Rocky Ridge is a route I first spotted on the Smokies topo map. We had just hiked little known Tater Ridge to finish off a series of great ridge walks on Rich Mountain in Cades Cave, and I was looking to find more similar routes. Rocky is a well-defined ridge extending two miles and 1800’ from Cove Mountain and Chinquapin Ridge down to the Little River at Metcalf Bottoms. I could find no information on it from other hikers, which of course increased its appeal.
From
the name I thought the ridge might hold some interesting rock formations. We
had a little experience in the area. Jean and I had done a nice open manway to
the west near the Walker Sisters homesite (Walker Sisters), we’d bashed the
horrific undergrowth on top of Long Arm ( Long Arm) across the Little
River, and we’d bushwhacked up to Phils View on the other side of Laurel Creek.
Whether Rocky Ridge would resemble any of these trips would have to be
determined. After the hike I found a map of a route down Chinquapin Ridge from
10-25-16, probably copied in the heyday of the Go Smokies message board, but
the write up from that hike was no longer posted.
Approaching the cemetery.
Both
Ed and Mike were interested in trying the ridge. We picked a day with a low
chance of a small amount of rain in the forecast. It started raining as soon as
I got in the car to leave Knoxville. The rain continued through the entire
drive to Metcalf Bottoms, but the radar indicated we’d have one small wave, and
then be in the clear. Still, it’s a downer packing up for a hike in the
drizzle.
I
hadn’t hiked in this area since our 2014 Walker Sisters hike and enjoyed the
wide gravel road that was the Metcalf Bottoms Trail to Greenbrier School. A
sign at the junction let us know the Laurel Falls Trail was closed for trail
repair. Luckily we planned to head off trail just before that. We ducked out of
the rain into the school, but the rain was already letting up. It quit
somewhere up the Little Brier Gap Trail, and we were briefly out of the rain
gear.
Its
not good to have any add-ons for a new off trail hike, particularly early on.
So, we skipped a side trip to the Walker Sisters Cabin. Beyond the turnoff the
road became trail, and we started our climb. At Little Brier Gap we turned onto
Little Greenbrier Trail. Another unmarked trail
leads north to the area where the NPS has planned some mountain bike trails as
part of its Foothills Parkway project. Little Greenbrier Trail is a beauty,
great footing with a smooth, steady grade. I watched the understory for hints
of what was to come, and knowing things would change before we left the trail.
The western end of LGT was open, much like our Wallker Sisters hike had been,
but the middle section was thick with some rhodo. As we turned to our last,
southern, leg things opened up again.
Flame Azalea.
The
vegetation was still wet from the morning rain, so we all put our rain gear
back on before leaving the trail. I was set for rain, but had not brought
gloves to protect my hands, and was wearing only a light pair of pants. I
should have worn heavier pants, or wore calf sleeves to protect my lower legs.
Right away we found ourselves bashing through thick brier. Our route was on the
ridge crest, but it did not take long to realize there was much less brier just
off the sides of the ridge. That complicated the navigation. When travelling
just off the crest you are much more likely to be fooled into following the
side ridges that you encounter.
Except
for a plastic bottle laying just off the trail, we found no sign of other human
travelers. But when the understory was more open, there was often a game/bear
trail, though never for a long way and never completely clear. The leaves were
fully out, and it was foggy, so we got only a single view. Bearings were hard
to take as we could seldom see far ahead, so I relied more on the tracking
feature of my phone GPS than I would have liked. I had been spoiled in the
Cumberlands, where a quick shot at the top is enough to get you down an entire
ridge.
The
start of the ridge was relatively flat. I saw a few small chunks of quartz, but
no rock outcrop. Early
on I stepped on a small branch which broke, sending one half up to my hand. I
first thought it would be too flimsy for a walking stick, but it proved sturdy
enough to get me down the entire hill. There were sporadic Flame Azaleas
blooming, and the Laurel was just starting to bloom. There were blowdowns, but less
than expected with the frequent winter storms. As a modern measure of
remoteness, we found two mylar balloons along the way.
Lunch stop (from Mike).
We
stopped for lunch on the upper part of the ridge. At the last knob around 2950’
we made a tricky descent where the main ridge split into a couple of minor ones
just as the whole area got much steeper. Luckily the slope was never butt-sliding
steep. Our target was a small tributary of the Little River where Ed expected
there to be a cemetery. Well down the steep part of the descent was a small
outcrop of metasandstone. It dawned on me that this was the first outcrop I’d
seen on Rocky Ridge! My hopes of open overlooks and intriguing rock formations had
been for naught.
When
we reached the ridge bottom, we decided to drop into the adjacent tributary and
explore the small ridge on its north side as it resembled the types of places
where cemeteries were often placed to avoid occupying any land suitable for
farming. It was good idea, but the route gave us more rhodo than a hiker
deserves at the end of a trip. Instead of a quick drop down to the cemetery
access trail we added a long extra circular bushwhack. The draw gave me my only
wrong turn of the day, when I thought to have turned downstream but noticed the
stream flowing “upstream.”
But
finally, I joined Ed and Mike on the access trail where we decided the effort just
expended justified the cemetery visit. There were three graves with slate head
and foot stones, but only one had legible carving on it. Ironically, in the
morning I had given Ed a copy of a book on Smokies Cemeteries that we bought at
a library sale. It turned out Ed already had a copy, but neither of us had
thought to look up the info on the cemetery before our trip. The Cemeteries of
the Smokies website (Cem Map) from the Pigeon Forge
Public Library calls this the Sallie Moore Cemetery.
It
was distressing looking at our map. Because we thought the Cemetery had been
close to Metcalf Bottoms we’d walked most of a long circle to get there, when from
the other side of Rocky Ridge we were only a few hundred feet away. Coming
straight in from the Metcalf Bottom Bridge would be relatively simple except
for a barely rock hoppable crossing of the small stream.
Sallie Moore Cemetery.
Hiking
with Ed and Mike is always fun, especially when the terrain is new and the
route uncertain. Both guys have been hiking off trail in the Smokies for
decades, both have been SMHC presidents, and both are long term Appalachian
Trail maintainers. With them you’ve got to appreciate your brushes with fame.
Ours happened when we’d been back in civilization for about two seconds, and
from the first car over the bridge comes a call “Hello, Ed”, from one of Ed’s
fellow AT maintainers. Total distance was 6.1 miles with a 2,000’ climb.
Back
in the parking area we talked up another hike soon. Mike had caught on to my
planning strategy, asking “Are you working on a book, Ridges of the Smokies?”
Here’s a link to another post about the Sallie Moore Cemetery from Go Smokies in 2014 (Moore Cem).
Here’s
another great map from the Pigeon Forge Library – Smokies National Park Parcels
https://copfgis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=f8ab5a1ee93448b4a4a36938042f3f35
