The Franklin Road Walk, the Bus, and the Black Widow
On day one of my hike, I walked 22.6 miles, including the 5.1 miles to get up to Cheoah Bald. While the Bartram Trail is approximately 114 miles long, it’s important to factor in the “bonus” miles required to get to Cheoah Bald. My plan was to average a little over 20 miles a day to finish the trail in 5.5 days, so I was off to a good start. By the end of day 1, my shoulders were pretty sore. I had never carried this much weight before without a hip belt. Most of the weight, of course, was in food and water. My base weight was fairly light. My gear, not including food, water, and the clothes on my back, weighed just under 12 pounds. I hoped that as I ate down my food weight, and my shoulders became more accustomed to the load bearing, that I might be a little more comfortable. Only time would tell.
That first night I camped just before a place called Appletree Campground. I don’t know much about it, other than I think you can pay for sites there, but it isn’t just a “walk up and camp” place. The Bartram Trail passes by one of its community use areas. As I walked past Appletree Campground in the early morning, a light rain fell and fog hovered over the treetops. There were a lot of Eastern Newts hanging out in the trail (or whatever they do). Some call these bright orange fellows “Red Efts.” They are an electric “orange peel” orange, speckled with little black spots. I rarely see them move. Most of the time they sit motionless, almost like they are some kind of shiny rubber childrens’ toy. They would be very good art models, sitting still while someone paints them. I always look forward to seeing them after and during rains in the southern Appalachians. Sometimes it feels like they are trying to tell me something, or like I should learn some kind of lesson from them. I stare at them and they stare back, motionless. What am I to glean from these encounters? What message is behind their endless eyes? Maybe it is as simple as “it’s ok to be quiet and say nothing.” I’ve always admired the ability of nature to simply stare without the social taboos and insecurities that we have as humans. Staring is acceptable, and nature learns by doing so. Predators like foxes and wolves can perceive vulnerabilities by staring. Humans can too, amongst other things, of course, but it is not socially acceptable to stare. Children are even told not to by adults. I think it is hilarious when I see a small child just staring at me or someone else – a little kid sizing me up, curious, or just bored. I will deliberately lock eyes with kids who stare at me, simply because it is a chance to experience something that is otherwise taboo between adults. When they haven’t been taught this yet, they’ll just scope you out, no shame, no harm. Just like nature.
I hiked up and down until I could eventually see Nantahala Lake through the trees. The trail winds around it near its dam and then drops out onto a road for a short road walk. I passed an old Phillips 66 gas station. Some older online posts about the Bartram Trail listed this as a resupply point, but it was closed down, seemingly for quite some time, and looked like it could be part of an old west ghost town at this point. There was, however, a little restaurant just past it that was still open. I was seriously tempted to eat there, but I had enough food on my back and miles to make, so I hiked on. I thought I would fill up my water bottles at the lake before heading back up into the woods. But, the trail only has a few points on the road walk where you can walk down by the lake shore to get water (e.g. not private property). As I was looking for a discreet place to make my way to the lake shore, I walked up on a feeder creek that flows under the road into the lake. On the side of the road opposite the lake, there was a vehicle pull off and a short trail led right to the bank of this beautiful mountain stream. I was quite grateful for this. It was perfect timing as I needed water, and stream water is always much better than lake water!
The climb southbound from the road walk by the lake was pretty brutal. It was very steep and a bit overgrown up to Jarrett Bald. The Bartram Trail meanders along McDonald Ridge until it joins up with the Appalachian Trail just before Wayah Bald. There weren’t any water sources between the road walk and the junction with the AT, but there was a piped spring at the meeting of the two trails called “Wine Spring,” where I stopped to fill up. It was such a stark contrast seeing the wide, brush-free trail of the AT after being on the Bartram Trail. A few portions of the Bartram Trail along McDonald Ridge had been so overgrown with occasional neck-high weeds and brush wet from the morning rain, that I was soaked and covered in various forms of detritus. The AT looked like a traffic-free super highway, toll-less and ready to transport me through the woods in comfort, by comparison. It kind of reminded me of when I don’t cut my hair for a while, and then I do finally cut my hair and realize that it got pretty shaggy without me even realizing it (yes, I do cut my own hair). Of course, the AT gets a lot more foot traffic during the northbound thru-hiking season, as well as more day hikers, more volunteers – it’s a larger, more developed ecosystem of trail maintenance. It’s unfair to compare the two in that regard, and I was happy with the adventure of the more wild and rustic Bartram Trail. It was just a noticeable contrast to experience.
I took a minute at Wine Spring to splash water on my legs to rinse them off. It’s always a little weird to see a piece of PVC pipe being used to form a water spout in the middle of the woods, but also quite convenient. I wondered why they called it Wine Spring. Maybe there used to be a bootlegging operation there?
