I got an early start from Upper Chasteen Creek the next morning. I had 21 miles to go to make it to my campsite at the top of Mt. Sterling, and I knew it was pretty much all uphill to get there. At 5,829 feet, Mt. Sterling is the highest point on the BMT. It seemed fitting to spend my last night up there. It was chilly out and I decided to drink my coffee cold while hiking. I emptied my instant coffee packet into my clean water bottle, shook it up, and started moving.
It was turning into a gorgeous day on trail. I passed a handful of stream crossings that seemed to be getting more and more difficult as I moved along. At least, it was more and more difficult to get across them without getting my feet wet. I felt like the last one, in particular, should have earned me some kind of certificate in rock hopping. There is a campsite called Enloe Creek, and the stream crossing just before that was really more of a ford. I managed to rock hop it largely successfully, but it was dicey. I still got a few toes wet. I probably should have just waded through, but I’m stubborn and took it on as a The Great Rock-Hopping Challenge. Enloe Creek campsite itself looked cozy. I had read comments that there were somewhat aggressive mice there and that the tent site wasn’t very level, but it looked decent to me and someone was camped there. As for the mice, who knows – there is only one way to find out, but proper food storage and eating away from camp might help resolve that problem.
There was a large metal bridge across Enloe Creek. Down the side of the bridge there was stream access and what looked like a great swimming hole. Maybe not when I was hiking as it was still pretty chilly, but later in the summer I think that campsite would be a great place to stop early in the day and go for a brisk swim. The backdrop of stream cascades didn’t hurt either. I remember Low Branch telling me that he was going to try and camp at Enloe Creek because that was where he camped on his first ever backpacking trip. I hope he was able to secure a spot! I love when people share nostalgic goals like that, because I think we all have them and can relate. I love revisiting spots that hold a special place in my mind, and sometimes the reason is no other than I just enjoyed a good day there, or I wanted to be closer to the memory of an experience I had there.
I climbed away from the creek up along Hyatt Ridge for a while before descending down towards Straight Fork Road. About a quarter mile before hitting the road, I was headed into a sharp bend in the trail. I could see the other side of the bend just across a gully, and there on the slope of the mountain was a sizable black bear. It heard me, of course, and went tearing up the side of the mountain, disappearing into some rhododendron. The power and agility of these animals to move like that on sharp slopes is pretty amazing to witness. Yet again, I was not quick enough to get any footage of the bear, but I was grateful to have seen it all the same.
I crossed a stream via a bridge on Straight Fork Road. On the map the stream was labeled Straight Fork Raven Fork. Two forks? It was the cartographic equivalent of a fancy dinner. I guess if you added a third fork it would be like a shrimp cocktail fork. It wouldn’t be too hard to eclipse the boundaries of my silverware metaphor. As an aside, fancy table settings have never been something I’ve understood, or appreciated the way some people do. Some just like the way they look I guess, or the ritual around them, which I respect. But give me the least number of tools to get a job done and I’m good to go! Bonus points if I use less than that and something can be placed back in the drawer instead of washed. But I digress…. After crossing the multi-forked stream via the bridge, the trail picks up at Beech Gap Trailhead, and the climb up to the ridges prior to Mt. Sterling summit begins. The Beech Gap Trail gives way to the Balsam Mountain Trail, and the BMT follows that to the Mt. Sterling Ridge Trail. The sound of water faded away and transitioned to the sound of wind as I got higher up on the ridges. Once I was above 4,000 feet, the wildflowers were in full bloom. The ridges were covered with carpets of white. There really weren’t many other colors, but the effect was stunning. It almost looked like the wilderness was ready for some kind of fairy wedding to take place.
I continued my walk along the ridge enjoying the wildflowers and arrived at Laurel Gap Shelter. This is the only shelter on the BMT in the Smokies. It looked much like the other shelters I have seen. There were two women there, one gathering firewood, and I stopped to chat with them for a while before hopping on the Mt. Sterling Ridge Trail. I walked through pockets of wildflowers, and paused in the middle of the trail to examine a bear print left in the mud. It was definitely fresh. I’ve always thought that black bear tracks look very alien. They remind me of footprints people have made of their babies. There is kind of an eerie human, ape-ish shape to them sometimes, depending on how the imprint is left. The track doesn’t usually look like a big round paw. It makes them easy to recognize, but I’ve always thought them oddly shaped.
I made sure to stop and grab water at one of the small streams crossing the trail along the ridge before proceeding to the Mt. Sterling Summit. There is water access at Mt. Sterling campsite, but it is a hike to get to (Guthook comments said it was 0.4 miles north of the campsite, one way). I didn’t want to deal with that and preferred just to carry water in. At this point I had little food weight in my pack anyway.
