Smokies, Walker Sisters Off-trail, 12-21-2014

I’d found a map of this route online, possibly posted by Ron Shrieves. The loop looked like a great easy off trail hike with easy access. Jean and Claudia were both interested. This will be a brief write up for a brief trip.

The Walker Sisters Cabin.

The route would start at the Metcalf Bottoms Picnic Area, go on trail to the schoolhouse, and then off trail to Walker Sisters Cabin. From the cabin it would go back off trail to Little Greenbrier Trail, then onto the trail to Wear Cove Gap, and finally down the road back to the Picnic Area.

The online route map.

We started on the south end of the Metcalf Bottoms Trail that goes to the Little Greenbrier School at the intersection with the access road for the Walker Sisters Cabin. The trails were in great shape, I thought the route might be viable as a run. Both ends of the off-trail route were somewhat tough to follow, but the middle section has a well-defined old road over a small ridge where we found some flags marking the route.

Old schoolhouse.

The flatter areas looked heavily settled. We saw artifacts including stove parts, relict bed frames, chimneys, rock stacks, rock walls, and one rocked-in springhouse.

An old spring.

The off trail route north of the Walker Sisters Cabin went through open forest on a moderate grade. The route north of the Walkers Sisters Cabin was not on the online map.

We saw two groups of hikers near Wear Cove Gap, and heavy traffic along the nearby roads. The 6.4 mile long loop would make a great starter off-trail hike, or a perfect fit for someone with only a half day to spend in the woods.

A stack of old artifacts.

This area was one of the most heavily settled areas in the park, and remains one of the most historically significant. Here is a more comprehensive article:

https://gosmokies.knoxnews.com/profiles/blogs/gosmokies-event-3-walker-country-saga

2014 10-11 Cumberland Trail 50K

The Cumberland Trail 50K was a race where I had a long history, but had never had the opportunity to run it before this year. The race was started by Susan Donnelly, a friend from our Haw Ridge Tuesday Group. I had helped her and Rob with the initial scouting of the course. Their work resulted in a 2009 race launch featuring an out and back course mostly on the Cumberland Trail, but also using some other jeep and ATV roads in the North Cumberland WMA. The route followed the CT from Cove Lake State Park to Greens Branch, then had an ascent on an ATV road to Massengale Mountain, a jog east on the gravel Mine 10 Road, and then a final ridgetop stretch out to an elk field which served as the turnaround.

 

Elk along the New River from a scouting run.

The first year Susan wanted me to try to lead the field out on a mountain bike, but I demonstrated that I couldn’t ride any faster than the runners through the dark on the bike. My roles for the race evolved to helping with course marking the day prior to the race, and managing Aid Station #1 on Cross Mountain, most often with John Storey. Aid 1 was also the last aid station for runners on the return leg, resulting in a very long day. However, we were never busy in the middle of the day, so John and I would take advantage of some down time and run over and back to Aid #2 on the Red Ash/Mine 10 road.

 

Scouting with Susan, Rob, and Aaron

The start of the race in 2009 was perfectly timed to ride the wave of popularity of trail ultra runs. The first year the field was kept small as we expected some glitches in a new race. Over the next two years the number of finishers grew from 19 to 29 to 43, despite almost no publicity or advertising for the race. One factor working against the success of the race was the lack of maintenance of the Cumberland Trail between Caryville and Frozen Head. There was almost no way to run or hike that section once the summer growth had arrived, so the race crews had to do a lot of cutting and flagging just to allow the runners to get through. The only other time to run the course was midwinter when all the vegetation had died back. Susan and I were both on the board of the Cumberland Trail Conference for much of this time, and to see the lack of use of the trail during this time was frustrating.

 

Race Map for the original course.

In 2013 Susan turned the race over Tony Branam and Brian Williams. Their decision to hold the race was last minute led to a very small field and only 13 finishers. That year I volunteered for the last time, again working the Cross Mountain Aid Station.  

For 2014, Brian and Tony decided to go back to the original intent of the race and organized a point to point course on the Cumberland Trail to Caryville from Cave Branch, deep in the most remote part of the Cumberlands. I had a real dilemma trying to decide if I should run the race. Since 2009 when the race started, I’d favored the point to point course over the easier to manage out and back course. With the point to point back on the slate, the lure of all that remote single track was strong.