About a mile and a half after Wine Spring is Wayah Bald. The last time I was on Wayah Bald was during my AT thru-hike. There is a large viewing platform and tower that are accessible by vehicle, so on nice days there are generally a lot of people making the short walk from their cars to the viewing tower to see the surrounding mountains. There were quite a few people there, including one aspiring northbound thru-hiker. He had departed late (compared with typical start dates), but had an ultralight kit (just sleeping under a tarp) and was hiking some serious miles, hopeful that he would catch up with some other thru-hikers. He did not have a trail name yet. He asked me if I wanted to give him one, but that’s not really how it works. You kind of have to be around people and learn about them to name them. I like to be thoughtful about it, if I’m going to do it, and I didn’t want to give him a rush job, so I told him that a name would find him when the time was right. I chatted with a few other people, including a family out for a hike that was joking about carrying an entire bocce ball set. Hey, if you can carry it and will have fun with it, knock yourself out! I left Wayah Bald feeling content. It’s always good to talk with other hikers.
The Bartram Trail leaves the AT shortly after Wayah Bald, and that is the end of their brief romance. After that, there is a descent and climb, and then a long ridge walk. As I was navigating the initial descent down Wayah Bald, I almost stepped on a rattlesnake that was slowly making its way northbound on the trail. I jerked to a stop and backed up. I didn’t seem to bother it, though I saw it pause, acknowledging my presence. I needed to get around it, but the embankment was steep. I didn’t want to climb above it, lest I slip and slide down into it. So, I went below it instead. When I clawed my way back up the embankment on the other side of the snake, I walked back to see if I could get any decent footage of it. Alas, it was shrouded by flora alongside the trail, presumably relieved that I had left. I wondered what would really happen if I ever got bitten by a rattlesnake. I hope that I never find out!
The ridge walking was, again, fairly overgrown. I had my eyes peeled for snakes. My goal for the evening was to camp just before the beginning of the road walk through Franklin. My information said that the road walk was 14 miles long, so I planned on it being a big part of my day. I would later find out that it has since been shortened to about 10 miles through the construction of a new segment of trail!
I found a great campsite close, but not too close, to the start of the road walk. It’s always a fine balance between trying to get as close as possible to a town, and getting to where there are no “safe-feeling” spaces to camp. I hit the jackpot with my campsite. It was right along a creek, only had room for one tent, and was tucked out of the way down below the trail. Prior to making camp and before I descended down to the creek and campsite, I enjoyed a fabulous view from a high point called William’s Pulpit, accessible as a day hike from Franklin. It was a great spot to sit for a bit and stare off into the beautiful abyss of the mountains and sky.
It was damp and raining lightly when I woke. I knew it was going to be a wet day. I was close enough to Franklin to have a cell signal and be able to see a weather forecast. There was a 90% chance of thunderstorms, which basically meant I would likely get soaked at some point. I accepted this for what it was, ate my usual breakfast of oatmeal and coffee, and headed out. On my way down the last mile of trail before hitting the road, I passed a tall, beautiful cascade with a wooden bridge in front of it. I stopped to appreciate it while a young woman went bounding past me over the bridge on her morning trail run. I assumed she was probably running up to the pulpit, which would be a great, but challenging, run as it was all uphill. As I walked on, I passed several campsites that were right by the parking lot at the start of the road walk and was even more grateful for my campsite the night before. These sites had abandoned piles of wet pillows and blankets as well as lots of trash. All the signs of desperate sadness and disregard were there.
The Franklin road walk was underwhelming. In other words, if you are wondering if it would be an enriching experience that takes you through quaint, downtown Franklin, it will not. You will instead pass through west and south Franklin, where your views might include friendly cows, discarded hypodermic needles, local businesses, and some attractive farmhouses. It was an interesting mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. The benefits of the road walk are that you will pass right by an Ingles grocery, so resupply is easy. The backdrop as you get closer to where the trail heads back into the mountains was pretty. But, the rest of the time I just wanted to get through it. I’m still glad I did it though, just because I am a bit of a purist when it comes to thru-hiking and like to walk every inch of the trail. If I don’t, I’ll always wonder what I might have missed!
At one point I walked by a pit bull chained to a loose post in someone’s front yard. It snarled and lunged and frothed at me. I don’t know why as I was on the other side of a busy street, but for some reason this dog seemed determined to get to me. I quickened my pace and watched in horror as the pole shook and seemed to loosen as this animal maniacally choked itself trying to get free. Fortunately the pole held and I passed by safely. I had another encounter a few miles later where a large dog came running down its driveway after me. It barked and ignored my friendly dog-speak trying to calm it. It followed me and would try to dash in closer if I turned my back to it, so I kind of kept slowly walking backwards with my trekking poles ready. It’s always hard to know what to do with loose dogs. Sometimes it feels like if I just put the poles down and get down on one knee with a hand outstretched, the dogs might just come have a sniff and we’d be friends, or at least “good” with each other. But I have to remind myself that I only get one shot at that. If it backfires, I could get badly bitten. So I generally err on the side of caution and just keep the trekking poles up and out until I can get past. I wish all loose dogs were like the one that came up to me at my campsite on night one of the Benton MacKaye Trail. That dog was just as happy as can be – no barking or growling, just tail wagging like I was its new best friend. Unfortunately that just isn’t how it often plays out.
