Not
long after finishing hiking all the 900 miles of trails in Great Smoky
Mountains National Park, Jean and I started looking for some other hiking challenges
to complete. The thrill of hiking new
trails and seeing new places was too much for us not to take up another quest.
But much of what makes the 900 miles so epic is its size, there are very few
places that host such an extensive trail network. We knew we’d have a smaller
area for our next goal, but we ended up trying to complete two separate maps:
one for Frozen Head State Park in the Cumberland Mountains, and another for the
combined Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Creek and Citico wildernesses.
Citico Creek Wilderness.
The
combined wilderness areas lie southwest of the Smokies and are essentially a
continuation of that range across the Little Tennessee River. The Joyce
Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness is on the east side, mostly in the Nantahala
National Forest, and mostly in North Carolina. The Citico Creek Wilderness is
the west side, mostly in the Cherokee National Forest, and mostly in Tennessee.
The area’s prime attraction is the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, a grove of
huge trees named in honor of the poet Alfred Joyce Kilmer, known primarily for
his poem “Trees.” For simplicity, most hikers refer to the combined area as
“Joyce Kilmer.”
Evening on Bobs Bald.
We
didn’t know anyone else who had tried to hike a map of Joyce Kilmer, so we were
free to make up our own rules for marking the map. We decided to use the USFS paper
map “Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Creek and Citico Wildernesses” as our guide. We
wouldn’t consider trails on the map outside the wilderness across the Cherahala
Skyway, and we would skip the few trails completely outside the wilderness off
the Big Fat Gap Road (NNF 62). Otherwise, we would hike all the trails on the
map connecting to the wilderness. Finally, we would hike all the trails
together. After we completed our map the Benton MaKaye Trail was located
through the wildernesses, including on some new trails, but we did not hike
those new sections.
Hiker on the Hangover.
Our
timing on the quest was lucky. We were able to use the 1998 edition of Tim
Homan’s wonderful guidebook to the area. For the Citico Creek side we also had
the Sierra Club’s newly revised “Wilderness Trails of the Cherokee National
Forest.” We would be exploring 33,285 acres of wilderness and hiking 123 miles
of trail.
Jean
and I been hiking in Joyce Kilmer together since the late 90s and were able to markup
plenty of these trails to get ourselves started. The most popular hikes in the
area are from the Cherahala Skyway to the meadow on Bobs Bald, and the
wonderful, wet trail up Slickrock Creek. Beyond these two areas Joyce Kilmer is
empty enough to live up to its wilderness designation. We’d already done many
of the more popular backpacking routes; Naked Ground and Bobs Bald, Upper
Slickrock Creek and the Hangover, and North Fork Citico-Pine Mountain as
examples. We would end up doing most of the remaining loops as backpack trips,
the ability to pick your own campsite gives Joyce Kilmer an advantage in
flexibility over backpacking in the Smokies. Those trips introduced us to a few
of our now favorite campsites such as the High Oasis on Fodderstack Mountain,
and the upper campsite on the South Fork of Citico Creek that Will Skelton
revealed to us.
When
the list of unhiked trails got shorter, we turned to day hikes to try and get
more new miles for our efforts. Fortunately for us careful planning had led to
a long streak of successful backpacking trips. It was during our day hikes were
when the “adventures” began.
Maple Springs Overlook.
Our
first bonus miles were picked up on a Labor Day trip in 2002. Day 1 was a short
hike from Farr Gap down the Stiffknee Trail (no, not named for me) to a small
campsite at the junction with the Nichols Cove Trail. Our plan for the middle
day was to do a loop with the Nichols Cove, Yellowhammer, Hangover Lead North, and
Windy Gap trails.
Nichols
Cove Trail was fine, but the Yellowhammer Gap Trail is famous for being hot and
steamy, and for having a few more rolling hills than necessary. We reached the
Gap with no problems and took a break at this complicated 4-way junction. We then
went up the Ike Branch Trail about one hundred yards to the junction with
Hangover Lead North. Here we found we found a well maintained trail (not
something to take for granted in Joyce Kilmer) next to sign for the Tapoco
Watershed. It had a gentle grade and was marked with pink flags, so off we
went. With nice, easy trail ahead Jean and I both slipped into a daze. The pink
flags were soon replaced by green blazes. After far too long, I realized that
for a trail that was supposed to be climbing toward Big Fat Gap, we seemed to
be going awfully level. In about an hour the trail joined an old road, and then
we hit a mowed wildlife opening, then another opening.
Even
worse, we soon came to a wooden bridge over a small creek, not something one
would expect to find on a hike up the nose of a ridge in a wilderness area. We
sat on the bridge to eat lunch, gradually accepting the sad fact that we were
very lost. We retreated through the
wildlife openings and then retraced the old road section. I had a GPS unit,
back then, but wasn’t good at loading target waypoints yet. Finally, with some
map work and the help of the GPS I finally figured out about where we were,
somewhere on the upper part of Caney Branch, well below Hangover Lead. Though
we later figured out that our route was part of the Belding Trail, that trail
was not then on any of our maps, and we had no idea where it was leading. We
faced the harsh reality that we’d need to turn around and try again another
day.
