The idea for this hike came from Ed’s Metcalf Bottoms to Gatlinburg multimodal hike on October 18. At the trail junction at Little Brier Gap. I noticed an established foot trail leading north down into Wear Valley. Ed, of course, had already hiked it, coming in from Katy Hollar Road to the north. He suggested that we could make an off trail hike all the way from the east end of the current Foothills Parkway in Wear Valley to Little Brier Gap.
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| Welcome to the Foothills Parkway. |
The
most recent parts of the Parkway to open were sections 8E and 8F from US 321 in
Walland east to Wear Valley. Construction was completed on November 8, 2018 and the
road opened on November 10, 2018, This opening included the 1.8 mile "Missing
Link," a long-term obstacle to completion of the road. The 9.5 miles on
the west side of the link had been built much earlier. The dead-end road was
closed to vehicles. but open to hikers and cyclists. Because of this “in limbo”
status, the 9.5 miles was called the “closed section” by the hikers and bikers
using the road for recreation, to distinguish it from the FHP between Walland
to Chilhowee Lake to the west that was “open” to vehicles. Sections 8E and 8F total 16.1 miles and are
contiguous with sections 8H and 8G which extend 16.9 miles from US 321 west past
the Look Rock Tower to U.S. 129 along the Chilhowee Lake impoundment of the
Little Tennessee River.
Following the opening of sections 8E and 8F in 2018, the road builders looked to construct section 8D, the next 9.8 miles from Wear Valley east to US 441 at Gatlinburg. The first step in this process was to develop plans for a right of way connecting the FHP to the main body of the Park near Little Brier Gap. Amazingly, this plan would include development of mountain bike trails in the connection. An environmental assessment was released in October 2020 and decision reached in May 2022. The final plan calls for 11.8 miles of mountain biking trails, 2.3 miles of foot trail, and a mile of road which would become part of the FHP. However, no funding has been released for the project, nor has any work yet been done on the trail system. Since the plan has been released, privately built (both free and commercial) mountain biking trails have opened nearby at Townsend (Vee Hollow), Pigeon Forge (Wildside (Here)), and Gatlinburg (Ober Gatlinburg) taking some of the pressure the need for bike trails in Wears Valley. With little chance of any bike trails being built soon, it seemed a good time to explore the area on foot.
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| The current plan for the Foothills Parkway bike trails. |
For
the hike, Jean and I parked at the two-car pullout at Foothills Parkway entry
sign, just north of junction of the FHP and US 321 in Wear Valley. It took 21
minutes to drive from the east junction of FHP & US 321 via Townsend. There
was thick fog in spots. For the hike I used my Garmin to record a track and
Maprika on my phone. Ed used Google Maps, which shows the FHP boundary well, and
his Garmin. I took a few pictures with my phone.
To
start, we walked back on road to south limit of Parkway ramp and then headed
south along the wide graded grassy strip engineered to someday host the Parkway.
At the north bank of Cove Creek, we went straight ahead to easy crossing (WP1) by
dead tree. We emerged into open grassy field soaking wet with dew. When I first
looked at the area with Google maps, I was surprised to find most of it is hay
fields. It turns out the fields are covered by a special use permit that allows
haying.
Ed
would do most of leading, he headed straight for end of nearest tree covered
ridge. At WP2 we crossed a faint farm road, but it turned out there were
several of these, and they are likely to change from year to year. We followed the
long narrow ridge south through very pretty and open forest with especially
large trees. This was likely pe-park era forest, there may once have been a
road as there was a rough lines of trees on each side. Most of the biggest
trees were white oaks, estimated by Ed to be in the range of 80 years old. Some
old, barbed wire remained. We passed one wildlife camera with an antenna that
did not have any NPS markings.
At WP 3 we joined an old road on ridgetop which shows as double dash on USGS topo. We followed road southeast to WP 4 where it split. I took the left and downhill fork, which was not the correct way. The left and downhill fork was not on the map, After a small sinkhole, the left downhill fork turned right and uphill to rejoin the original road near the west boundary of the property. The right fork was correct, and it forked again just out of sight of the first split (we would not figure that out until the return leg). Across the property line was BridgeMont Camp (ID’d from Goggle maps) with a pool, tennis court(?), and some areas blown clear of leaves. We did not see the road shown on the USGS map heading to the east. We climbed up on the ridge to stay in the ROW.
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| Cove Spring Hollow at Katy Hollar Road. |
We hit paved Katy Hollar Road at WP5. To the right only 100’ away is a pullout at the base of Cove Spring Hollow. An old road was blocked off with large rocks, and possibly was an old homesite according to Ed. I took a picture at the start of the road and later took two of Jean and Ed climbing. The road was in good shape up to an informal campsite with a fire pit and rock table at the first creek crossing. Above the campsite the road turned to trail, and we stayed to the right bank for better footing until the trail turned sharply right and began to climb steeply. The climb felt like old CCC-built trail up to Little Brier Gap. I had 2.6 miles at the gap, 0.3 mile of that was on the FHP at the start.
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| Jean and Ed climbing to Little Brier Gap |
We
had an early lunch at Little Brier Gap and saw our only hikers of the day. We
decided to explore a bit on the way back rather than head down to the Walker
Sisters Cabin after lunch. We crossed Katy Hollar and skirted BridgeMont Camp.
We weren’t exactly on our outbound route and Ed found a small pit he thought
was an old cellar from a homesite. Beyond the camp we stayed on the double dash
road and came to WP 4 without repeating my detour from our inbound route. Here
we could see the main road and the newer one shown in magenta on the map. There
was a building foundation and several buckets, pieces of roofing, and a
cylinder that might have been a flue.
Some
of the roads shown on the USGS topo were still in place including the main
“double dash” road we had used coming in, and the foot trail up Cove Spring
Hollow. Cove Spring Hollow looks like a CCC trail and is on the 1949 map and
absent from the 1931 map. The layout of the farm roads on the property differs
from even the current map as some older roads have been essentially obliterated
by haying. The Katy Hollar and Robeson roads that ring the property are shown
on both the 1931 and 1949 park maps.
We
followed the “double dash” road until it ended at a field at WP7. We decided to
follow the now drier meadows back and walked along the right edge of a field
with a paved road farther to our right and east. The buildings here are right
up against the ROW boundary, but we did not see any signs or fences. There was
a road and ditch between us and the modern Mattox Cemetery, so we skipped Mattox
and cut directly over to the ford of Cove Creek that we used inbound. We
crossed and walked the stub of the FHP grade and then the Parkway for 0.3 mile
to get back to the cars at about 1:15. My Garmin had 5.25 miles and Maprika had
5.4 miles and 900’ of climbing.
It took 24:30 to drive back to the junction of the FHP and US 321 in Walland via the FHP, making the Parkway only 3:30 minutes slower vs. the route through Townsend. Though the leaves are down, there was steady traffic on the FHP. We had road noise from hot rods and motorcycles all morning.
