Jean and I been hiking off trail in the Smokies on and off
for almost 20 years. Many of these trips have been with the Smoky Mountains Hiking
Club, or with hikers we know through the club. Our trips have ranged from easy,
semi-maintained unofficial trails to the brutally difficult bushwhacks that the
Smokies is notorious for. One common theme runs through most of them though.
Whether I’m off trailing with Jean, or with some of my other friends, few of
these trips are breaking new ground.
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| Big tree on Shot Beech. |
Whether it’s a hike with Jean where the route needs to be
not just doable, but have some attractive features, or a hike with others where
the difficulty level is high and reward uncertain, for most of my trips I’ve
gotten good information about the route from others who have done it before.
Partly this is the nature of the Smokies. Unlike the Cumberland Mountains, in
the Smokies you can’t just go wherever you want. Thick patches of rhododendron,
deadfall, and other heath can be totally impenetrable. With so many options to choose from, my
strategy tends to be to seek out routes that have been done recently, and come
highly recommended. Depending on the route, detailed directions usually aren’t
as important as is whether or not the route goes, and is it worth the effort.
One exception to this was our trip down Shot Beech Ridge. Shot
Beech caught our attention during a July backpacking trip we took to Newton Bald.
Hiking along the Thomas Divide Trail we couldn’t help but notice how open the
hardwood forest on the crest of the ridge was. At first, I was thinking, too
bad there wasn’t an off trail route along the ridge. But soon I realized that
it was possible that other ridges nearby with the same orientation should have the
same vegetation along them.
A look at the map showed that Shot Beech and Beetree ridges both
looked promising because of their elevation and facing directions compared to
Thomas Divide. Hiking back out, we could only tell that there were no obvious
heath balds on the ridge crests, but that was far from an indication that the
routes could go. Our TI Map showed there was a quiet walkway that started near
the head of Shot Beech. On our way home we stopped and walked the walkway through
some pleasant forest until it petered out, still in open forest. Later at home
I logged onto the Smokies species mapper, and as best I could tell, it
indicated that we should see mostly hardwood on the upper parts of the ridges.
I’d asked around, but no one I had contacted had been down Shot
Beech. Clyde is one of my best sources for off trail information. Ask about an
area and you’re liable to get detail on the right fork of the left fork, the
left fork of the right fork, and also for some other good routes nearby. Clyde had done Beetree Ridge before and found it
good going until near the bottom, where he’d encountered thick rhododendron. The
bottom of the Deep Creek drainage turned out to be notorious for bad rhodo, but
every indication was that the upper ridge should be clear.
Clyde was coming over in October to lead an SMHC trip up
Tunnel Ridge. I was the coleader for that trip, so the plan was for Jean and I to
drive over Saturday for the club hike to Tunnel Ridge. We would stay the night
in Bryson and explore Shot Beech the next day with Clyde. Connie, another
strong and experienced SMHC off trail hiker, wasn’t able to make the club hike,
but joined us Sunday for Shot Beech.
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| Elk at Ocanaluftee. |
Our plan was to use the parking area for the Quiet Walkway,
hike down the walkway to its end, and continue south down the ridge crest,
ideally all the way to campsite #53 at Poke Patch. Our return would be via Deep
Creek Trail. We knew if the ridge became impassable, we could exit off the west
side down to the Deep Creek Trail. We had an auspicious start driving in,
stopping to photograph some of the park elk herd grazing in the meadows around
Ocanaluftee.
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| View west from Thomas Divide. |
We set up a short shuttle by leaving a car at the Deep Creek
trailhead. Once we left the quiet walkway we found the route to be in open
hardwoods, with some huge trees growing right on the crest. Following the ridge
top was easy until we reached a split where the left fork leading southeast into
Cherry Creek looked dominant. We continued right on the main crest southwest to
a small saddle, in the narrowest spot between the ridge and trail, where we had
a snack.
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| Clyde starting our descent off Shot Beech. |
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| Descending the Escape Route. |
We were now about half-way down the length of the ridge. The
rhodo was starting to encroach up the ridgeline from the creek, but at least at
our saddle we could see the start of a rhodo free descent route, if we would
need it. But beyond the saddle the ridge crest quickly became crowded with
rhodo, laurel, and greenbrier. Moving forward quickly became the type of full
body rhodo wrestling of many off trailer’s nightmares. After much debate and
little progress, we decided to head back to the snack spot and examine the
rhodo free opening.
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| In the Dog Hobble. |
Miraculously our escape route stayed clear all the way to
the bottom. Ninety-nine times out of one hundred in the Smokies a route like
this will start open, begin to clog up as soon as you’re out of sight of the
start, and become impenetrable once you are far enough along to become
committed to finishing it. The top began in fairly open forest, but was so
steep that Clyde slid down most of it on his butt. Lower down the opening was
covered in dog hobble, where tracking hikers became a matter of looking for a
red shirt in the midst of quivering green vegetation. But, at least for humans,
dog hobble is still passable terrain. Nearer the bottom we had to cut right to
avoid be swallowed in the rhodo.
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| On Deep Creek Trail. |
In 45 minutes, we managed to scramble down the quarter mile
long escape route and plop happily onto the Deep Creek Trail for a well-deserved
lunch. We hiked the Deep Creek Trail back to our shuttle car. On the return we
all looked for any openings in the rhodo
along the creek that could lead to another escape route off Shot Beech Ridge
similar to the one we had descended, but did not see anything between our lunch
spot and the next fork in Deep Creek. We had a few easy creek crossings around the
head of the creek and finished in a beautiful forest above the head of the
creek
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| Out of the Rhodo! |
Of course, we were disappointed that we hadn’t been able to
complete the ridge. A through trip may have been possible, but it certainly
wouldn’t have been enjoyable. We were glad to have experienced the miracle of
having our escape route stay open long enough to lead us down to the trail.
Sometimes you get lucky after enough time in the mountains.
Our loose group of off trailers was a well-travelled machine
that fall and winter. From October until the spring coronavirus shutdown in
various configurations we did a dozen off trail hikes ranging from hikes out of
Steiner Bell on the OST, to Sugarlands, Elkmont, Tremont, and Cosby along with
Leadmine Ridge on Mt Cammerer and the 1000’ scar.