So,
five hours after leaving Yellowhammer Gap we were back again, and able to
immediately spot our mistake. At the watershed sign we should have turned hard right,
climbed up a bank and then followed the crest of Hangover Lead. We salvaged a
bit of the day by picking up a section of the Ike Branch Trail on our return,
but our navigational mistake would require us to plan another trip to finish
Hangover Lead North.
The
next year we took an anniversary trip to Tapoco Lodge and were able to connect
the lodge trails to the turnaround on Caney Branch, at least partially
redeeming ourselves.
Bear Creek Falls near Tapoco.
Then
in June 2003 we were walking the Rocky Flats Trail, an isolated trail on the
Citico Creek side of the area. We’d
already needed a CNF ranger to help us find the start of the trail in the
clutter of the informal campground on Citico Creek at the west end of the
trail. In the quiet of the forest, we heard a sudden skittering in a tree by
the trail. Looking up about head high we spotted an adorable bear cub, about
the size of football, and engineered to be the cutest thing on the planet. We
froze for a second, remembering that with any cub, mama is close by. We briefly
considered a full retreat, but then realized the chance that mama was ahead was
just as good as the chance she was behind. We scooted past the cub who was now 50’+
up the tree and shot down the trail, trying to give ourselves whatever cushion
we’d need to placate mama. Of course, we still needed to come back the same way
at the end of the hike, but even being able to spot the same tree, we did not
find the cub.
Old homesite on the Flats Mountain Trail.
Our
most memorable trip though was probably our shortest. For folks like us who
don’t undertake a map marking project until after they’ve starting hiking in
the area, there are always a few trail odds and ends that need to be wrapped up
Our most egregious was the Wolf Laurel Trail (NNF 57) that connects from an
obscure trailhead well off the Cherahala Skyway leading to the Stratton Bald
Trail on Horse Cove Ridge. The trails that climb out of Little Santeetlah Creek
to the wilderness high country are long steady climbs and we must have been
worn out when we reached the Wolf Laurel junction and passed it by.
7-16-05
was the day we’d pay our price for this oversight. After hiking the Grassy
Branch Trail off the Skyway, we got back in the car and pressed onward to the
state line, and then endured 20 miles of long gravel roads on NNF 81 and 81F past
Swan Cabin to reach the Wolf Laurel Trailhead. The steeper trailhead road 81F
alone took us 30 minutes. After all the driving we thought we’d at least get a
chance to stretch our legs after the drive, but no. The feeder trail from the
trailhead was only three minutes and thirty-five seconds long (Jean measured it
on the return). How could we not even have seen the trailhead from the junction
if we were that close? Sometimes we need to learn a lesson twice for it to
stick, don’t ever pass up those short stub trails without checking them out!
Thankfully, we didn’t have to drive all the way home after that anticlimax. We
had planned a hotel night in Robbinsville so that we could join the Smoky Mountains
Hiking Club the next day on a loop around the Jenkins and Naked Ground trails.
But
finally, in October of 2005, the big day was here. We planned a big four day
weekend over UT’s Fall Break and our first stop would be to walk the Flats
Mountain Trail to finish our Joyce Kilmer map. We had left this trail until
last after hearing from the CNF that it likely had a lot of deadfall from pines
killed by insects. We figured by waiting until the cooler temperatures of fall
we’d be comfortable in the long pants and sleeves needed to keep the brush at
bay. We started the hike on the Cherahala Skyway, assuming that it would be
easier to hike down through the brush, and knowing we could return via the
Grassy Branch Trail if needed.
It
was foggy in the morning and the dew was thick in two wildlife openings before
the wilderness boundary, so I ended up with wet feet all day. About two miles
in we hit stands of pine. Many were down, but most were easy to pass around.
The pines seemed to hug the crest, while the trail generally passed a bit
below. Luckily, we soon left the pines behind and the last four miles of the
trail were really nice. We’d hoped for a big celebration when we reached the
end of the trail at Beehouse Gap on FS35, but a bunch of boar hunters were
parked there cramping our style. They had just killed a rattlesnake and warned
us to be careful.
We
decided to take the longer, but hopefully easier return back via the South Fork
Citico and Grassy Branch trails. There was a trashy former horse camp on the
South Fork Citico Trail at the wilderness boundary and lots of trail damage
from horses beyond it. But still the walk along the creek was wonderful and
graced with many views of this beautiful creek. We managed to avoid two fords
near the junction with Grassy Branch. However, on another bypass we managed to
come face to face with a rattler as predicted by our boar hunting buddies. We
made the long climb up Grassy Branch, and then we still had a 1.5 mile walk on
the Skyway back to our car. 
Fall Branch Falls.
2005
was great year for map marking for us. In addition to the Joyce Kilmer map, we
had finished the Frozen Head State Park map that February. Fortunately, many
adventures still lay ahead of us. After camping that night on Hooper Bald, just
off the Skyway, we’d begin a three day backpacking trip around the Snowbird Backcountry
Area in the NNF the next day.
Hikers at Rock Creek Falls.
 |
| Our completed Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock and Citico Creek Wildernesses Map. |
