until 1972
when the legendary Ray Payne led an off trail ascent, with little description
of the route in the handbook. A 1976 trip led by Leroy Fox describes it as a rock
hop/scramble. Curiously, neither 1970s trip notes that Bearpen hadn’t been an official
club hike for over 20 years. Presumably, club members may have been using the
route for their own informal trips in the meantime, so knowledge of the route
stayed active. The route has been done sporadically by the club since the 70s.
A quick look at the map shows why Bearpen Hollow was so
popular. It provides a direct route from
the Newfound Gap Road to the West Point of Mt LeConte. The route was steep, even
by LeConte standards, but earlier hikers considered it a half day trip to the top.
Though originally marked by a log bear pen used as a deadfall trap, and later
briefly by a crude possession cabin according to Ken Wise, today there is
little, if any, evidence of the original trail up Bearpen Hollow, the telephone
cable, or of either structure.
The southside routes up LeConte, such as Bearpen Hollow and
Trout Branch are much less committing than Cannon Creek, Boulevard Prong, and
Lowes Creek on the north. With Bearpen the climb is mostly a question of how
long will it take, rather than a question of will I ever make it?
The occasion for this trip was SMHC outing led by Chris Sass and Jenny Bennett. There were only
three other hikers along for this trip; Rob, Cindy, and Ed. I did not take a
camera along on this trip, the photos here ae borrowed from Chris, and from
Jenny’s blog.
Once leaving the highway we started in the creek to avoid
battles with the rhodo.
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| Moving up Bearpen Hollow. Photo by Jenny Bennett. |
My trip notes are a little sparse, but the valley opened up
a bit and we could follow the creek. We then moved left and then crossed to the
right when the valley opened up again. We went through some thick dog hobble
and at some point traversed left, but still seemed to be on the right side of
the main draw. Next, we found a bear trail (this could have been part of the
old trail(?)) that was super steep and sandwiched between the main draw now on
our right and a ridge to our left. This chute ended up being one of those magic
routes; always looking like it would close up just ahead, but then keeping itself
open somehow as we climbed. Yes, we were nearly on hands and knees at several
points, but the way stayed clear. The chute ended up leading all the way to the
ridge south of West Point at a small saddle.
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| Climbing towards the saddle. Photo by Chris Sass |
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| Ed nearing the ridge crest. Photo by Chris Sass. |
As this was my first trip up Bearpen I thought that once on the ridge at 5600’ most of the effort would be over. But I should have realized that the ridge traverse would present another challenge. After a brief stretch of open heath, the ridge closed up and we proceeded to the top of West Point with an undignified mixture of thrashing, crawling, and silent cursing. There was some debate as to whether or not this was also bear trail. If so, it was used by the very short, non-trail maintaining breed of bruin. We sat in a thicket of thornless blackberry to have lunch.
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| Crawling along the ridge crest. Photo by Jenny Bennett. |
Chris and Jenny had been over the route three times
previously and warned us not to try to drop down to the very close seeming
Rainbow Falls Trail. They had learned the hard way the that though the distance
was short, the north slope of West Point was guarded by mighty rhodo and
treacherous cliffs. There were signs that people had hiked out to West Point,
perhaps interested in climbing all the “highpoints” of LeConte. We hit the Alum
Cave Trail just at the start of its sweeping right turn toward the Lodge. My
GPS showed about 5 hours for the off trail section. I headed on to High Top to
have a summit to justify all the work. We had a slight drizzle below Alum Cave
on the return.
Ken Wise’s book, and other sources, describe how the old
timers completed their hikes up Bearpen. Just short of West Point, the Tag Tree
Trail was marked by a spruce tree blazed with tobacco tags that started below
the crest of West Point and traversed east to join the Alum Cave Trail. All evidence
of the Tag Tree Trail appears to be long gone.
The link to Jenny’s blog post of this trip is: https://streamsandforests.wordpress.com/tag/bearpen-hollow/
