Back in the days when the KNS’s Go Smokies website was still active I would occasionally spot a trip report that looked like it might be fun for Jean and I. I stashed these trip maps in a folder and was looking through it recently for some new ideas. I came across Ron Shrieves’ accounts of hiking in the Cades Branch, Whistling Branch, and Mill Creek area. Ron’s Smug Mug photo site still had the maps posted along with his pictures and captions. Jean was interested in the route, and we were able to recruit Claudia, Ed, and Mike for a midweek trip in a brief window of decent winter weather.
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| Old homesite along Mill Creek. |
Our
only hesitation was that recent heavy rains should have raised creek levels,
and Claudia had counted 12 crossings on the loop. I talked to Mike, who had led
a SMHC trip last fall to the area, and he thought the only creek with potential
for a difficult crossing was Mill Creek. Ron’s info indicated that there was a
bridge over Mill Creek at the far end of the loop, and didn’t mention issues
with the crossings of Cades and Whistling branches. So, we were relatively
confident that we would have only one major crossing.
We
met at the Townsend Wye, and took Jean’s car to the Dan Lawson Place on the Cades
Cove Loop Road. Hyatt Lane was closed, so we drove the long way around the loop.
But there were few other cars on the road that early. We walked around the Lawson
homesite since I assumed most hikers never stop on the loop road. Out the back
end of the site was a good path on the left leading along a ridge into the
trees. Ron’s notes were good, but I didn’t have a good feel for when we would
be on manway vs. hiking cross country.
The
good path didn’t last long, and we descended off the ridge to find the old
manway near Cades Branch, The first homesite (by Ron’s counting and my WP1) along
the creek had a chimney pile and yucca. There was one narrow section upstream with
rhodo, but it neither lasted long nor got bad. The crossing of Cades Branch was
a rock hop that would normally be easy. But I thought I’d lost my paper map
here and made a quick retrace. I did not find the map after hiking back to the
crossing, but later discovered it had slipped into one of my inner pants pockets.
Then
we hiked further up the main creek to Homesite 2 (WP 2) which had only a relic
basement. Here we turned out of Cades Branch toward Whistling Branch with Mike
leading. Homesite 3 got a brief search, but I think we did not go downstream
far enough to find it. The manway to the north continued to a cut off to
Whistling Gap and along Whistling Branch to the CC Road, maybe a target for
another day. We made another skillful rock hop over Whistling Branch. Then we
followed Whistling Branch upstream to its head. Mike led us uphill again. We followed
a ridge crest until there was a junction with what he thought of as an old
trail (WP 3), potentially on coming off Cobb Ridge. A bit more progress got us
to what Mike called the Old Cobb Road (WP 4), which was a much better defined
old dug road, and would take us to the Forge Creek Road.
Jean
and I had followed Cobb Road to Forge Creek Road in 2007 with Clyde and Michael
V, but we did not remember any details from that trip. You can read about that
trip at: Here
The
hiking was a lot quicker on the Cobb Road, and we appreciated that although our
hike was short, and the terrain forgiving, we still had a full workload of 5
miles of off-trail hiking in one day. The Mill Creek crossing came as the old
road dove into a nest of rhodo. Here the creek was narrow, and we could not
tell how deep it was at the far bank. After much searching Mike and Ed were
able to cross downstream on logs and brush, and the rest of us shakily followed.
Next
up we spotted a tall chimney below our road (Rons #5 and my WP5). I had seen an
image of the tall chimney, but hadn’t been able to attach it to a specific homesite.
The height was about 10’ with remarkable workmanship in thin pieces of shale. With
the cold and multiple stream crossings this was the first time I pulled the
phone out for pix.
Next we walked almost all the way to the Forge Creek Road before crossing a soggy field on the south side of Mill Creek. There was a large hog trap off to the east that had a large fenced area, gate, and auto feeder. We suspected this had an online camera so the trap could be triggered to capture a whole sounder. The field was soggy, but I kept my shoes dry until we got to strip of hardwoods, then an old road, along the bank of Mill Creek.
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| Contemplating the hog trap. |
Just off the Forge Creek Road was an abandoned water treatment plant with a tower and two outbuildings. Even better, the Mill Creek Bridge was still in place! But, while packing up after pictures I noticed my GPS was missing. I carefully unpacked all my gear before letting the group know. I figured I had left the unit at the chimney after taking pictures. After my earlier episode with the “not lost” map I was mad at myself for being the idiot who couldn’t even keep track of his gear on a hike. My plan was to walk the road around the soggy field, and then speed hike back to the chimney. Jean was telling me that we should retrace our steps to have a better chance of finding the unit when we heard some whistling. Luckily Mike had retraced our route, and he saw my GPS hanging from a branch where I would have stepped onto the old road next to the river. A branch had slipped the leash on the GPS and lifted it from my pocket. Thanks Mike for bailing me out! Not only would I have lost the day’s data, but my old TOPO! software only supports inputs from old units like mine that are hard to find anymore.
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| Tower for the old water treatment plant. |
There was a short path on the far side of the bridge. Then we went cross country a bit before reaching the large fenced in modern treatment plant and crossing its gravel access road. There was a fine old two track road leading from the new plant to the Pine Oak Nature Trail. It was getting late, so we skipped my planned loop around the nature trail. Then we had about 0.8 mile of walking on the shoulder of the CC Road. No fun with narrow road shoulders and steady traffic. Next time I would park at Nature Trail and walk the CC road first! But the remaining Cades Cove traffic proved mild compared to summer or weekend afternoons, and we were soon back at the Wye. We reached Claudia’s in Knoxville just after 5 PM. Our total for the day was 5.6 miles in about six hours.
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| The bridge over Mill Creek. |
