Mark
had been talking for a while about wanting to try a hike in Joyce Kilmer and
finally we found a good weekday to go. With a lot of recent rain and overnight
lows forecasted at freezing, we decided to try a loop from Big Fat Gap with the
Slickrock and Hangover Lead South trails, rather than the more ambitious Slickrock
Creek hike that Mark had originally proposed.
Big Fat Gap Trailhead.
I’d hiked frequently in the combined wildernesses from 1994 to 2007, mostly on backpacking trips, and many of those with Jean. Jean and I had even completed our “Map” of all the trails in 2005 covering the Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Creek Wilderness, mostly in NC’s Nantahala NF, and the Citico Creek Wilderness mostly in TN’s Cherokee National Forest (Link).
But
in 2008 the state of Tennessee completed their “Connecting the Cumberlands”
project which included the addition of the Emory Tract addition to Frozen Head
State Park and the Emory Lease property just to the north of the park. With so
much new land to explore closer by and less crowded the Emory Area became our
prime target for exploring new areas and visits to Joyce Kilmer became less frequent.
This hike would prove to be my first trip to the area in eight years.
We
met at 6:30 at Kroger Northshore and were on the trail by 8:15. Mark drove. US
129 (aka the dragon) wasn’t crowded, I took a Dramamine to prevent motion
sickness on the curvy road. We saw bear hunter vehicles from Foothills Parkway
continuing thru the lower part of the BFG Road. BFG Road is well maintained no
potholes or washboards, and would have been easy for 2WD sedan. I used both Garmin
and Maprika GPS and my phone camera.
Mark
wanted to try descent via Windy Gap, which is also part of the Benton MacKaye Trail.
It starts as old logging road to small gap west of Cold Spring Knob. The trail
was well maintained and easy to follow. No blazes, but most trail junctions were
signed. I forgot to GPS the upper Nichols Cove junction. I GPS’ed the lower Nichols Cove/Big Fat and
Slickrock Creek junctions in campsites at Big Fat Branch. The junction is south
of the Big Fat crossing, not north as map shows. The Joyce Kilmer trails are
notorious for being hard to follow, so we were taking no chances.
The
first part of the hike is easy down to Slickrock Creek is easy, but getting out
is a different story. There things turn rough and the place names sound like a
bachelor party gone wrong; Slickrock, Ballbuster, Naked Ground, Haoe, and the Hangover.
Mark along Slickrock Creek.
It was easy going to a trail sign near crossing of Hangover Creek. The trail is old railroad bed here. We then got sidetracked by a side spur to a campsite, and walked a small loop, then found a switchback to the left. Next we followed the old RR grade south along Slickrock Creek until we realized that our maps showed this as part of the abandoned Slickrock Spur Trail. We turned back just short of another sharp switchback left on a RR grade and returned to the last sign, not seeing any sign of the main trail. We returned to the sharp switchback and realized that it was indeed the main trail, however its location was mismapped. We spotted a cairn at the elbow of the switchback, which, had we walked just a few feet further the first time, would have clued us in.
The
trail then swung around into Hangover Creek. I changed batteries on my Garmin
at the base of the ballbuster climb, not remembering that my ancient Garmin
generally didn’t acquire satellites the same day after a battery change. I
still had Maprika running, so
the rest of the route is sketched in on my map.
The
crux of the Ballbuster is 1400’ of climbing, alternating between ridiculously
steep, eroded pitches alternating with gentle traverses that somehow always
seemed to give up some of your recently hard earned elevation. Much of the
climb was through thick rhodo. Mark pulled ahead, but I’d had enough Barkley
training to make good progress. We ate lunch at Naked Ground enjoying some
great views. Then it’s a quick mile past several inviting campsites to the top
of the Haoe, where Jenkins Ridge Trail comes in. We saw two hunting dogs just
off the trail near Naked Ground, otherwise we saw no signs of hunting during
the hike.
Curiously,
the Trails Illustrated map omits the crucial short section of trail through
Saddle Tree Gap. We took the side trail to the top of the Hangover. Again, what
the map shows as a 4-way junction is actually offset, with the Deep Creek Trail
ending in a T-junction with the Hangover Spur. With a cold clear day, the views
were crystal clear including all the sub peaks of LeConte. Hangover must have
one of the best mountain views in the southeast, the entire southwest side of
the Smokies is visible.
View from the Hangover.
On our return we noticed that the first mile of Hangover Lead is also mismapped. The trail swings much further west before rejoining the crest of the ridge. Tim Homan’s guidebook mentions that this change was done to improve the route, but the “new” trail is still extremely rough, and has the same super steep-flat traverse pattern of the Ballbuster. Finally, in one last jab at the map makers, there is no sign of the trail 400 that is shown on the TI Map.
There was much more traffic coming back on the Dragon,
mostly sports cars, but none of the racing, corner cutting that we used to see.
With
the exception of part of the climb up the Ballbuster we didn’t see much of the
thick rhodo that plagues the Smokies. It would be fun to do more hiking here,
especially on the NC side, and maybe try some off trail hiking.
Trip Stats: 13.3 miles, 3500’ climb, 7 hours
No comments:
New comments are not allowed.