But conversely, I didn’t want to risk hurting my knee, especially with the long steep downhill at the end. My last 50K race at Duncan Ridge in 2012 had led to a long, slow, and painful rehab from knee tendonitis, a 2+ hour personal worst result, and most humiliatingly the failure to finish a lap at Barkley earlier in the year.

Also, I hadn’t met the qualifier of having finished another 50K within the last year. Luckily, Brian allowed my run with him on his birthday to count. And, I was not in particularly good running shape. But I had felt good at the Barkley Fall Classic (in good conditions) and had done a lot of long run/walk training. I thought if I just tried to finish, and did not push hard on any steep downhill or sloping trail that my knee might be OK, and luckily for me this worked out.

 

Brian's Birthday Run

However, the day did not start well. Driving to the start and turning onto the I-40 East ramp, I lost my line in the oncoming headlights and turned too sharply hitting the curb hard. I got out of the car, and no surprise, I had a flat tire. It was too dark to change it there, so I drove the mile back home. I tried to make a few calls for a ride before remembering that my near neighbor Misty was in the race. She answered my call and said that Kirby had just gotten to her place, and they could pick me up. Five minutes later I was on my way.

We had lots of rain prior to the race, and we had a mix of fog and light drizzle all race day. This kept the temps down in the 60s, but it was humid, and a lot of us risked cramps during the run. The trail was in pretty good shape and draining well. Brian and Tony had done a lot of work on the trail just prior to the race. The local crew Kirby, Misty, Kathy, Leah, Steve Barber, and I got in one van with Stephanie Johnson for the shuttle to Cave Branch. Starting out like a trip with friends helped me treat the day as a run, rather than a race,

The start was at 7AM, still in the dark, so things went slowly up the first climb up Cave Branch, which we pushed pretty well. I took it easy dropping into Bowling Branch, and got a bit worried on water when there was no aid station there. But the climb to Lawson Mountain was the easiest of the day’s four major climbs. Brian had driven, somehow, up to the crest, and had an aid station where they had added a 3 mile lollipop loop to get the course to ~50K. The stem of the lollipop was so short  I never did see another runner on it. Brian said the extra was about 3 miles and I’d only been out this road 0.6 mile to the top of Lawson Mtn., so this at least was some new trail to me. I think except for Susan and I, none of the other runners had ever been on the CT west of the end of the old course.

Auto ford over the New River.

I took it easy on next descent down Lick Creek to the New River and ran from this point to the final aid station with Thomas Booker.  Stephanie was at the Norma Road aid station. It turned out Brian had only a few aid workers, and they were leap frogging the runners along the course. The Anderson Mountain climb wasn’t too hard either, there are some long flat stretches. Brian and Tony had to mark a lot of this section, through the coal benches. Brian’s really herculean work was in clearing a path through the upper elk field. Apparently, he’d been out until 9:30 the night before cutting a rough path, lost his phone (found by Steve) and had been picked up by Tony. Once down to the lower field there was some aid. The next piece of trail may be the best running on the course. The new course joined the old course at the ATV Road. I decided to not push the climbs out of the next two stream valleys, but did make one really stupid decision down there. On the second crossing I tried to jump to a rock, slipped of course, and bruised my right butt cheek pretty good along with putting a good bend in my hiking pole. It could have been a lot worse, and my feet weren’t even dry to being with.

 

Leaving the aid station.

Brian was at the campsite  stream crossing to mark the start of the last climb. I wasn’t able to push this climb, but also didn’t suffer too badly. I been near cramping since I had retied my shoes near the lower elk field aid station, so was trying to do a better job of eating and drinking. We got thru that climb and the next pitch to the top of Cross Mountain wasn’t near as bad as I’d remembered, we were even able to run a bit of the gentle downhill to the final aid station. But just as we got there it looked like they were driving off! No problem though, the crew was just changing out.

 

Still on trail.