The summit of Mt. Sterling was a little busy. There were day hikers and two other groups with tents. I will be the first to admit that it was probably my least favorite campsite in the Smokies for the ambience – too many people and there weren’t many level spots. I managed to find a spot with only a slight incline; having a small tent gave me more options. As I set up my tent, I could hear the repetitive sound of someone banging tent stakes into hard ground with a rock. Clink, clink, clink, clink, clink. They must have had really tough ground at their site. Fortunately, while mine was angled, I had no trouble just pushing my stakes into the ground.
Despite the site itself not being ideal, I was happy to be there. There was a viewpoint beside the trail through the trees, and a fire tower that you could still climb up to enjoy panoramic views of the surrounding mountains and forest. The fire tower was pretty rickety at the top, and parts of the floor were rotting away, with boards inserted for stability in the same way that I might shove a folded napkin under a table leg at Ruby Tuesday’s to keep the table steady. Of course, the wind up in the tower was gusty as it was completely exposed, and it rattled the old window panes that were left in the tower. Some of the panes were gone. Let’s just say the tower had a lot of “character,” but the views were absolutely fantastic and I was grateful for a clear day.
I climbed back down and decided to cook my dinner at the viewpoint. What’s a view if no one is there to enjoy it, right? I grabbed my cookpot, stove, and food bag at camp, added a couple of layers as it was getting chilly, and headed back over. The viewpoint was kind of the perfect one or two-seater spot to relax and enjoy the view. As I sat and ate my dinner, a little bird was hopping about in front of me, glancing at me warily as it ate seeds it was finding in the grass. I like the feeling of nature relaxing around me. When I first sat down, everything hid, flew, or ran away – squirrels, birds. But after a while, especially if I’m quiet or still, they start to come back. They perceive that I am not a threat, and, with proper spacing and some wary glances, they begin to go about their business again. I love when this happens – it makes me feel like less of an intruder, although definitely still a guest, and it is a gift to be able to observe nature on nature’s terms and somehow feel part of it. It’s like the difference between traveling somewhere and seeing a touristy dance performance or witnessing the locals going about their real life activities. The latter isn’t always flashy or pretty, but at least it’s real.
After dinner I chatted with the tent-stake-pounding campers for a while. It was a father-son combo, and the father happened to be a whitewater paddler, so we talked about rivers we had run. This is something that paddlers often connect over, much like anyone finding out that a complete stranger shares an obscure hobby with them. Ironically, though we were both backpacking, we talked mostly about paddling. He had definitely run a lot of the whitewater in the southeast, so it was fun to hear some of those stories. They had a fire going, and I had been hoping to enjoy a campfire on my last night, so it was a perfect combination. As the sun went down, it was definitely getting cold. Temperatures would hover in the upper to mid thirties overnight. I climbed the fire tower one last time to get a view of the setting sun. It was beautiful, and there was something very awe-inspiring about being up in that tower. It was breezy, but also carried the kind of quiet that comes from large expanses of nature and big views. I guess the best way I can describe it is the quiet and awe of being a tiny, insignificant piece of something huge.
As I went back to my tent, a hiker had shown up and was looking for a spot to camp in. He said he had some friends who were not too far away. I kind of felt sorry for them because all of the most slanted spots were left. I showed him a patch just above my tent that was about as good as I had seen, though for anyone sleeping on an inflatable sleeping pad, it would inevitably result in a slip n’ slide kind of night. His friends showed up and decided to take that spot. He camped a short ways away. I climbed into my tent and performed one final assessment of Wilson and John McEnroe. Wilson was healing nicely under his little peekaboo flap, no longer a bulbous companion, but a companion nonetheless. McEnroe was still a bulge, but seemed less angry now, and certainly less cocky. Perhaps even he was maturing, realizing that I had accepted him for the angry blister he was, and that there had never really been anything to prove in the first place. No more rackets to throw, no more frustration to cause. I covered both of the boys back up and tucked them into their moleskin beds, ready for sleep.
The other campers didn’t take long to settle down, probably tired from a long day. After they did, I lay there listening to nothing. The sound of nothing. I knew it would be a while before I heard this sound again. It may sound weird to talk about “hearing nothing,” but silence is a sound of its own. I know this because I live in the absence of silence. At home in Atlanta I live on a busy street. It is never silent. When my street is quiet, I can hear cars racing on the highway, their obnoxiously loud modified engines audible for miles and miles and miles away. I hear fireworks and voices, gunshots and car alarms. I hear the sound of the washing machine, or the dishwasher, or the furnace turning on. Being used to such noises and sounds, the sound of silence and calm takes on a presence of its own for me. It is deep and meaningful. It is all consuming and thought provoking. It is a reminder of what is real, and what we as a species have destroyed. It is rewarding, but also sad that it has become such a hard sound to come by. As I lay there barely awake, a light breeze rustled the trees, breaking the silence in the most gentle of ways, massaging my brain waves and whispering calmness. It was all I needed to tip into the void of slumber.
