Despite what they say in Townsend, North Carolina is really the quiet side of the Smokies. There are far fewer tourists there, and no need to deal with the horror show of driving through Gatlinburg or the Parkway. Jean and I enjoy the quieter, less crowded trails on the NC side, but it is not always easy to make the longer drive over the mountains.
When we visit, Bryson City is one of our favorite stops. It’s a pretty little
town with a nice hotel and a couple interesting places to eat. With this trip
in the era of COVID-19 we weren’t looking to eat out or visit shops, and just
appreciated its proximity to the trailheads on the Road to Nowhere and Deep
Creek. We planned trail hikes for our inbound and outbound days (Noland Creek
in the rain, and the White Oak Loop) and saved our middle day for the real
adventure of the trip, an off-trail hike on Tunnel and Forney ridges.
Clyde
and I had recently led a Smoky Mountains Hiking Club trip that included Tunnel
Ridge, and Jean’s idea was to also revisit the route of our original 2009 trip with
Clyde and Nan on the adjacent Forney Ridge Manway. Since the Tunnel Ridge
manway had proved so open on our previous trip, we expected that the travel and
navigation for this route would be straightforward. But we had also seen just
how much a route could become overgrown on another recent bushwhacking trip up
nearby Laurel Branch.
For
Tunnel and Forney ridges we had our prior GPS tracks, and the Forney Ridge
Manway is well marked on the 1949 park map. We would start on the Lakeshore
Trail at the tunnel, follow it to the south end of the Forney Ridge Manway and
follow the manway to its end at the intersection with Springhouse Branch Trail.
Our return route would descend Forney Ridge, but then diverge onto Tunnel Ridge
and follow it over the tunnel to the Tunnel Bypass Trail, and then back to the
parking area. The Forney Ridge Manway is an old trail probably built by the
CCC. The Tunnel Ridge Manway was also probably built as a trail, but I have not
seen it on any park maps. 
Tunnel at the end of the Road to Nowhere.
We
started at the tunnel on beautiful, clear cold (31F) morning at about 8:15. By
this late in the fall all the leaves were off the trees. Regrettably, there’s
much new graffiti spray painted inside of and on the face of the tunnel. The
barely risen sun shone through almost the entire length of the tunnel and we
wondered if there was some sort of Stonehenge effect here. Would the sun shine
through the entire length of the tunnel once a year to mark some special day?
Some
recent redigging of the trail bed made for nice walking as we headed past the
junctions with the Tunnel Bypass and Gold Mine Loop trails to the first small ridge
crest on the Lakeshore Trail. Approaching the small ridge, I could not recall
if in 2009 we had been able to follow the end of Forney Ridge Manway exactly to
the trail junction, or if we had simply picked the easiest way through the open
forest to descend. Just before we reached the ridge, we spotted what looked
like an old manway and proceeded up it. The tread soon gave out but the forest
above us was open and rhodo free, so we decided just to bushwhack to the crest
and pick up the manway there. Along the way we paid our dues in a ten minute
section of unwelcoming greenbrier entwined with laurel, but otherwise reached
the ridge unscathed. On the climb we saw the first of several deer and many of
their beds. 
Forney Ridge
Deer
are relatively rare in the deep forests of the Smokies and we wondered if there
was a relation between these browsers and the open woods they live in. Was it the
deer who were keeping these magnificent woods so open, or was the lack of
underbrush natural, and the deer just take advantage of it?
Forney Ridge.
The
junction of Tunnel and Forney ridges can be a tricky spot, but we hit it on
target and rejoined the manway again. Besides the open forest, the other
remarkable thing about these ridges is how flat they are. The open forest,
gentle terrain, abundant sunshine, and leaf-free views accentuate the beauty of
these ridges. We followed the ridge to the northeast towards its only steep
pitch, near where we’d briefly gotten off route on our club hike coming up from
Laurel Branch. Our 2009 notes indicated that the manway would be visible all
the way ahead, but that it was easier just to follow the open crest of the
ridge.
We
hadn’t committed to going beyond a survey point at 3670’ and ended up stopping
there for lunch., but could not find the survey marker. Jean asked how much
further it might be to the trail and when I told her, I was surprised that she
wanted to continue. I guess the temptation of so much open easy ridge was too
much to resist. The next knob to the north had a small stone siting on edge at
its very top, so we dubbed it Tombstone Peak. The ridge did indeed continue
open and sunny all the way to the Springhouse Branch junction which we reached
at 11:45. In fact, we overshot the junction and walked a bit of the trail.
Springhouse Branch Junction in 2009
Tombstone Rock
The
return hike was an easy repeat of the manway this time down to the spilt
between Forney and Tunnel Ridges. The Forney Ridge manway may split off the
ridge a little north of this spot, but the area is so open that it would matter
little to the hiker following along it. While Forney is the dominant ridge, the
better manway heads southeast down Tunnel. We descended gradually along the Tunnel
Ridge manway eventually reaching a low saddle in the ridge. The manway then
passes above the tunnel and encounters a few areas where it is overgrown. But
as it makes its way towards the Tunnel Bypass Trail the ridge opens back up
again.
We
were able to follow the manway past a fallen 4x4 post, all the way to the Tunnel
Bypass Trail junction, enjoying awesome
views down into the valleys of Forney and Noland creeks. Then it’s a left turn for
a brief hike back to the tunnel trailhead, which we reached about 2:30PM after
8.2 miles. Though we had seen no hikers all day long, the tunnel in the
afternoon proved to be a popular spot for visitors looking for a short quiet
walk. 
The Tunnel in 2009.