Susan Donnelly caught us there, and Thomas took off with her. I went very conservatively down the hill but hadn’t had any knee trouble all day, and nothing popped up on the descent. I don’t think though that I could have pushed hard anyway, I was pretty well spent by then. The last two miles were long and tedious. This section was also poorly, if at all maintained. There’s long section parallel to I-75,and I think most folks just want the race over by then. But finally, the picnic area was in sight and I was done. I’d finished in 8:44, 16^th of 19 finishers.

Despite the relatively slow time this was a good race for me. For the most part, my knee issues were behind me, I was able to run well at the Norris Dam 25K later that fall and even got a measure of redemption the next year at Barkley. The CT 50K was held until 2018, when there were again only 16 finishers. The lack of publicity for the CT 50K and the torrent of publicity for the similar Barkley Fall Classic were enough that the race was not held in 2019 or planned for 2020.

2014 9-13 Mount LeConte via No Name Ridge

This hike replaced a regularly scheduled Smoky Mountains Hiking Club hike that had been rained out. Intrigued by the club write up, Ed and I both wanted to try the route on our own. Mount LeConte is the epicenter for long, steep, and committed off trail hikes in the Smokies and this route look looked to have the potential to join the list of the classics. Luckily for us, Clayton was willing to join us. He had been on the scout with SMHC Leader Jenny Bennett, and she introduced us to him. These notes were written about a month after the hike, so I don’t remember as much route finding detail I’d normally like.

Jenny along with Chris Sass, Craig Hutto and Gregs Hoover & Harrrel had found this route based on some exploring they did nearby, and on observations of Jenny’s from Anakeesta Ridge. She saw the fresh Y-shaped scar extending from nearly the top of “No Name” ridge down to Alum Cave Creek and realized the scar would make a great route. On their scout trip for the SMHC trip though, the group apparently went too far east and up ascended an older scar, but part of the group had then descended and marked the correct route for the club hike.

Jenny's image of the scar.

We started at Alum Cave Bluff TH. I’d never noticed the ACB trail doesn’t loop nearly as far into Alum Cave Creek as the topo map shows, and therefore even the waypoint I’d marked to start the off trail portion was off on my map, not a good sign! But late summer was very dry, so the creek was easy to walk. I wore running shoes and didn’t bother to try and stay dry, but Ed wore boots and did manage to rock hop everything with dry feet. The creek bottom was open and easy travelling to the first fork (”r” in creek on the topo), and then got a lot narrower and became a bit slower. We passed one old landslide scar from the north early on, but knew to continue upstream until the creek turned north. Just after the turn to the north, the valley opened back up a bit.

Lower Alum Cave Creek

The start of the scar looks pretty intimidating from below, it is essentially a sheer, wet, and featureless wall. Clayton remembered a bypass from the scout hike, and so we followed him to the right and east around the wall. Once onto the merely steep terrain the scar was a lot of fun. However, the scar bedrock is Anakeesta Formation, so the rock is pretty crumbly, and the holds are small. I took the camera (and GPS) and got a couple good picture on the crux sections of the climb. It remained foggy all day obscuring the views. We had little idea of the length of the climb, but the mapping indicated about 800’ vertical in the scar.

Near the top of the scar there is a fork to make the “Y”. We found some flagging and went up the right side of the left fork. The crest of No Name Ridge is well protected with a rim of dense heath above the top of the scar, and we suspected this would be the slowest section. I think it took 30 minutes or so to crawl the final section. Amazingly, at one spot Clayton spotted a camera just ahead. Apparently, it was Craig’s, who had lost it on the scouting hike. Craig had thought he’d dropped it in the creek so had not gone back to look for the camera when he realized it was missing. We brought the camera back for him, and were able to salvage the memory card, but not the camera itself. Even more surprising was that Craig had lost the same camera once previously, and had it found and returned once before. Because the fog during our climb obscured our views it wasn’t until we got a look at Craig’s memory card that we were able to see the large scale vistas that we’d missed on our own trip.

Ed and Clayton on the lower part of the scar.

Higher on the scar.

