A few weeks ago, I reached out to my friend Amiyaal, about doing a long hike on the Cumberland Trail. He was definitely interested, so we started planning for a 12-15 mile hike on a section of the Cumberland Trail. As the date of our hike grew closer, the question of whether hunting was an issue on the Cumberland Trail arose, so I started making inquiries, first with the Cumberland Trail State Park office. For an office that is dedicated to the Cumberland Trail, they were surprisingly unhelpful about whether hunting was an issue. They didn't know if hunting was allowed on their trail, nor how safe it would be, and directed me to TWRA to get answers. Not the first time they've done this, I have not been terribly impressed with this office. Anyhow, I had a hard time getting through to folks at the TWRA, mainly because it turns out that the weekend we had planned on hiking was the first weekend of muzzle-loading season, and a very busy one for hunters. In fact, I was told by a couple different folks that while it was permissible for us to hike the trail (wearing blaze orange of course), it was not advisable because there was going to be a lot of guys-with-guns out there. Time for a back-up plan, I began looking at long hikes in the Smoky Mountains. Actually, I had already looked at long hikes in the Smokies when my mom visited and I was thinking about taking her on a long hike, and I settled on LeConte Mountain because... well.. geocaching. There is a nice hike up LeConte Peak via the Alum Bluff trail that passes 3 virtual caches. And from what I've heard, it is also a really nice hike. I mentioned this hike to Amiyaal and he was immediately game. He had previously hiked to Alum Cave with his family, but wanted to continue on up the trail further.
I picked up Amiyaal a little past 6:30 am and we were off to the Smokies. The last time I drove up past Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg was when my mom was visiting, and it was a mess. The traffic was obscene, and it seemed to take forever to get to our trailhead. Today was different, with Amiyaal navigating me on some sneaky bypasses of the towns, and an earlier start, we ere at our trailhead by 8:05 AM, half the time it took us previously. I'm going to have to remember this for future Smoky Mountain trips. It was cold, below freezing, but there wasn't much snow on the trail and we made good time up to Alum Cave for our first break, passing a couple hikers on the way. We didn't break for long though, taking some sips from our water bottles and snapping some photos, then continuing up the trail. The trail got a bit more trecherous the higher up we went. Sections of it were cut into the rock of the mountain, and a steel cable was installed on the slope-side to help keep one's footing. But what really made it tricky was the packed snow and ice, just enough to make it slippery and dangerous for twisting an ankle. We passed several groups of hiker/campers coming down from the Leconte Lodge, most wearing trail-spikes, a type of metal cleat that you can strap over your boots. I was wishing I had brought my own instep crampons, but at least I had pair of trekking poles which I shared with Amiyaal.
Amiyaal was also very interested in the winter hiking conditions. I guess this would be his first winter hiking experience (although he had hiked the Alum trail in soft snow before). he was stopping to admire icicles along the trail, taking pictures of the snow, and going very slowly and carefully over the slick ice. Despite the ice, we made good progress, passing a few more hiking groups heading up and ultimately reaching the Leconte Lodge around 11am. Not too shabby! When we arrived, there was hardly a breeze at all, and the sun was bright and warm, perfect for sitting in the wooden rockers on the deck and sharing some coffee. Amiyaal is self-professed coffee snob, for the most part looking down on American coffee, but I had brought a thermos of coffee with me and he was grateful to share it with me. After a few sips, he told me it was actually pretty good. To this day, I may never know if he was just being polite, or if he really thought the coffee I made was up to his standards, but I coudln't resist telling him mere seconds after his compliment, that the coffee was actually decaf! I had ruined it for him, because decaf coffee is a monstrosity that shouldn't be allowed! Well, no after making a few disparaging remarks about decaf, he still admitted that this particular batch of decaf coffee wasn't bad. And I was just smiling and laughing at him.
We hung out at the Leconte Lodge for a bit. I poked around inside the lodge to get answers for the Virtual Cache. This is actually one of the more involved virtual caches I have seen, but that's not saying much because most of the virtual caches don't require much to complete at all (simply go to a spot and answer one question that is obvious). The lodge is also very cozy and it would be wonderful to reserve a cabin up here and bring the whole family up for a night. I looked into this a bit and it would also be pricey and would require reservations a year in advance, so maybe it won't happen. Still, it was cool to see such a neat mountain-top lodge. We were too early for the dining hall to be open, so we ended up hiking up to the true summit of the peak, thinking perhaps we would stop at the dining hall on our return trip. Except... I had other ideas for a return trip. There was one more virtual cache "nearby", a 5 mile walk east along the Boulevard trail to a hut on the AT. It would make for a longer hike, more in the range of what we were planning on doing on the Cumberland Trail. Amiyaal was not too keen on making our hike longer, especially since everyone we asked about the conditions on the Boulevard Trail told us it was in bad shape, was dangerous, and would take twice as long as normal to complete. I wasn't convinced by any of these stories. From what we had seen, conditions up high in the Smokies were not that bad. Sure there was some ice and snow, but it was packed down and pretty easily passable. Amiyaal was more inclined to listen to "the experts" like the folks at the Lodge. But I began pushing for the extra hike as we climbed up to the true summit of LeConte.
The summit is actually just a pile of rocks in a stand of trees, so we continued another quarter of a mile to Myrtle Point. This extra little bit of trail was slick-ice, but we managed just fine and the views were fantastic. Again we took a break in the warm noon sunshine to eat some snacks and sip water. And I continued to advocate for a push to the AT. My main argument was that the trail couldn't be any rougher than what we had already done. In fact, the Boulevard trail and AT would be less steep for the descent so we could avoid the steep rocky sections of the Alum Bluff trail. PLus it was early enough in the day that we could start down the Boulevard trail, but if it got real bad we could simply turn around. Either my arguments were strong, or Amiyaal just got tired of hearing me spout out about how great it would be to hike back a different way, but ultimately, he caved and agreed to the hike. Yes!
Turns out, the Boulevard trail was in pretty good shape. Except for a small snowy section underneath Myrtle Point, most of the trail was snow-free and an easy stroll along a knife-edge ridge-line. The views weren't fantastic, but it was quiet, we had the trail almost entirely to ourselves, and I relished in the fact that the "experts" back at Leconte Lodge were wrong. They probably didn't really know what the trail was like and were just trying to steer tourists towards the trails that they prefer to use. Or they felt they were being risk adverse. Whatever the case, they were simply wrong about the trail, and it made for a very pleasant hike. We made excellent time and were on the AT by 3pm. Amiyaal was pretty tired by this point, but I dragged him a 1/4 mile the wrong direction on the AT so I could get the virtual cache, then we were marching down towards Newfound Gap. There were a ton of hikers on the AT, many without backpacks or even water bottles. Apparently this section of the AT is quite popular, which was good because we were counting on being able to hitch a ride from Newfound Gap down to our car at the Alum Cave trailhead. I was a little nervous about this, ebacuse I've never really hitch-hiked before. Turns out it was unbelievably easy, or maybe we were just insanely lucky. We walked into the parking lot, snapped a few pictures than walked over to the stop-sign at the corner and as soon as we stuck out our thumb, the van that was currently stopped at the sign rolled down its window and asked us how far we were going. When we said just down to Alum Cave trailhead, they told us to hop on in. Wow was that easy.
All said and done, we hiked 14.2 miles and climbed nearly 3000ft in elevation. I got to visit 4 virtual caches, the trails were wonderful, and for the most part uncrowded. And we even got home in time for dinner! Not a bad days hike. Now what's next?
No comments:
Post a Comment