Playing the Styx Branch game May 11, 2012
Posted by Jenny in bushwhacking, nature, Smoky Mountains.Tags: Huggins Hell, Mt. LeConte, Myrtle Point, Styx Branch
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The sand myrtle is near peak bloom.
Warning: Tedious navigational details ahead.
We didn’t quite achieve our objective of coming out right at Myrtle Point, but we came close. We hit the spur trail to the Point maybe 20 feet away. This has become sort of a game.
For those who haven’t followed descriptions of earlier expeditions, I’m talking about following Styx Branch through the area called Huggins Hell to get to the top of LeConte.
The first time, I went with the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club on a trip that was supposed to go up the left fork but accidentally went up the right fork. We landed way to the east of Myrtle Point on the Boulevard ridge. The second time, I went with Seth O’ Shields and Dave Landreth up what I thought was the left fork but now believe was a variation of the right fork, staying on a course of about 17 degrees and following a small split in the stream instead of bending east with the right fork. We hit the Boulevard ridge much closer to Myrtle Point, but still to the east of it. The third time, I went with Chris Sass, Seth, and a friend of Seth’s. We started up the same route as the previous time but landed further away from Myrtle Point. This last time, we finally went up the left fork…
My current best guess as to the ways I’ve gone.
The forks split, and split, and split again. What looks at first glance on the map to be a simple stream valley proves to have small indentations that diverge from it—side valleys that don’t carry enough water to rate blue lines on the map. But one of the odd things about Styx is that often those upper valleys have more water flowing through them than the main stem, where the water flows invisibly deep underneath stacks of geological rubble that have been carried down over the years in mighty floods.
The other thing that makes Styx a challenge is that the critical junction, the one at 4700′ between the left and right forks, lies close to several other draws that come in nearby. In fact, the junction is fairly obvious, but I’d been outsmarting myself by deciding that was not the correct one. It was partly because the left fork takes a course of 350 degrees up to above 5000′, but right at the very start it’s more like 320 degrees, and the right fork seems at first to run closer to the correct course.
I know, all you GPS users are laughing!
On our recent outing, we walked up and down around the junction, checked out different possibilities, and once we angled over to the left fork from one of the little draws, we actually walked back down it to confirm its appearance at the main stream.
The left fork is worth the trouble to follow. Above 5000′, it tumbles down over a series of lovely cascades. There is a great split at 5700′. We went to the right, working around the steep base of a giant unclimbable bulge, slithering on shards of loose Anakeesta. We then climbed steeply through different bands of vegetation offered up like flavors on a menu: grass mixed with blackberries that you could use to pull yourself up, groves of spindly spruce, great spongy swathes of moss, carpets of perennial wildflowers not yet in bloom, and finally—what told us we were zeroing in on Myrtle Point—aromatic Rhodendron minus that grew in a dense interlocking barrier. At one point close to the top, I watched Chris working through it on his back, his legs pushing against the tangled branches to propel himself forward.
Our goodnatured companion Jim uttered a few curses as he fought through the barrier, but he emerged victorious and seemed satisfied to have conquered Myrtle Point. It was his first climb of LeConte.
Jim was a good sport about the whole experience!
We climbed in drizzle and fog the whole way up, and none of us took pictures along the way. It was chilly on Myrtle Point. After stopping for something to eat, we headed over to the lodge for some hot chocolate. As we sat in front of the heater in the lodge, Chris and Jim shared hilarious stories about some of their associates on the faculty of Young Harris College.
This is the second hike in recent months where I’ve had serious problems with my fingers. My gloves get saturated, the activated charcoal handwarmers I carry don’t work when they’re wet, and my problem with Reynaud’s Syndrome becomes apparent. I’ve finally learned the lesson that even in temperatures above 50 degrees I need to have waterproof gloves available. My fingers stayed so stiff even all the way down that I could unlock my car only by pressing the key between my palms and turning it with my whole hands.
But as we descended the Alum Cave trail, the clouds thinned and all of the intricate, green, furry ridges emerged from the gloom, those distinctive places like Big Duck Hawk and Anakeesta Ridge. There’s no other place like this.
A beautiful plant.
Trout Branch—Cliff Top route March 8, 2012
Posted by Jenny in bushwhacking, hiking, Smoky Mountains.Tags: Cliff Top, Mt. LeConte, Trout Branch
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We came up through the cliff band shown here, toward the left
Last fall, Dave and I explored up the westernmost fork of Trout Branch. This time Dave, Chris, Seth, and I went up the middle fork, the one that leads toward Cliff Top.
The forks of Trout Branch
It was a blustery day, the sun peeking out every now and then in an unsettled sky of scuttling clouds. But we warmed up quickly as we rockhopped up the stream. Water levels were moderate, making for relatively easy progress.
One pool seemed especially beautiful. We admired it when we first arrived, and when the sun came out for a moment and illuminated the water, the pool sparkled with glimmering patterns.
Pool on Trout Branch
The patterns seemed mystical, enchanting. When you look closely enough at anything in nature, you find something lovely and abstract.
Closeup of pool
Past the lower junction at 4370′, we encountered a series of cascades flowing over sandstone ledges.
Looking down from top of cascade
Each one of these giant stair steps posed the challenge of how to get up around it. Sometimes it was possible to find a way up the rock, and sometimes we had to go into the rhodo.
Big cascade on Trout Branch
And sometimes the best way to cross the stream was over a log. This one had many small rhodo seedlings growing on it.
Dave prepares to cross the log
The rock changed over to Anakeesta as we climbed.