We spent some time on the ridge crest of No Name, though there were no views to be had. The crest was every bit as narrow and sharp as it appeared in the satellite pix and from Jenny’s scout. It took longer than I expected to clear the open ridge, then there was a long bushwhack through some dense woods out to Boulevard Ridge, and then down to the trail. The Boulevard Trail seemed a lot further from ridgeline at point 5916’ than it looked like on the map. It couldn’t have been because I was getting tired…

Craig's image of No Name Ridge from the top.

We had lunch after reaching the trail. After the solitude of the off trail section even the relatively little used Boulevard Trail seemed crowded. We then hiked down via Alum Cave Bluff Trail with stops at the summit, and the Bluff, but did not go down to the lodge as we all had enough water due to the cool temperatures and overcast skies.

This was a much better route than what I remember from my first visit to Alum Cave Creek with the SMHC.  That hike was marked by a hellacious battle through the heath to finally gain the Boulevard Ridge from the main stem of the creek. It is hard to believe that 2003 hike was one of my first tries at the difficult off trail routes up Mount LeConte.

Brimstone Mountain Bike Recon 6-28-2014

 Over the last few years before this ride my mountain biking had had dropped off significantly. Partly I had completed most of the exploring around the Emory Tract and Sterling areas that I’d focused on, and partly because Jean was becoming less interested in riding. But there were still plenty of new areas to ride.

If you imagine the Cumberlands as a circle, Brimstone sits in the nine to noon, northwest corner. Much of the property was originally part of the Connecting the Cumberlands Initiative, but it seems like Brimstone was the section that dropped out of the plan when money got tight. Three parcels of land ended up under control of Brimstone Recreation, whose goal was to create another ATV park to rival Windrock. The 19,000 acre Brimstone property is separated by parcels of publicly owned TWRA land.

Prior to the ride I stopped in Huntsville to pick up a copy of their trail map. I’d done what research I could online and ordered a Brimstone permit. My goal for the recon ride was to get familiar with the roads and access points, and to see if there was any easy mountain biking to be had on the trails. I thought I’d have some leeway to explore the TWRA trails, but anything I got there would be a bonus. I took a GPS track of the route, but regrettably, no pictures. Beyond some old info online I wasn’t able to find out if anyone currently rode mountain bikes or ran in the area.

Driving to the Mt Pleasant Church at the north end of the Brimstone Road took 72 miles and 75 minutes via Caryville outbound, and 65 miles and 80 minutes on the return via Sunbright. Conditions were warm and muggy with 79F and light sprinkles at the end.

I parked at the Mt Pleasant Church and rode south on the paved road. Riding south on the nearly deserted road I took waypoints at the head of various Brimstone and TWRA trails. It was wonderful riding, little traffic, no mean dogs, and shady tree cover. The pavement extended south to the Little Creek Bridge near Lone Mountain Church, and then was sporadic beyond. The last good trailhead I saw was for Trail #107 at the 10 mile mark. I turned around at 10.8 miles, after ~ one hour, where it looked like I might be getting off the TWRA land and onto private property. Someone has a beautiful place tucked into that small valley.

On the way out I’d noticed that both trails 8 and 31 had decent trailheads, were rated mostly “easy”, and kept me on the same side of the creek. So, I decided to try a side trail loop connecting them on my return. The loop would be a trails shared between Brimstone and TWRA. The first part of Trail 31 was easy as it followed an old railroad grade on the east side of the creek opposite from the paved road. At the siding I turned onto Trail 30 and began to climb. Once on the climb the trail was in rough shape with plenty of 6-10” cobbles in the trail bed. I dismounted for some pushing and wondered if the trail was ridable even downhill. A gas well near the end marked a return to easier riding and I headed north on Trail 1, which I had learned was part of the elusive “Four Lane” aka “Brimstone Haul Road” discussed by Tom Dunigan in the “Challenge Ride” section of his web site. https://tnlandforms.us/mtnbike/fork.html The Four Lane looked smooth and flat, I was hoping to explore it more on another trip soon, but it wouldn’t be until 2020 until I was able to complete this connection. https://hiramrunhikebike.blogspot.com/2020/10/2020-10-25-ncwma-mountain-bike-ride.html

I passed the Sexton Cemetery and then ended the loop by riding back down to the Brimstone Road on Trail 8, which proved to have the easy riding I was seeking. Right across the road was the start of trail 89, which I thought might be a good connector . But Trail 89 was a narrow and rutted, and I expected it would be tough riding.