Towards the end of the road walk the skies opened up and it started pouring. I stashed all of my camera gear inside my pack liner bag and battened all of the hatches down. The one benefit of pouring rain is it solves the loose dog problem. Only this cat is silly enough to walk in the rain! I hiked briskly along as cars zoomed past at 45 to 50 mph. I didn’t have much of a shoulder to walk on, so when they came by I had to stop and scurry into the shoulder, which was more or less a soggy creek with all of the rain. I was therefore delighted when I saw a signpost for the Bartram Trail and a new-looking trailhead parking lot. After a few minutes of reading the information post at the parking lot and studying my map on Gaia, I realized that this was a new section of trail and that I did not have to finish walking the road walk – the trail had been re-routed through the woods. This was fantastic! Maybe one day they’ll be able to cut the road walk even shorter. I was also able to see the new trail segment on my Gaia GPS map. Even though the route files I had uploaded showed the old road walk path of the person who had previously recorded the hike, the underlying topographic map files reflected the new Bartram Trail segment, showing me exactly where it joined back up with the rest of the trail. I had a pep in my step as I climbed up and up away from the road.
On my way up I was treated to several views of the valley below and surrounding mountains. I passed two female hikers heading northbound into Franklin. They were getting a ride from Chica and Sunset and staying at their hostel in Franklin. Chica and Sunset are fairly well known in the trail community. I know who they are, never having met them or stayed at their hostel! They have thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, amongst others, and established a hiker hostel in Franklin that consistently gets rave reviews from its guests. Had I stayed in Franklin, I would have loved to have met them and spent a night at their place. I imagine I probably will at some point.
I can’t remember the hikers’ names, but one lady was a fairly experienced thru-hiker, and she was out with her friend who preferred shorter backpacking trips. They intended on thru-hiking the trail, though the weather had been so wet that it sounded like they were going to have a discussion about continuing on when they got to the hostel. Either way, they were the first backpackers I had seen so far. It was fun chatting with them, but we were all soaking wet and I needed to keep moving to stay warm, so we parted ways. I kept climbing past a viewpoint called The Pinnacle, up and up until I came upon an old school bus randomly sitting there in the woods, busted up and looking quite far from home, wherever home was. I always find it odd to stumble upon signs of modern technology in the forest. How did this bus even get up here, I wondered? I couldn’t see any old roads, but clearly, at some point, someone had driven it here. Hmmmmm….
I wanted to take some video of the bus, so I looked around for a place to set up my camera on its tiny tripod. I spotted an old stump and wandered over to it. As I started unfolding the legs of my tripod, I looked at the top of the stump and realized that, not only was it hollowed out, there was a giant black widow spider inside it! It had spun a web and was sitting there, motionless, almost completely upside down in its web so that I could clearly see the red hourglass on its belly. I have seen black widows before around houses I have lived in, but this was by far the largest. We call them “black widows,” but they belong to the genus Latrodectus, which contains 32 different species (according to a quick Wikipedia read and some basic internet nerding out). In reading about them, I also learned that the females have been known to eat the males after mating, though not always. This gave rise to the general name “widow spiders.” Apparently males will try to select females who have eaten already to avoid being eaten themselves, and can sense this via chemicals in the female’s web. I can kind of relate to this because it is generally a good idea for me to stay away from my wife if she has not eaten in quite some time, unless of course I have snacks to offer. Anyway, I have never seen a black widow spider on a hike before, so it was an interesting experience. In addition to the stills here, you can check out the bus and the spider as well as other footage of this area in Episode 2 of my Bartram Trail YouTube series.
I left the bus and kept hiking up to Fishhawk and Little Fishhawk mountains. It was misty and beautiful at their summits, with fog rolling in and what looked like larger storm clouds in the distance. I was up around 4700 feet in elevation, so it was a bit chilly in the mist. I was also up high enough to still see both rhododendron and mountain laurel blooms. It was quite breathtaking and a real treat to get to see both of these still in almost mid June. As the floral backdrop continued, I made my way around the northern edge of Whiterock Mountain and found a nice spring at the top. I needed this water source, both because I was quite thirsty, and because it would be my water source for the evening and morning. I planned to camp at Whiterock Gap where there was no water that I was aware of. It looked like I potentially could hike from the gap to a small creek that appeared on the map, but it was far and I was not sure if it would be too overgrown, or if the creek would even be there. It was much easier to carry water to camp, which is what I did.
When I got to the gap I was relieved to find a one-seater campsite with a fire ring. It looked like it was going to rain soon, so I made haste in getting my tent setup and cooking some dinner. You would think I would be tired of Knorr rice sides at this point, but I always kind of enjoy them. I ate my wonderfully simple, warm meal, and listened to the sounds of the forest around me. The birds came out to sing their evening wind-down songs. The wind whipped up a little, hinting that it might rain (or might not). I ducked into my tent, tired after another wet, 20+ mile day. My feet were looking pretty gross, like they were two mushy, wet grey brains, each with five protuberances. They just needed one solid dry day, but looking at the night sky growing blacker than tar, a dry day ahead was unlikely. I fell asleep like a stone as the forest night crew clocked in for their shift of nightly bopping around in the woods, or whatever all of the nightly creatures do when the moon is covered by clouds.
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