For those of you who read my Appalachian Trail Journal, you’ll know that I thought I would never see a bear, and it wasn’t until New Jersey that I finally caught a glimpse of one running away. I’m sure part of it was the timing of my hike. I left in February and we had a long winter. The weather early on, especially in the Smokies, was quite cold, probably still limiting bear activity. Regardless, this time around I had not been in the park for more than three minutes and I walked up on a small black bear rooting around in a tree stump right beside the trail. I wasn’t able to get my camera out before she saw me and trotted off down a slope towards the lake. I was ecstatic though. A bear! They are really beautiful creatures to see in the wild.
Hiking along this early part of the Lakeshore Trail was fairly easy. There were lots of small creeks, and unexpectedly a few old rusted-out 1920s era cars randomly strewn about. This area went through a lot of change prior to becoming a park. My camping spot for that evening, Proctor Field, used to be an old logging settlement, with a whole town built around the operation. It was interesting walking by one of the old settlement buildings before crossing Hazel Creek to get to the campsite. I didn’t know it prior to this trip, but there are lots of these signs of human settlement throughout the park – old cars, dwellings, chimneys, cemeteries, roads, etc. As I walked along and saw these things, it was interesting to think about this area as it would have looked one hundred years ago. All in all, it was just a good solid day of hiking and exploring. Earlier in the day I officially hit mile 200 of the hike. I forgot to mark the occasion at the time, but later that evening at camp I made a little sign out of pinecones to celebrate.
The campsite at Proctor Field was large and scenic, hugging the banks of Hazel Creek. There was a hitching post not too far from the tent sites, and I noticed hitching posts at several of the other Smokies campsites as well. Apparently horses are allowed on designated trails in the park. Though I hadn’t seen any other hikers all day, a father and college-aged son were camped at Proctor Field. I introduced myself. They were on their first backpacking trip and happened to be from the town I grew up in – Athens, GA. I went and got my tent set up, filtered some water, and ate. The campsites in the Smokies have fire rings, so I decided to make a fire. I began collecting wood, and then I walked over to invite the father and son duo to join me by the fire if they so desired. They came over for a bit and we had a good time swapping stories and talking about Athens. I like talking with people in college. It’s interesting to hear how they are viewing things that are going on in the world, the choices they are beginning to think about for their own lives, etc. When the sun went down and the embers started glowing bright in the darkness, the two headed back to their tents and I prepared to get into mine. The Smokies campsites also have bear cables with hooks from which to hang food storage sacks. These are incredibly convenient! I hoisted my food up, doused my fire out and went to bed.
I woke up to rain at Proctor Field. The heavier stuff tapered off by about 8:15 in the morning, but it rained lightly all throughout the day. I took a few wrong turns, but never for very long. The BMT signage in the Smokies is lacking at some of the trail junctions, probably because the BMT is really just following other trails through the park. That combined with the rain and overcast skies made it hard to tell which way to go sometimes, even with Guthook. One of my wrong turns took me to a graveyard, which was a little creepy. I’m sure the cemetery was from one of the old logging settlements, but now it just looked like a creepy little death plot in the middle of the woods. If I were buried there, I’d be tempted to try and haunt hikers. Could be fun. You know – something to help fill up eternity.
The trail was quite overgrown in many spots. The rain and soaked foliage leaning into the trail made for a sopping wet day. There weren’t many views to speak of. While it is called the Lakeshore Trail, there actually aren’t many unobstructed views of the lake or frequent access to its shore. However, my campsite that night at Lower Forney Creek did have lake access where the creek flowed into it. After I pitched my tent and ate, I walked down to the lake at the confluence with Forney Creek and watched the chimney sweeps fly low over the water, catching bugs and disappearing into the fog.
Back at camp, a young guy from Connecticut had arrived. He was wearing jeans, short sleeves and carrying an army surplus rucksack. I chatted with him for a while. He had spent 10 months in the Coast Guard and was now studying biomedical engineering at the University of Connecticut. He told me his pack weighed about 60 pounds. What!? I can’t imagine carrying a load like that. He had hiked down from Clingman’s Dome along another trail. He told me he wanted to do a hike with his buddies who carry around 120 pounds of gear, which he aspired to do. What that gear is, I am not sure. I almost offered to let him carry me and my gear the next morning as preparatory training for a trip with his friends, but I wasn’t sure if he would find that funny. In fairness, even in my trail-skinny state, I definitely would have exceeded his goal pack weight….
I hung my food and hopped in my tent. I peeled my wet clothes off, including my socks, and discovered that while John McEnroe was bulbous and intact, Wilson had left us. Wilson had popped. I never felt him pop, namely because the skin had healed enough inside the blister for it not to cause pain. When I removed the leuko tape, however, it ripped part of Wilson’s blister covering. Fortunately, it didn’t rip the covering skin completely off, but what was left of Wilson now had a flap. My feet looked like two giant, wet, white, dead brains with blotchy toes. But, they would look better by morning as they continued to dry, and I would tape them up again then. So far I was doing really well with my blister care, and I can honestly say that I felt no pain. Even John McEnroe in his angry need to be the biggest and baddest blister out there essentially felt just fine now. Perhaps I had finally learned how to deal with blisters on trail – give them names, tape them up, and leave them the hell alone!
