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.