I expected a cold morning and I got one. It was invigorating, and although I was sad for the trip to be coming to an end, I was excited at the accomplishment of finishing. I had pre-dug my cathole the night prior and made short work of dismantling my tent. I decided to have breakfast at the viewpoint, and since I no longer had to think about conserving fuel, I ate hot oatmeal instead of my usual cold, and drank coffee while gazing at the morning’s golden hue on the mountains far off in the distance. I soaked it all in. I let the mountains seep into my marrow, and the shadows of the valleys linger in the bags under my eyes. I felt the cold ground through the soles of my shoes, and let the crisp air turn my nose red. And I just sat there, happy to be alive in that moment.
I climbed up the fire tower one more time to bid farewell to the view. Just one more…. Just as I was leaving I spotted some young ferns in various stages of uncoiling and took some footage of them. I think it is so interesting that they begin as tight little spirals. There is something so calming about ferns, even when they are so tightly coiled. I wonder what ultimately causes them to let go and uncoil? What tells them it is time to share their natural beauty with the world? Perhaps it is calming to know that they repeat this cycle over and over. They don’t really know anything, other than how to follow the code of their own DNA. Just by being, they reach their full potential. Sometimes I wonder if these long hikes will help me to be more like a fern. Are they part of my process to meet my full potential? Or do I just mess everything up by overcomplicating and overthinking, when I should really just be uncoiling? There might be a lot of lessons to be learned from ferns. I don’t know. I don’t have the answers. Just more questions fueled by the things I observe.
The rest of the hike was all downhill. I saw a number of parties on their way up to Mt. Sterling. It would be a really great day hike from the Baxter Creek Trailhead. I had the clear advantage of going down, so while they were huffing and puffing and sweating, I was carefree and light on my feet. The trail drops down into stunning old-growth forest. Wildflowers and streams with mossy green rocks abound. Some of the poplar trees must have been at least 500 years old. They were some of the biggest trees I have ever seen in the southeast. I met a local guy who hikes there frequently and he said that section of forest had never been logged, although it was ironically close to the site of an old lumber settlement. He even pointed out the claw marks of a large bear on one of the old poplars. He said they stand on their hind legs and claw the trees, both to mark their territory, show their size (height) to assert dominance, and also to sharpen their claws. Judging by the height of the claw marks, that particular bear was huge!
I wandered down a side trail to an old chimney that was left over from the original settlement. I saw Local Guy and his buddy, who had a pretty sophisticated looking camera, heading my way again. His friend was capturing some photos, so I moseyed along to avoid getting in the way. The rushing sound of whitewater was all around. Baxter Creek is a medium-sized trout stream, and before long I saw the bridge across it. I knew that when I crossed this bridge, the journey would be over. Well, my Benton MacKaye Trail thru-hike would be over anyway – I still had to walk to the highway.
I paused at the entrance to the bridge. A woman was standing in the middle taking video, presumably of her family or grandchildren at the river bank below. There were multiple groups of people, families out for picnics and fishing. On the other side of the bridge along the river bank there was a young father teaching his son to fly fish. The son looked to be about six. I paused, not because I could not cross the bridge, but I just needed to take it all in. It was like I had just popped out of the woods and here “normal” life was unfolding before me. The contrast between what I had been doing, and what these people were doing, was sharp. At the same time though, there was only one short bridge between my life on trail, and my life that bore some resemblance to theirs. I contemplated this for a moment. Would there ever be more of a bridge between the two worlds? Would I ever feel like my world on trail and my world off were more tightly integrated? It is part of the human condition to always want more of the things that we enjoy. But can Yin exist without Yang? Without the stark contrast of “regular life,” would hiking be the same? Perhaps this is no different than the enjoyment of a sunny day after several days of rain. We need the rain to cultivate appreciation for the sun. We need to suffer to appreciate life. We appreciate things when they are taken away because we did not unlock our full appreciation for them while we had them. Maybe it is not even possible to do this – maybe only in suffering, in losing things, do we ever fully appreciate them. It is the final gift of suffering, of loss, of death. While that may seem dark at face value, there is a certain sweetness in it – to know that what, to humans, feel like the darkest moments, have a purpose to them. There is another side to be seen that is full of meaning, even if we don’t like the road we travel to get there.
These were just thoughts I had at the bridge, while I still had both feet in one world, but was on the brink of stepping into the other, which was clearly visible before me. Not that I wanted to, but in moments like this, you really can’t go back. I don’t even know if the trail would allow it. I’ve learned that trails are not for retreating, nor are they for hiding. They aren’t an escape – they are a voyage. You cannot embark on a journey like this and not face some fears. You will get uncomfortable. You will have to come to grips with both trail life, and life off trail. There is no way around it. The trail is the way. It is one path, with a beginning and an end that leads to new beginnings. That’s just the way it is, and so I crossed the bridge to the other side and was done.
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