9.21-23 — Hiking in the Smokey Mountains

9.21-23, Knoxville, TN

For the fourth weekend of my six-weekends-in-a-row traveling extravaganza, I hopped on a plane bound for Knoxville, TN, to visit my cousin and former roommate J-bo and a stranger I was very much looking forward to meeting.

The Smokey Mountains.

Despite being an avid, peak-bagging vagabond, I had never stepped foot in the Smokeys. To my knowledge, I had never been in the great state of Tennessee, either, unless passing through on a trip to North Carolina (I’ll have to confirm that one with the parents).  So I was unaware of the beauty of the mountains, or the omnipresence of country music star Dolly Parton, or how much Tennesseans love to smoke (and study science).

This was both an educational and fun, adventurous trip. Not to mention, I got to catch up with J-bo and his wife Shanda. I hadn’t spent more than half a night with them (when J-bo had a conference in Baltimore) in over a year.

Saturday, Sept. 21

As the plane taxied across the tarmac, I looked out from my window seat and saw nothing but rain — constant, steady, showing zero signs of waning.

We weren’t gonna hike.

A minute later, J-bo confirmed this in a text. Driving 90 minutes to the mountains and hiking with zero visibility — as much as I love the trail — simply wouldn’t be worth it. Instead, I’d get to know J-bo’s ‘hood and rest up for perfect weather, according to the forecasts, Sunday.

The day was fun. We got takeout Thai food from one of the few good-food options near J-bo’s $700-per-month HUGE apartment (oh, how I could go for cheap rent!). Then I napped for an hour. I’m not sure why, but I was exhausted. Maybe all these trips are catching up to me.

We then strapped on our gym gear and drove across the main road to the athletic center of the apartment complex, where J-bo crushed me in his go-to sport, racquetball, in four consecutive games. After that beatdown, I needed the soothing relief provided by jumping in the swimming pool, even if the water temperature probably equaled what we’d feel at 6,000 feet the next day.

The afternoon was fun and typical of us. When we lived together for 18 months, we were active all the time. Working out, tennis, basketball, you name it. And we always jumped in the pool at 500 Ivy Meadow Lane in Durham, NC, after. I’ll never forget those times.

But none of those experiences or Saturday’s racquetball-pool combination will compare to what we experienced on the disc golf course Saturday evening. We had the 18-hole course all to ourselves as a light rain fell throughout our round. During the final holes — as I struggled to keep up with J-bo, my shots falling woefully short and off target — the rain picked up.

And then we saw it. With the sun glowing in one corner of the sky, in the other appeared a brilliant full-arch rainbow. We stopped and stared. The rain continued to fall steadily. This wasn’t a post-shower ‘bow. I’d never seen one like this.

But that was just the beginning. A few poor disc golf throws later, I looked back to that section of the sky and saw a double rainbow — a full-arched double rainbow. I don’t know what to say other than it was incredibly glorious. In describing many sights from Dad’s and my Washington trip a few weeks earlier I used the word “otherworldly.” That seems appropriate for this gift, too. I’m still busy kicking myself for not having my camera or phone with me to capture the brilliance.

Oh, well. It’s a memory I’ll have to hold onto.

Saturday, Sept. 22

Unfortunately, the double rainbow was by far the highlight of the trip. The hiking didn’t quite live up to expectations. On Sunday, J-bo and I made the 90-minute drive through Dolly Parton land, past billboards for redneck comedy shows, pancake houses, and “dig for your gem” sites, to Smokey Mountain National Park.

The most popular national park in the United States. No joke.

Little did I know before researching this trip that there are dozens of 6,000-foot peaks in the Smokeys, spanning North Carolina and Tennessee. Our hiking during two days would include trails in both states. Many hikes in the park start at a high elevation, including a 0.5-mile hike up to Clingmans Dome, the park’s highest point at 6,644 feet.

Our Sunday hike involved 5 miles up the Alum Cave trail to Mount LeConte or Le Conte (depends which site you’re reading), which rises 6,593 feet on the Tennessee side of the border, followed by 5.4 miles on The Boulevard ridge trail, then a few miles down the Appalachian Trail to Newfound Gap, where we’d catch a ride hitchhiking back to the trailhead.

In other words, a pretty action-packed day.

The hike up was pretty darn cool. We walked alongside a stream that had all kinds of life after the previous day’s monsoon. The trail featured a couple single-plank wooden bridge suspended 3 to 4 feet above the water, bridges where you really needed to focus on each step. One misstep and you’d be wet! One such bridge led under and through a rocky cave.

After 2 miles, we reached the trail’s namesake, as the path emerged under an enormous rock overhang — an open cave. We marveled at the spectacle and then hoofed on. Several switchbacks later, cloud-specked views began to open up nearby peaks. White, puffy clouds dotted the sky, creating a cool composition with the peaks.

And then, sooner than I had anticipated, we reached LeConte Lodge, a tiny village of huts nestled just below the mountain’s three summits and Cliff Tops. In researching the area, I had learned of the lodge, which is similar to the Appalachian Mountain Club huts in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. It’s extremely popular, with booking recommended a year in advance. There’s a dining hall where guests are served heaping breakfasts and dinners, and trail lunches can also be purchased.

