The Smokies gave us EVERYTHING

The awesome power of the Smoky Mountains was unleashed upon Mike and I day after day during our five night, six day trek across the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Apparently, Old Man Smoky decided he would give two skinny, bedraggled hikers ALL the best and worst his mountains had to give - probably chose us becuase he was impressed with Mike's beard which has reached epic and lustrous proportions. Even the old timers in the small Appalachian towns we stop in give him nods of appreciation.

It must first be mentioned, however, before embarking on the tale of the Smokies that Warbler has been given a new name to befit the incredible strength and prowess he has shown upon this trek. His new name is COUGAR, given to him by our fellowship of Padre, Jeff (the most hilarious man on earth) and Melski. Unfortunately, I am now referred to as "Tater", short for small potato (instead of Ramps) more befitting of my small size in comparison to the mountain men I travel with. I'm sure our trail names will morph with the terrain, but as of now we're Cougar and Tater.

Before we got to GSMNP, we had to walk over Fontana Dam, the highest dam in the eastern US.





Now on to the Smokies... The great adventure is best begun with an eloquent excerpt from Mike's journal:

"Like silent brushes of a drum, the mists, the fog, the tumultuous waves of mountain wind - they are like apparitions that filter through the laurel, somewhere between the past and what lies ahead out of view. And as ghosts of man or beast, the obscured shapes that flutter behind and in the fog cry and whisper out, immeasurably, the mournful and sublime soul of the mountains."

This fog that Mike speaks of follows us, sometimes for days. It's a marker of the beginning and end of the harsh, torrential, freezing spring rains that we have endured at all times of day and at all elevations. One particular storm two days ago gave me a nasty head cold that makes hiking from sun up to sun down thousands of vertical feet most unpleasant. When the fog breaks, however, the views are so gorgeous and breataking, we stare for minutes, not talking, to take the view into our minds and souls.

The fog is most dream-like when the bleached bones of the conifers peer out against the gray, thick fog that is sometimes so dense, you can't see but a few feet in front of you. A sad, but very evident death of large swaths of conifers in the Appalachians is due to the hemlock wooly adelgid, a North American intruder that rode in on timber shipped across the sea from Asia. The small insect devours the sap and fluids of the hemlock trees and leaves behind little cotton-swab looking deposits on the trees it attacks - all of the once magestic and ancient hemlock trees that we see are either dead or have the tell-tale signs of the adelgid all over them. Park rangers say it was probably introduced into the eastern US in the 1950's and the damage it's done since then is incredible; whole mountain sides lay bear of hemlocks due to this infestation. The drought that has plagued this region for the past couple years (trust me - it's not troubling anyone this year) has caused fungus to grow on the trees which makes them even more susceptible to the adelgid.

Despite the wars that this great forest must fight on all fronts every day, it is still one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Mike and I saw a vast array of all things green, furry, scaley, slithery and feathered. We also saw (dad - close mom's eyes for this) five black bears. Three up close and personal from the confines of Russel Field Shelter that was gated in order to protect the inhabitants from the bears. When dinner was being made by the six or so people who were staying there a large mother bear and her two older cubs came ambling out of the woods to sit down and share our meal. They slowly circled the group and all the humans immediately put down their food. Did we run? OH NOOOooo. We immediately picked up our cameras and snapped as many photos as possible which didn't discourage the bears in the least. They kept approaching and one even bluff-charged Mike, who bravely stood his ground and was the only member of the group to do what is supposed to be done in such circumstances - he yelled and threw rocks to shoo the bears away. Unfortunately, this group of bears had been doing this for quite some time - this would be their last. A ranger and an intern (a 21 year old girl who was about 4 feet tall and weighed about 80 pounds - not the type you'd expect to handle bears) spent the night in the shelter with us. Their goal was to tranquilize the bear from the shelter while the bear was wandering around the perimiter so that she would associate the negative experience with the shelter in-particular. The bear would then be re-located in an attempt to stop her from coming to parties she wasn't invited to. The cubs would be caught and re-located with their mother. Although the bears did pace the shelter, about 5 feet in front of us for a couple hours that evening, we didn't get to see the ranger tranquilize the bear. We did hear down the AT grapevine that he did it a few hours after we left in the morning and it was a success. Another younger male also made a visit, but wasn't considered a 'problem bear' and so was ignored by the ranger. Upon descending from Cosby Nob Shelter, the day before we left the Smokies, we saw another bear drinking from a mountain stream just off the trail - this one skeedadled up the mountain side faster than you could blink. I also think I saw the rump of a feral hog that day - actually, I'm sure of it.