On the return I also did a short side trip up Trail 95, which headed east across the south end of the main Brimstone block. I went about 1.2 miles in on what was a nice ride after passing some initial mud holes and steep pitches. The start of Trail 95 was marred by many near collapsed structures and semi-trailers. The sprinkles had started by then, so I turned back headed back to the car.

Despite the ATV focus of the area I had seen none all day, and heard no engine noise. I had nearly hit a large animal (elk?) near the trail 30-1 junction, that would have been a tough hit but a great story. Brimstone proved to have what I’d been seeking, little used trails in a pretty area without the heavy damage from overuse of ATVs. 

2014 era Brimstone Map.

2014 6-21 BSF Mountain Biking: Darrow Ridge, and Gobbler Knob Wagon Trail, and the Bear Attack

This was one of our more interesting mountain biking trips done as part of our goal of completing all the trails in the Big South Fork. We were still mountain biking a decent amount then and had been lucky in using the bikes to cover some of the horse trails and multiuse trails in the park. The multiuse trails we had seen by this time were generally well maintained gravel roads that were the type of easy cruising we really enjoyed. The horse trails were a literal crap shoot. Often these had a firm enough surface to be fun riding, but other times they were such boggy eroded messes that that having the bikes was just a hinderance for us.

Our plan was to drive up for the weekend and spend the night at the Jordan Motel in Jamestown, our go to spot for exploring Pickett and the west side of BSF. On the first day we would try to ride as much as possible of the Darrow Ridge area in the remote SW corner of the park. On Sunday we would ride the park’s wagon trail and part of the Fork Ridge Road over to the Charit Creek Trailhead.

The Darrow Ridge area was unknown to us. All the trails in that corner of the park are open to horses, so we found no accounts of hikers visiting. Satellites maps showed that the major road were gravelled, a good sign. There was also a lot of recent development around the Timber Ridge Horse camp so we expected we could find our way to the camp and then to a parking area. We knew that the O&W Trail in the western part of the park was too damaged by horse traffic to be either ridable or enjoyable to walk so we planned a small lasso shaped hiked on the Darrow Ridge and Upper Panther Branch trails, plus side trips to the ends of the Darrow Ridge, Little Cliff, and Christian Cemetery trails.

Day One Darrow Ridge 19.6 miles

It two hours to drive to the horse camp (~ 2 miles off the highway) from Knoxville. We found the road east beyond the camp rutted and muddy, so with the possibility of rain in the forecast we backtracked to the end of the gravel segment and parked at a junction with one of the development roads. We started east on the road which followed the park boundary. We took  the side trail to Hippy Cave and found a new horse trail that ran parallel to the park road. The cave was large, pretty and campable, a pleasant surprise for a feature located so close to the road.

Hippy Cave

We decided to ride the new horse trail to the east and found it to be the most enjoyable riding of the day (with the warning that the trail may have degraded significantly since our 2014 ride). It had all the twists and turns of a great mountain bike trail with a smooth firm surface as well. We also took a side trip on an unofficial horse trail to Fiddlers Arch. The arch was essentially a rock house where the back wall has collapsed.

Fiddlers Arch

Where the road enters the park, it becomes the Darrow Ridge Mutiuse Trail and is a well maintained gravel road with a firm packed surface. Just before the first junction there is a well-marked, unofficial horse trail leading south. The park map shows an inholding at the junction with Christian Cemetery Road, but we saw no signs for this.

Jean on the Darrow Ridge Trail

The road was gravelled a short distance past the intersection with the Little Cliff Multiuse Trail. We couldn’t ride much further, and ended up walking about a mile to where the distinct roadbed ended in a jumble of blown down trees to complete our first side trip. This was a recurring pattern for the dead end multiuse trails that we would see for the rest of our map marking project. The dead end roads might begin by following the TI Map, but the ends were always in seemingly random places determined by blowdowns. These trails must have led to hunting spots or other little used features and it seemed it didn’t take much to make them impassable.

