Anakeesta Knob and Upper Anakeesta Ridge April 27, 2014
Posted by Jenny in bushwhacking, hiking, Smoky Mountains.Tags: Anakeesta Knob, Anakeesta Ridge, Boulevard trail, No-Name Ridge
5 comments
There was a method to my madness. I needed to get a good view of the landslide scars on No Name Ridge. And what is the best vantage point for that? Upper Anakeesta Ridge.
On July 20 I will lead an outing for the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club up Alum Cave Creek to the crest of No Name and then on to the Boulevard trail and over LeConte to return to our starting point at the Alum Cave trailhead. I’ve been up No Name before, but the route I took up the side of the ridge wasn’t ideal. It would be best to follow one of the scars, thereby postponing the inevitable crawling through the heath until close to the top.
It’s possible to reach my vantage point several different ways. I took the easy way: hiked out from Newfound Gap to the Boulevard trail, and then bushwhacked the short distance over the top of Anakeesta Knob and down the ridge until things opened up. Then I retraced my steps. I figure the trail mileage was about 9 or 10 roundtrip.
The place where Anakeesta Ridge hits the trail was familiar to me, as it is essentially a continuation of the Shutts-Boulevard divide ridge on the other side of the Boulevard. A piece of that ridge was part of my marathon outing up Shutts Prong last August. The trail makes a sharp little turn where it crosses over the “Anashuttsevard” ridge.
For those of you interested in bagging one of the highest sub-6K peaks, it’s a very short, easy bushwhack to the top of mighty 5988′ Anakeesta Knob. Only a few people are crazy enough to bag it because it’s a 5K. (You know who you are—ha, ha!)
I walked through fairly open woods, through glades filled with trout lily foliage.
Before I knew it (whatever that expression means), I had reached the summit.
As I descended off that fearsome cone, I had a view of the parking lot at Newfound Gap. It seemed just a stone’s throw away (since I seem to be using hackneyed expressions).
The ridge had clearly been traveled by bears and by bear-like humans—I know who the usual suspects are.
I had a great view down the Alum Cave Creek valley.
And, looking off the other side, across the valley of Walker Camp Prong.
The view back to the Knob showed me that not all approaches are easy.
I pushed along until I reached some dense heath, then went back to my best vantage point and stopped for lunch. I took a telescopic picture of the slides on No Name. It seems to me the side of the ridge is more bare than it used to be. Perhaps some of the slides were enlarged during last year’s heavy rains. If you look closely, you can see how the spine of the ridge has a rock backbone, which is what makes it such a great place.
A pleasant outing on a beautiful spring day.
This is a great day. April 17, 2014
Posted by Jenny in grief, hiking, Life experience, Smoky Mountains.8 comments
Undoubtedly you, my blog readers, have figured out that I’ve been going through a tough time. Last year was difficult for me. It had to do with recreating myself as a solitary woman rather than a female likely to bond with a man. Then, this year, I lost a companion of 15 years—our relationship had changed from “boyfriend/girlfriend” to “friend,” but still with him I lost a whole enormous world of shared experiences, weird humor, funny musical tastes, and a kind of defiant skepticism.
I can’t be other than a skeptic. That is who I am. I cannot be religious, no matter how much comfort that would give me. I do not judge anyone about that. Religion is right for others, wrong for me.
I do not aspire to be a “nice” person. I do want to be kind to others. But my view of the world has too many sharp edges for the warm and fuzzy world of niceness. I can be cranky, weird, annoying, and critical. That is who I am.
But, I have come across an idea. It is very simple. It is, that today is a great day. Just by deliberate choice. I was thinking about this today in connection with a great article about day-to-day life on an aircraft carrier. It is in the current issue of The New Yorker, by Geoff Dyer. Every day, over the ship’s PA system, the captain tells the crew that it’s “a great day to be at sea.” This becomes kind of a joke with the crew, for in reality each day is pretty much indistinguishable from others. Yet he persists in saying this.
And he is absolutely right.