The temperature dropped overnight, and I packed up camp in the morning with my puffy jacket on. I hoped Connecticut had a dry pair of jeans to hike in today. He had told me that he thought he might just hike out to the parking lot where his car was rather than continuing on his larger loop. I think many people fail to realize that the Smokies are in a temperate rainforest climate. It is wet! If you’re not prepared for it, it probably won’t be that much fun.
I had a relatively easy and enjoyable morning of hiking. At one point, I had been hiking along and, consistent with the last two days, had seen no one else hiking. Yet, I walked up on a family of five, clearly just out for a leisurely stroll. This was definitely a sign that drive-up access to the park was nearby. I promptly arrived at a parking lot, and then walked through an old abandoned tunnel that was part of what is known as the Road to Nowhere. Back when Fontana Lake was formed by the construction of Fontana Dam, roads and settlements were flooded. One of the roads that disappeared into the lake was popular with the locals. Authorities said that they would rebuild a similar road, but they ran into some type of environmental complication and the road was never finished. This road was the same road with the tunnel I walked through, and is known as the Road to Nowhere. Walking through this tunnel was kind of cool (both enjoyable and the temperature inside the tunnel!), and I loved the video footage I got from it, which is featured in Episode 5 of my BMT thru-hike series on YouTube.
After clearing the tunnel, there was a short roadwalk until the BMT finally departed the Lakeshore Trail and Lakeshore Drive to join the Noland Creek Trail. This section of the park along Noland Creek was probably my favorite. The trail started out fairly easy alongside Noland Creek, a picture perfect mountain trout stream. There were interesting, hand-crafted log bridges along the way. It was generally just a fun section of trail. It increased in difficulty as I climbed higher, with three icy river fords and some rock hops where it was really difficult to maintain dry feet. Two of the river fords were mildly challenging, but nothing crazy. I just had to be a bit more careful as the current was swift and the water was so cold that it was harder to be sure of my footing with numb feet. I probably should have left my shoes on for those crossings, but I didn’t since Wilson had just burst and I was trying to keep my feet as dry as possible. When I finish a crossing like that, I typically dry my feet with my buff before putting my socks back on.
The scenery along this entire section was spectacular, and I was like a kid in a candy store trotting along. I camped at a site called Burnt Spruce and had a fantastic spot right in front of a stream. There were several other sites on the other side of the trail, and I met two cousins who were spending a few nights in the park. The girl was a freshman in college in Minnesota, and the guy was a junior at UNC Raleigh. He was sleeping in a hammock, but didn’t have a tarp, so I wondered how he dealt with the rain. I found out it was only night one of their trip, so I now wonder how not having a means to keep rain off while sleeping worked out for him. As I chatted with them, a small deer kept creeping closer and closer to us, trying to eat something that was at the base of a large pine tree. It would spook and run backwards, only to creep back up and continue eating behind that tree. I could tell it was curious about us. The deer itself almost looked like a dwarf species. I don’t know much about deer in the Smokies, but this was definitely smaller than the whitetail deer I’m used to seeing. I suppose it is possible they’ve just evolved that way to be able to handle the harsher mountain conditions and survive on less food. Either way, it was cute.
I was running a bit low on fuel for cooking. I’d brought a large fuel canister because I had one that I had been slowly using over time for shorter camping trips. I am not one to waste things, so I wanted to use it up. I kind of guesstimated that it would last the entire trip, but now I wasn’t so sure, so I decided to cook over my campfire to save fuel. This worked quite well, except that I managed to get sticky spruce resin all over the base of my pot. I don’t have a lot of experience cooking over open fires, so I don’t know if this happened because I set my pot on a slab of spruce bark (probably), or if it would have still happened if I had fashioned some kind of grate to put it on over the spruce (probably). Either way, it was INCREDIBLY sticky resin. It smelled delightful though! The irony of the campsite name being “Burnt Spruce” did not escape me. After dinner I sat by the stream and used a rock to try and scrape the resin off of my pot, aging it about 30 years and giving myself an arm and shoulder workout. I managed to get the really sticky bits off. I like to think that I looked rather rustic and capable, squatting by the stream using “stone tools” (e.g. a rock) to accomplish my task. But, I’m quite sure that if there was any trace of an ancestral spirit there, it was pointing at me and laughing, thinking “what a dummy.”
The morning was cold and it took me a little while to pull myself out from under my quilt. I was hungry. Really hungry. It felt like the two oatmeal packets I had just eaten completely evaporated in my stomach. I definitely underestimated that I would have such strong hiker hunger on this trip, but the chill of the mountains was definitely contributing to my burning more calories than expected. Like other aspects of long-distance backpacking though, I might get uncomfortable, but I would survive.