On our return to the bikes a heavy rainstorm blew in and pinned us down for 20 minutes. Luckily it was a warm early summer day and we fine, just soaking wet, but the rain wet the roads enough for our fast easy riding to be over for the day. On the other hand, the rain brought out the box turtles. Jean counted 16, and we also saw a deer and a turkey.

After the rainstorm blew in

Next up was a descent down to North White Oak Creek and the O&W Trail on the Little Cliff Trail for our second side trip. We were able to ride to a locked metal gate. In the BSF these gates usually mark the start of steep rocky descents, so we locked the bikes to the gate and walked down. The rain was now just a light drizzle, but enough that we turned around immediately after reaching the O&W  Trail. We saw four horse riders ascending Little Cliff, the only other people we saw all day.

We’d hoped to make a bit of a loop with the Upper Panther Branch Trail, but we found it to be narrow and muddy. There appeared to be an old drill site at the west end of the road. With that trail section no fun to ride, we decided that there really weren’t any decent mtn bike loops in the Darrow Ridge area. Our final side trip was an  out and back leg on the Christian Cemetery Road again down to North White Oak Creek and the O&W Trail.

Christian Cemetery Road was also in bad shape with lots of mud holes and we abandoned the bikes even before we reached the cemetery and gate. The cemetery did not look like it was being maintained. Jean and I were starting to tire by this point as we descended to the O&W. The old railroad grade looked in decent shape. We climbed back to the bikes and found the upper leg of CC trail to be gravel and zipped back along it and along the gravel part of the Darrow Ridge Trail. But once out of the park, and presumably under county maintenance, the Darrow Ridge Road back to the horse camp was muddy with lots of deep sand, and not helped at all by the day’s rain. We never had to walk the bikes, except around a few mud pits, but it was tough, slow going. At one point my tire was wobbling about so much that I stopped to check to see if I’d had a flat tire.

Mud Splatter

We did our best to get some of the mud off our bikes at the trailhead, but mostly were thankful we hadn’t parked the Forester further east out on the muddy section of road. On the return drive we saw the Hicks Ridge TH on the north side of the horse camp. We spent the night at the Jordan Motel in Jamestown.

Our Darrow Ridge Route

Day 2 Wagon Trail and Bear Attack 18.4 Miles

Our day two objective was to knock off the park’s entire system of wagon trails in a single day. There being only the Gobblers Knob Trail we figured we could make a return loop on the Divide Road and still have time to ride the section of the Fork Ridge Road out to Charit Creek TH and return. Gobblers Knob launches from the Middle Creek Equestrian TH, a new locale to us.

The trailhead looked little used and we found the wagon trail be nice riding. It is mostly an old road, and had received from very recent maintenance. There were plenty of twisty turns but also a few short hills we needed to push up. A side road at 1.4 miles was marked “TVA only” and was far to overgrown to explore. It was a hot muggy morning, but we were able to ride quickly enough to generate our own breeze.

The Gobblers Knob Wagon Trail

After crossing the Twin Arches Road, the Trails Illustrated map shows a 0.3 mile connector trail to the Divide Road. The trail looked to be all uphill, but being good little map markers we decided to walk it. Good thing too, the trail was covered with blowdowns and obviously was little used. The map also showed that the trail would next parallel a section of gravel road leading to the Gobblers Knob TH. We had been skeptical that the trails existed, assuming that folks would most likely just take the gravel road. This trail also turned out to have been recently maintained and was fun riding. We spent about 2 hours riding the wagon trail to the end, and only 50 minutes riding back on the road. We saw 4 vehicles, but no hikers or riders all morning.

But we had bad news when we arrived back at the trailhead. It was obvious that we had a flat tire and even worse that the tire had been slashed. There were three spots on the sidewall that had a series of wet, jagged cuts. We were sad, disappointed, and couldn’t figure out why someone would vandalize our car that way. Luckily, the Forester has a full size spare and I was able to change the tire.

