Cat Stairs and Greenbrier Pinnacle Manway, 10-26-24

Mike’s brother John was in town for a visit and suggested to Mike that they rehike the Cat Stairs, a trip he remembered them doing from a long time back. Mike contacted the rest of us, who were all excited for the chance to redo a classic off trail hike that none of us had done recently. My summary of two previous Cat Stairs trips and other hikes on Greenbrier Pinnacle is (Greenbrier Pinnacle OT).

Keeping an eye on the map.

We met at 8:15 on a Saturday morning. The area is closed midweek due to work being done on the Ramses Cascade Trail by the Trails Forever Crew. We shuttled two cars to the Ramseys Cascades Trailhead, and rode Ed’s truck back to a pullout near the start of the old Barnes Road. The Old Barnes Road begins as a deeply dug road with stacked rock walls on either side. There are fewer rock walls after the first crossing of Bird Branch, but the trace of the roadbed can be followed all the way to the Barnes Cemetery at the head of the branch. A cairn marked the only tricky left turn along the route. My new GPS track did not match my 2003 route, but I think the 2003 track was more of a sketch than a true GPS track.

This cairn marks a left turn.

The Barnes Manway to the cemetery was in good shape, with evidence of past clearing. Ed speculated that the NPS did work on the manway to try to keep the cemetery accessible. Throughout the hike we saw small piles of bear scat. The wire fence that used to protect the Barnes graves was gone, but otherwise the graves appeared well tended. Beyond the cemetery, the manway leading north was narrower and less clear. We found the chimney from the main home site, but then struggled to stay on the beaten path, probably by keeping too low.

Barnes children graves.

Once at the head of Little Bird Branch there is another old homesite, and here Ed got us back on the Barnes manway. Ed told us the story of John Barnes who had eight kids with his first wife, then married another woman. When John’s first wife gave birth again, his second wife became jealous and burned down the first wife’s home. 

Chimney from the Barnes Homesite.

We contoured along the manway over to the crest of Cat Stairs Ridge, where we turned right to climb the crest of the ridge. There was still a faint path along the ridge crest, probably the result of off trail hikers rather than a path used by the original settlers. The start of the ridge is steep, but there is a flatter section where we stopped for lunch. A second steep pitch leads to another short flat section.

John on the crux of the Cat Stairs.

I was wearing my Altra Lone Peak running shoes, which I had bought in a successful effort to rid my left foot from plantar fasciitis. The wide toe box helps my foot, but it is less useful on steep climbs. My old shoes were much narrower, and worked well edging up steep dirt slopes or climbing in a herringbone pattern. But on the Cat Stairs these steep sections were short, so that the loss of edging ability with the wide toe box was only minor issue.

This second short flat leads to the base of the Cat Stairs. The route had so far been steep but not cliffy, but it was now blocked by a ring of sheer rock highwalls extending far around the nose of the ridge. None of us recognized this view of the nose and we couldn’t immediately identify the way ahead. I scouted to the right side of the ridge and found no climbable break in the walls in that direction. 

Bobby Trotter's picture of the Cat Stairs from 2005.

A few sprinkles of unexpected rain motivated us to climb past this crux. By moving a bit to the left we saw a potential route. Once we started up the route  I recognized the narrow ledge that was the key to the lower section. Looking at a 2005 image of me at the base of the stairs it appears that a large thin slab of rock on the left side of the crack had fallen away. Two of us climbed the regular route, which has only one difficult and exposed step. The fall of the flake revealed a wider crack exposed on the left that looked easier. The rest climbed the wider crack. Jean was able to stem her way up the left side, which she declared was much tougher than what we’d climbed on her 2006 trip.

Jean on the final scramble.

After the crux, there was still steep stuff ahead of us. But we were rewarded with a few long vistas across the valley toward LeConte. There was only one more rock band, this one much easier to navigate. 

Ed at an overlook on the Cat Stairs.

The top of the stairs was well defined, but one major obstacle remained. The brush on top is exceptionally thick, and I’d remembered crawling through this on previous trips. There was a bit of a bear trail through it at the start, but not tall enough avoid crawling. Ed thought this growth was a rare form of dense heath called fetterbush. But soon we could follow a trail that grew wider, and eventually we could crouch, then walk to the junction with the old Greenbrier Pinnacle Trail.

With Jean at the overlook in 2006. Steven Miller Photo.

The skies were threatening and none of us had the appetite to detour up to the old fire tower site on the top of Greenbrier Pinnacle. The former GBP Trail has not been formerly maintained since at least the early 1990s, and is now a rough manway. Greenbrier Pinnacle was described as a trail in the 1973 Sierra Club Blue Book, but had been abandoned by my 1993 SMHC trip. What was once a jeep road for access to the fire tower is now almost too overgrown to walk through. Even the old Overlook just beyond the manway junction is closing in.

We bashed though the brush as efficiently as we could, breaking and snapping as much of the rhodo and other understory as possible in an effort to help keep the manway open. We knew much of the middle of the manway was in open forest and were glad to get into this easier walking. John is a retired forester and especially enjoyed the huge poplars and oaks growing in this section. But we were soon greeted with a ten minute rain squall. As much as our area currently needs rain, we were anxious to avoid a soaking from the rain or the wet vegetation. 

Mammoth poplar on the Greenbrier Pinnacle Manway 2006 from Steven Miller.

As we reached the lower switchbacks on the GBP Manway we began to see large, recently cut through logs. We could only imagine the chainsaw cuts had been made by the NPS to provide access, but had no idea what that would be.

By the time we reached the Ramses Cascade Trail the rain had quit. Despite being back in civilization, we still had to walk 1.5 miles more down the old road to the trailhead. We saw several groups heading up toward the cascades, and got some good views of the Middle Prong of the Little Pigeon River, still flowing through the gorge below us.

The hike was 7.7 miles by GPS, and took 7 hours including a couple of lunch breaks.