Chris and Seth make their way up the stream
Above the junction at 4760′, we reached smaller, higher junctions. At two decision points, we went to the right both times. If we had gone left at one or both of those, I believe we would have come out on a steep grassy meadow, which is the way I did it once before.
One of the decision points. We went right.
Eventually we came out on the big face of Anakeesta pictured at top. We angled to the left and found a couple of feasible routes, and emerged on the trail right below Cliff Top just as some Alum Cave hikers were coming by. It’s always fun to startle regular hikers, who wonder, “Where on earth did you come from?!”
Trout Branch is one of the most interesting streams on LeConte, with endless variations to explore. I’ll be back.
Seth emerges onto the trail
Styx Branch and Spruce Flats Branch back-to-back February 26, 2012
Posted by Jenny in bushwhacking, hiking, Smoky Mountains.Tags: High Top slide, Lynn Camp Prong, Meigs Mountain road, Mt. LeConte, Smoky Mountains Hiking Club, Spruce Flats Branch, Styx Branch, Tremont
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Tributary of Styx Branch
Spruce Flats Falls
This was a study in contrasts. Up Styx Branch on LeConte in fog and sleet one day, up Spruce Flats Branch at Tremont in blustery sunshine the next.
Styx was an aborted mission for me. Yes, it happened again, for the first time since early November—my knee popped out of joint. I was wearing the brace, but I’d gotten lazy about it and hadn’t tightened it as much as it should have been, not liking the constricted feeling it can give me.
Therefore I’m not as discouraged about it as I might be, because I believe that if I use the brace properly, this will not keep happening.
Dave and Seth and I were following a small tributary of Styx that hits the Alum Cave trail at about 5600′, just below where the trail makes a sharp switchback and heads over to the drainage of Trout Branch. Dave has developed a route that goes to the switchback (which he calls the Devil’s Elbow) and then, after a very short stretch on the trail, departs to climb a slide up to High Top. The tributary might be given the unfortunate name of “Toilet Roll Creek,” because the helicopter that supplies the Lodge miscalculated the drop point and managed to drop two large cases of toilet rolls into the streambed. Other than that minor detail, it is a nice, exhilarating example of high creek climbs in the Huggins Hell area.
After my knee popped out, we decided the smartest thing was to angle to the left to hit the trail at the closest point. We climbed up a steep rubbly slope covered with moss, blackberries, and witch hobble.
Seth above the steepest point
I’ve found that I can actually use blackberry canes to pull myself up in places like this. As long as I don’t give them an abrupt tug, they don’t come out by the roots.
Dave shortly before we intersected the trail
These photos may give the impression of ugly conditions, but as I watched streamers of mist flowing up the valleys, I felt it was actually beautiful. Streams and mist, fog and water in all its forms, are the essence of the Smokies.
At the trail I turned to descend, while Dave and Seth continued on to the High Top slide. I walked down slowly, feeling my knee starting to stiffen. At Inspiration Point the mist briefly turned over to sleet. A family of Floridians was there, marvelling at the “hail.” Three teenage boys in the group wore only t-shirts and weren’t carrying any extra layers.
The next day I was scheduled to co-lead a hike for the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club with Michael Vaughn over in the Tremont area. That part of the Smokies is such a haul from Asheville that I’d figured I’d spend the night at a motel in Townsend. However, since I got down from the Styx hike by mid-afternoon, I decided I might as well go back home.
I felt that, as far as my knee was concerned, one way or another I would meet my commitment with the group. Went home, got to bed early, set the alarm for 4:30, and headed over through the dark, empty Pigeon River Gorge.
It worked out fine. My knee was stiff and I moved awkwardly, but I wasn’t in pain at all. We had 20 people turn out for the outing on this chilly but mostly sunny day. The route was from the Tremont Institute to Spruce Flats Falls, up the well-defined manway along Spruce Flats Branch to Buckhorn Gap, over to Upper Buckhorn Gap, and down the old overgrown Meigs Mountain road.
We opted not to ford Lynn Camp Prong at the end—water levels were somewhat high, and it would have been a foot-numbing experience. So instead we dropped steeply off Wilkinson Ridge along a route kindly marked for us with a cairn by Gretchen, a.k.a. Slowalk, who’d just been there with the “Thursday hikers.” This took us to a point just downstream of the bridge, in other words, to a place where the road was on the “right” side of the stream instead of the “wrong” side.
After reaching the falls, we went up the manway and saw many artifacts from logging operations of the Little River Company.
Old logging cable
We crossed the stream many times.
One of maybe eight or ten crossings
A large grate called forth inconclusive speculation about its purpose.
The mysterious grate
Our group photographed and contemplated the grate.
A good photo op
We made the final steep ascent to Buckhorn Gap amidst slippery oak leaves and opted to have lunch in a more sheltered spot, as the wind was gusting through. We found a good patch of sunshine out of the wind and stopped there before moving on a short distance to Upper Buckhorn. The slightly confusing thing about the old Meigs Mountain road is that it does not descend down an obvious draw very close to the start point but actually climbs a short slope before making a long sidehilling descent. This had bamboozled me and Michael when we scouted it, but this day we found it with no problem—Michael had gone back to investigate.
I will say that when doing one of these unmaintained routes that sidehills a long time, either your left foot or your right foot takes a continuous beating because of the way the trail or road has started to slide off the mountain! But we were rewarded with some lovely views of scuttling clouds and shifting light and shadow.
I got to know some great people on this outing, and I declare that the day was a success.
View framed by briers