 

Bear Damage to our Bumper and Tire

Though we were pretty bummed about the tire slashing we decided to go ahead with the ride on the Fork Ridge Road. This was a flat fast ride on good gravel.

On the way home we decided to stop by the Bandy Creek Visitor Center to report what happened. We waited a bit for a ranger and then showed them the pictures of the damage (we’d already stowed the tire back in the car.) The ranger asked if there was other damage, and Jean showed her two bb-sized holes in bumper that weren’t in the picture she took of the car when we started the ride. We were amazed when she suggested that the culprit might have been a bear. She called in another ranger and they agreed that the bb holes were about the right spacing for the incisors of a bear. Apparently, bears can digest horse poop and we must have driven over some. The bear was attracted by the smell and must have gone after our tire like a giant wheel of black licorice. Though our bumper was ~1/4 inch thick, they assured us that bears can easily bit through that. I got really nervous when I realized that the wetness on the busted tire was likely bear saliva, and that we probably had scared it away as we rode into the trailhead.

Our sadness at having our tire vandalized was now replaced by the joy of knowing we now had a story that was so good we wouldn’t even have to fib when we told it. The final note was that the Forester was rear ended not too long after our bike trip. Jean told the story to the guys in the body shop and they were kind enough to cut out the section of the now ruined bitten bumper for us as a souvenir.

Our Wagon Trail Route

Smokies, Pinkroot Ridge OT, 5-18-2014

Pinkroot Ridge was formerly a regular SMHC destination that has fallen out of the rotation. I had read an account of a recent trip on GoSmokies that described the route as relatively open. We had a spell of cool weather we knew would be great for going off trail, Jean was interested, and so we planned a trip. Our route would start at Cades Cove, climb up the Crooked Arm Ridge Trail, and follow a short piece of the Scott Mountain Trail to the top of Pinkroot Ridge. Then we would simply descend the ridge to the Laurel Creek Road and then hike back to our cars.

On the ridge crest.

The Scott Mountain Trail was technically closed past Scott Mountain Backcountry Campsite #6, but we knew that we wouldn’t need to use the part of the trail that had been damaged by the tornado that had prompted the trail closure in 2011. This closure was caused by the same storm that closed the Beard Cane and Hatcher Mountain trails from 2011 through 2013. As of 2024, Scott Mountain Trail remains closed.

Coming up the Crooked Arm Trail there was no sign at the Scott Mtn. junction. Crooked Arm was torn up from the combination of horse traffic, unsustainably steep grades, and wet weather. Our first surprise of the trip was finding that the Scott Mountain Trail was mapped incorrectly on the USGS topo. It swings much lower around Turkeypen Ridge than is shown. (Or maybe there is just an old relocation that needs exploring). Some of the closed section of the trail was starting to grass over.

Keeping on course.

We found the top of Pinkroot Ridge, but started down the wrong fork, a bit too far to the east. There were lots of exposed rocks and a few small cliffs. A nice bear trail led us back to the ridge through some thick blackberry patches. The main part of the descent was open as advertised, and very pretty through a long flatter section. Farther down were some blowdowns with greenbrier mixed in, but nothing too thick.

We weren’t sure how to handle the last of the descent down to Laurel Creek Road. We started to go west, but that draw looked rhodo filled. So, we climbed up and over the main ridge and thrashed our way down to the road. Walking the road back we could see into the west draw, and that view didn’t look bad. Regardless, the last section only takes around 10 minutes.

Our 2014 Route.

Though the picnic area was full of cars, we found open tables and stopped for a late lunch. For the trip we saw few flowers, just a pair of almost spent pink lady slippers. Our roundtrip distance was 5.2 miles.

Ridgetop snow 2016.

We repeated this trip on 2-27-16 on the same route with Claudia. The weather was a lot different with the creeks full, and almost an inch of snow on top. We saw two guys hiking on the Scott Mountain Trail, even though it was still officially closed. On the descent I marked one greenbrier-rich area, but otherwise the ridge was still open, easy walking, especially on the flatter sections. We dropped off the ridge on the west side to Green Branch, a route we liked better than our first trip. Again, we were back to the picnic area in time for a late lunch. 

Blowdowns in 2016.