Noland Divide to Beauregard Ridge April 29, 2012
Posted by Jenny in hiking, nature, photography, Smoky Mountains.Tags: Beauregard Ridge, Bryson City, Lonesome Pine overlook, Noland Divide
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This was a leg-stretcher outing of seven miles and 2200 vertical feet, a mere baby of a hike compared to my outing that I called “Noland Divide From End to End to End”. Sometimes when I hike, a theme emerges, and in this case it was “new leaves.” We will come to that in a moment.
Like my recent Cheoah Bald hike, this one was started around 1:00 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon. It really isn’t ideal to start a hike in the heat of the day. But the same thing happened as two weeks ago. Being a person who needs a certain amount of solitude and quiet—mainly for writing, but also, come to think of it, just for existing—I find that Sunday morning is a kind of temporal sanctuary, the time people are least likely to disturb me. I relish that feeling of lingering in bed and rising to let my deeper layers of thought dictate my movements instead of the “I should be doing this, I should be doing that” layer of thinking. Then, around noon, I start getting restless and decide to visit my mountains.
Taking full advantage of my new location near the south central gateway to the Smokies, I drove to Bryson City and the Deep Creek campground. I started at 1900′ and climbed to 4100′. I spotted the azalea pictured at top around 2200′. So the ones up on top of Gregory Bald at 5000′ must not be blooming quite yet, but they will surely be blooming way ahead of people’s regular azalea treks.
I also saw laurel in bloom. Good grief! This warm winter has thrown everything out of whack.
I’ve noticed that every flower has a numerical identity. Trilliums are my favorite example, where every aspect, every layer of that flower comes in threes. With laurel, the number five is in ascendancy.
As I continued on, I spotted spiderwort, whose botanical name is Tradescantia, named for the traveler Tradescant who brought this plant back to Henry VIII after a voyage.
A little below 4000′, I emerged on the narrow spine of Beauregard Ridge. I went up to what is called the “Lonesome Pine Overlook.” There is no single obvious pine at the overlook, just some scattered pines below, but perhaps the original pine is dead now.
I had a view down toward Bryson City.
It was when I started back down that I noticed that here, around 4000′, it was still early spring. The warm weather has accelerated everything so much that I feel as though I didn’t get as much as I wanted of that tender, delicate stage of the season. I noticed some tiny unfurling oak leaves, and then I started taking pictures of new leaves wherever they caught my attention. What follows is a portfolio of new leaves.
It is a blessing to be alive.
A tale of risk, adventure, and exhaustion April 22, 2012
Posted by Jenny in bushwhacking, memoir, Smoky Mountains.Tags: hiking, hiking safety
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One day, four people set out to reach a certain point in the Smokies. The group consisted of two guys relatively new to off-trail hiking but very fit, a fellow I’ve been hiking with over the past year, and me.
The hike was my idea, but our decisions were made jointly—except for one person’s decision when it grew dark.
The total elevation gain for the day was 4700′, most of it off-trail. We hiked four miles on a trail and climbed 1100 vertical feet, dropped off the trail via a manway and lost 1800′, climbed 2100 feet off trail, reached a point where the group decided it was dangerous to go higher, backtracked down 1000′, climbed 1100′ up a familiar route, dropped 100′ to a trail, climbed 400′, and finally descended 1200′ to our starting point.
Why did we backtrack so far? Because it looked easier than traversing directly over to the familiar route—a debatable point.
When we climbed up the familiar route to regain our elevation, I became exhausted. We had been on terrain that was incredibly steep, hanging onto roots, rocks, and branches, and I was simply worn out. Part of it was the upper body strength required—I just don’t have the arm muscle.
I can honestly say that I have never been so tired in my life, not after climbing Mt. Whitney as a day hike, not after doing the Presidential Traverse in the White Mountains. After doing all kinds of hard hikes, I had finally reached my limit.
My pace slowed dramatically. I fell behind the group as we climbed up the familiar route. It was growing dark. I turned on my headlamp and proceeded as best I could through steep tangles of brush and blowdown. I knew which way to go, but it was hard negotiating the obstacles in the headlamp’s narrow beam.
I heard voices at the top of the ridge—they were calling me. It took me a long time to zero in on them. It was just the two guys new to bushwhacking, and neither one had a headlamp. The fourth person, who had one, had departed, concerned that his girlfriend was getting worried, and leaving the other two sitting in dense forest, off-trail, in the dark.
Using my compass, I navigated the way to the trail, with the two others following. We reached the trail and made our last climb of the day. I was so exhausted that my legs wobbled.
The two guys were good sports about my slow pace, and they kept up a cheerful conversation until we finally reached our destination. I am extremely grateful to them. I would have made it out without them, but it was much more pleasant to have their company.
The irony was that they were in much better shape at that point than I was, but they might not have made it out that night if I hadn’t had the headlamp and compass.
You might think I’d decide not to do this stuff any more, but no, I’ll keep doing it. These places are too valuable to me to give them up. And after all the adventures I’ve had out there, it was simply a statistical likelihood I’d have an experience like this at some point.
But I will try to keep it within my own personal limits.