I got the idea for this hike during Mike Harrington’s 2023 SMHC hike in Cades Cove (Here). On Mike’s hike we descended Cave Ridge which was a pretty route down an open ridge leading from Rich Mountain Loop to Gregory Cave. I couldn’t help noticing that most of the ridges descending into the Cove from the north side were steep, but had relatively open woods. On the topo map, Leading Ridge looked the most promising of these ridges. It was steep, narrow, and had the same aspect as Cave, Crooked Arm, and Pinkroot ridges, all of which I knew to be fun hikes. Neither Mike nor David, or anyone else I talked with, remembered traversing Leading Ridge. With hope that this would be a rare new route, I put it on the list for a time when Jean and I could try a low elevation exploring hike.
This
spring my Barkley chores took a while to get settled, and by that time the peak
of wildflower season was past, and the muggy days of summer were looming not
far ahead. But finally, we got a bluebird clear day, which was great for our
mood and helped our acclimatization to hotter temperatures.
Pink Lady's Slipper.
We
started the hike at the Cades Cove loop parking lot. We had no trouble getting
a parking spot at 9:45. To start we followed the Rich Mountain Loop Trail out
to the John Oliver Cabin. The prior weekend Pat had mentioned that her Rich Mountain
Loop hike had encountered lots of blow downs on the way to the cabin, and these
had not yet been cut. But the climbing up, over, and around was good practice
for the coming bushwhack, and we spotted some lady slippers.
Chimney near the John Oliver Homesite.
From
the cabin I tried to take a social path out to the large chimney, not realizing
that I could have used the main trail, and then cut over to shorten the
bushwhack. Then, we continued around the base of Cave Ridge using my GPS to
find four research exclosures and an old quarry that Mike had shown us on the
club hike. Much of the understory here was hemlock, and Jean was gradually
covered in the snowy white "woolly" masses” the bugs leave under the
tree’s branches.
Jean next to one of the research exclosures.
The
exclosures looked unmonitored, the fence of one had been hit by a fallen tree.
We had no trouble finding the old quarry, though things were much more leafed
out compared to my March 2023 trip. Not far beyond the quarry Jean saw a
blacksnake lounging in the twigs of a small shrub. We took photos to send to
Leonard, our resident snake whisperer.
Old drill hole marks in the wall of the quarry.
I
circled completely around Gregory Cave before finding it. I was expecting the old
access road to be better defined, and was not expecting the entrance to be underneath
a large blowdown. Most of the cave lies beyond a steel gate, but we managed to
sit for a snack by the entry and enjoy the outflow of cool air.
Blacksnake lounging in a small tree.
The
first 400’ of the climb up the nose of Cave Ridge is remarkably steep. I was
regretting my decision to trade the 1500’ of off trail climb on Leading Ridge
for the 1000’ of off trail on Cave Ridge, plus 500’ of on trail climbing. But
after our first long rest break the grade eased, and we were able to enjoy the
views a little more, We came out on the Rich Mountain Trail exactly at the old
overlook, which is now sadly overgrown. At least the off trail climb made the
trail hiking seem relatively mild.
At the mouth of Gregory Cave.
We
skipped going to the fire tower site, and began looking for the top of Leading
Ridge, just after the junction with the Indian Grave Gap Trail. The ridge
begins down the slope about 150’ below the trail. I started down the slope
going too far east. Here, we were briefly tempted by a wider ridge leading down
into Harrison Branch, before we used the GPS to get on track. As we reached the
very upper end of the ridge, we saw several trees that had been marked with
numbered metal tags, probably as part of a research plot. The tagged trees were
all close together, and only at the very upper end of the ridge.
Tagged tree on Leading Ridge.
Next
up we had another surprise, the remains of an old steel phone line. The line
wasn’t continuous, and was partly hung in the trees and partly on the ground.
We saw a few old insulators as well. Clearly, we weren’t the first ones on this
ridge, but our hiking friends would have remembered the phone line and the
marked trees if they had hiked the ridge. 
Hiking down the crest of Leading Ridge.
The
ridge proved great hiking, steep and narrow, and with good views off both
sides. The storms that had felled so many trees near the John Oliver cabin had
not affected the ridgetops, so we had only the normal component of blowdown
(mostly pines) to contend with, along with greenbrier tangles, and a few
decades worth of downed limbs. We last saw the phone cable just below 2800’,
and suspected that the lower section of the cable had run along the Rich
Mountain Trail, just below us to the west beside Marthas Branch.
insulator for old phone line on Leading Ridge.
The
ridge stayed enticingly narrow down to about 2400’ where it ended in a broad
nose. Here we branched left and cut down as directly to the trail as we could.
The end of the descent was steeper and brushier than the ridge, but not as
difficult as the climb up Cave Ridge directly above Gregory Cave.
We
saw our first other hikers of the day following the trail back to the car. This
early in the year the Cove was much quieter than it would be in summer. Parking
spots were open, and there were no traffic backups until we got back to
Knoxville. Though only 7.4 miles long, this had been a full day hike, though
likely made tougher as we were not yet used to the temperatures which reached
the low 80s.