I had a good morning of hiking, climbing up towards the junction with the Thomas Divide Trail. At one point I turned a corner and hiked right up on a wild turkey in the middle of the trail. I stopped and tried to ready my camera as it slyly walked around the bend. I followed it in hot pursuit after pausing for only a moment, but as soon as I turned the corner around the same bend, it had silently vanished. Turkeys are surprisingly stealthy when they want to be. I have yet to get a good picture of one in the wild, though I’ve seen many. Shortly after the turkey sighting, I surprised a medium-sized black bear on the side of the same ridge. It went thundering off through the bushes, snapping small saplings like matchsticks. It’s always a little relieving when bears run away from me, but at the same time, I also wish they would hang out for a few seconds so I could get a better look. Maybe just long enough for the bear to say “it’s not you, it’s me” before it runs off? Maybe a nice pose for my camera? I should probably be careful what I wish for….
After every long climb comes a descent, and down I went to the valley of the Oconaluftee River. The trail crosses a road and then the river via a bridge. I saw a sign for Smokemont Riding Stables. It was in the opposite direction from the trail, but I knew from the notes in Guthook that it wasn’t far and it was reported to have a vending machine. I had spent the entire morning negotiating with myself about eating more than my daily allotment of snacks, so I figured it was worth walking the side trail to see if the vending machine was still there and functional.
Bingo! The stables actually had two vending machines – one for snacks and the other for soda. They also had a small pay-at-the-window shop with first aid supplies and canned/prepared items like vienna sausages, ramen, etc. I stuck to the vending machines and bought about $10 worth of junk food. It was a real bacchanalia! I ate a Butterfinger, a KitKat, 3 bags of chips, and washed it down with a Dr. Pepper. The staff were super friendly and let me sit in the waiting area by the vending machines and eat to my heart’s content. They gave me change for my larger bills so that I could keep the party rolling and have another soda. It was a godsend. Not only did I feel much better after eating there, but that one top up was all I needed to rightsize my food supply for the rest of the trip. Not only did I get more calories in me, but I packed out some delicious treats, including a butterfinger bar for every remaining night on trail, and for the finish. After thanking the staff for their hospitality and emptying my trash bag in their garbage receptacle, I walked away from Smokemont feeling like a king.
The BMT followed a horse trail for a while, and I had to step aside while several of the trail riding tours led by Smokemont passed by. I was careful not to make sudden movements or jerk my trekking poles around while they passed. Spooked horses with untrained riders on them did not sound like the kind of train wreck I would want to cause or watch!
Just after the trail ride loop section, the BMT follows Bradley Fork stream. It was clearly a trout stream as a gentleman with a fly rod and three brown trout walked right past me with a smile on his face. Per usual, the scenery was gorgeous, though the path did not adhere to Bradley Fork for long. It veered off and started a climb alongside Chasteen Creek. As I huffed up the trail, which was just a gravel road at this point, I heard an even more intense huffing behind me, approaching rapidly. I turned around as two horses galloped up behind me, their riders clearly driving them to race up the hill. Their sheer power was impressive. I locked eyes with the lead horse. He was frothing and his eyes were bloodshot, with a bit of a crazy look in them. I moved farther off the road as they flew past. I had this feeling that he probably wasn’t too happy having a large human on his back pushing him to run hard up that hill. Who would be? I saw the horses and riders again briefly at the head of a side trail to Chasteen Creek Cascade. The horses were tethered to a hitching post and their riders were taking a smoke break. I nodded and walked down to the cascade to have a look. It was breathtaking, and I enjoyed feeling the cool mist in the air and the almost deafening sound of the water. If there were one aspect of hiking the BMT through the Smokies that I would label a signature part of the experience, it would be the sound of moving water nearly everywhere.
My campsite for the night was less than two miles from the cascade, so despite the pit stop at the stables, I made it to camp between 4 and 4:30. There was one other guy there from North Carolina when I arrived. I chose a beautiful spot right by the creek, and proceeded to set up my tent and do my usual camp chores. There was a fallen tree across the creek right at my campsite, so I walked out on its huge trunk until I was standing over the middle of the small stream. It was fun having time to muck about at camp. My site had a great fire ring, so I set about gathering wood and duff to use as tinder. I invited North Carolina Guy to hang out by the fire for a while. He was interesting and good company. We talked about our experiences hiking in North Carolina, and I asked him about a few other trails within the state. He told me about some time he spent at a monastery, which was interesting, and brought back memories of Doug the Hermit on the CDT. After North Carolina Guy went back to his tent, I sat there as dusk turned to darkness. The coals from my fire glowed like molten lava and I knew it might be my last fire of the trip. The next day would be my last night on trail. I was headed up to the highest point on the Benton MacKaye Trail: Mt. Sterling. The day after that, I would hike down to the northern terminus and, just like that, it would all be over.
The evening sky darkened, but the moon fought against it, casting light in all directions through the trees. I don’t even remember going to bed. Sometimes the magic of these beautiful nights on trail feels unreal, or other worldly, as if I’ve somehow stepped into another dimension on a metaphysical journey of sorts. If I listen closely, I can hear the forest come alive whispering, signaling some of its citizens to go to sleep, and some of them to awaken and begin the day. It tells me softly that I will be ok, that there is no future that needs building in the present moment, that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.
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