Most importantly in my opinion, it’s also just 0.2 miles from the views atop the Cliff Tops. After a brief rest, that’s where we headed, excited about the potential views awaiting us.

Well, they were interesting. We can say that.

If not expansive.

A thick sheet of white clouds blanketed the sky to the south from the pointy rocks atop Cliff Tops. At the end of the white carpet, one could see the very top of a mountain peaking out. But that was it for the view. White dominated the horizon.

We only stayed for a few minutes before beginning the second leg of our journey. About half a mile later, we reached the mountain’s official summit, a huge rock pile in a clearing surrounded by trees. I had a helluva time setting up the camera on timer to snap our photo, getting my knees all muddy in the process. But I got it. I documented it.

Then it was onto the boulevard, which, unfortunately, was not much more interesting than your typical boulevard. The going was easy, but views were few and far between and the foliage was stuff you can usually see at sea level. J-bo and I passed the time with an array of conversations.

Just as J-bo predicted we’d reached The Boulevard’s end, we did. Well done, sir. We took a left on a spur trail up Mt. Kephart to “The Jumpoff,” which we’d been highly anticipating all day. The guidebook referred to it as a narrow ridge trail above treeline — my favorite kind of path in the mountains. The map also made us believe the path connected with the AT, which would allow us to loop back to our descending route.

The ridge part of the trail was short and completely clouded in. We couldn’t see a thing. Just white. As we continued, the “trail” became extremely overgrown and we found ourselves bushwhacking, getting scraped by trees left and right. After a couple minutes, we turned around. This wasn’t a trail. On the way down, we learned from an older couple that our map had it wrong — the spur trail didn’t actually connect to the AT. We had reached the end of the spur and truly been bushwhacking off trail.

Whoops.

The lack of a trail and view was disappointing. I’d been looking forward to that section of the hike being the most exciting part of our afternoon. It let us down. The descent on the AT was uneventful except for one thing — we were talking about basketball, one of my favorite subjects obviously, and J-bo was having a helluva time guessing the team name Grantland columnist Zach Lowe had named the best in the NBA.

For a good hour, J-bo was stymied. As we took our final steps down to Newfound Gap, I chucked and finally revealed to him that he’d forgotten about the Portland Trail Blazers. He agreed with me that his lack of geography knowledge had let him down. If he had known Portland was in Oregon, he would have gotten it. Only telling him that Rasheed Wallace, the former UNC star, had played for the team gave it away.

After a few futile minutes, we successfully asked for a ride from a pair of Kentucky basketball fans. During the 4.5-mile drive down the winding road back to the trailhead, we talked more basketball with the clearly passionate Wildcats fan. I didn’t bring up John Calipari’s perceived sleaziness.

We headed back to Knoxville.

On Monday, our hope was to hike The Chimneys, the most popular day hike in the Smokeys. The Chimneys is a 2-mile hike (one way) that leads to two really cool rock structures you can climb up, one easier than the other. J-bo had done the hike with his wife Shanda, but hadn’t taken on the more difficult rock climb. We were up for an adventure.

But when we arrived at the trailhead on the same road we had driven up the previous day, we noticed a conspicuous lack of cars — it was closed! I wasn’t used to trails being shut down for maintenance, but that was exactly the case. During the week, a trail association was apparently doing a lot of work on the very popular route.

Damn. Shit. Fuck.

We were disappointed, but what’s a man to do? We certainly wouldn’t let the setback stop us from hiking.

We drove on and took the Clingmans Dome road toward the peak. I wasn’t too happy about driving a road that got so close to a mountain’s summit, but it was our best hiking option for the three or four hours we had before we needed to head back toward the airport.

The parking lot was packed with licenses plates from at least 20 states. I was amazed by the array of states represented from the Midwest, to the South, to the West. People were all there to take in the summit (and do a little bit of hiking, not that they wanted to). We quickly left the crowds behind, heading toward Andrew’s Bald. J-bo was excited about the idea of ascending a “bald,” a flat, grassy mountain summit. I concurred. I’d never been on a bald before, either.

The 1.8-mile hike was mostly a descent, with a short ascent at the end. When we emerged onto the bald, which, sure enough, was grassy and open, we saw a lot of fog and not much in the way of views. Oh, well. We found some flat rocks, took out our trail food, and spent a good half hour there.

We then hiked back up to Clingmans, where we joined the masses to walk up the winding concrete tower that marked the summit’s peak. As informational signs at the top mentioned, on a clear day we would be able to see hundreds of peaks as far away as 100 miles — even Mount Mitchell in North Carolina’s Black Mountains, which we had hiked in 2008.

Of course, this was not, at least at 6,000-plus feet, a clear day. We could see squat. We lingered for a minute before heading down the popular 0.5-mile asphalt path (not concrete, J-bo made sure to point out to me) to the crowded parking lot.

The hiking hadn’t been spectacular. The views left a lot to be desired.

But as I’ve said hundreds of times over, I’m incapable of leaving a hiking trip disappointed. I never have. My first Tennessee trip was fun, entertaining, unpredictable, and stimulating.

I’m sure I’ll be back. After all, there’s a Southern 6,000-footers club. I’ve got more work to do.

Peace and love,

Jake