Mike and I made a small detour into Gatlinburg to get sleep that we hadn't had in 3 days (as you can imagine, lack of sleep is as dangerous as lack of gear and food). This sleeplessness was due to a symphony of snores and air exchanges, passed through every human orifice possessed by old male hikers who shared the shelters with us (yes, we have since purchased ear plugs). Gatlinburg had more fast food and Ripley's Believe it or Not venues than we imagined possible. We got there by hitch-hiking from Newfound Gap, first with a nice couple who spoke only of their love of panda bears and the Biltmore Estate - they couldn't decide which they loved more, and back to the gap with a large family packed into the front of a big pick-up that was so much fun to sit in the back of and ride to the top of the mountain, wind in our hair and waterfalls around every turn. Mike sums up the Gatlinburg experience well in his journal:

"Gatlinburg represented the greasiest, most excessively novel and fried vulgarities of rural America's tourism industry, and as such, found its way into the most guilty pleasures of every southerner's artery-clogged heart. For us, there was a sense of shock and awe, but we found ourselves playing along to at least one of Gatlinsburg's offerings, the sought after treasure of travelers entering civilization - beer."

I wanted to get an apple in Gatlinburg so I asked a woman working at Subway. This is how the conversation went:

"Excuse me ma'am, where can I buy an apple in this town?"
"Darlin, you c'aint buy no apple in Gatlinburg. The nearest place is a grocery stoare 'bout seven maaailes by trolley."
"Um, there's no place in this whole town I can buy a piece of fruit?"
"Well, dang...um - LEEEROY, you know whare this here lady can buy an apple?"
Leroy - "No."
"Ok, thanks anyway ma'am."
"Well, darlin, ya mightn' try the candy store. I know they sell them candy apples, you mightn' get one not candied?"
"Oh, yeah, I'll check - thanks."

So, I was able to procure an apple at the candy store for $0.54 that had not yet been fried, candied, or goobered in any way. We decided to leave the all-you can eat buffet and country shows for our next visit. We were AT hikers and the trail was a'callin, despite our swollen feet, tired eyes and weary bones. Come to find out it was a good thing we rested the night in Gatlinburg - upon meeting up with our friends here in Hot Springs, NC (After 271 miles and our first 20-mile day - yeeeaaahh!!) they had to run full speed over a mountain summit the day we left them because of an intense lighting storm that they did NOT even laugh about for an instant - they said they all feared for their lives, threw down their poles and cowered for some time until the storm let up...

Mike and I are staying in an old Victorian home that holds many tales of Appalachian lore, myth and music (and magic). Technically, what we are staying in is a farmhouse built in 1840 that was combined with another house on the property built just a few years after the Civil War. It has gone in and out as a retreat location, eventially going in and out of ownership but eventually maintaining itself as an inn for travelers - many visiting the healthful natural hot springs in town. Once it was owned by Jane Gentry, a noted musician and folklorist from the end of the 19th century. One of the travellers that came through was the infamous British folklorist Cecil Sharpe. He was coming through the region to compile songs for a book entitled, English Ballads of the Southern Mountains. He stayed at the inn and Ms. Gentry contributed 64 songs to Sharpe's collection and was later herself recorded for the Library of Congress folk archives. The inn nods back to its musical history with a music room well equipped for travelers - Mike has taken full advantage of a banjo he's fallen in love with that sits on a velvet cushioned chair in the room. He plans on recording himself on it tonight after the vegetarian feast that will be prepared for us and our hiking friends at the inn, now known as Elmer's Sunny Bank Inn - not bad for $20 a night! Mike and I also spent some of the day helping Elmer himself re-paint the finials of the house that had been built in the 1840's while we talked about Appalachian music...we're thinking about staying and working for him for a day to get a free night's stay and learn about the history of the town - haven't decided about this yet.

Miss everyone and we're thinking about all of you all the time! Grandma - I'll be calling you in Erwin, TN, the next town we come to about 5 days from now- I've been thinking about you, especially since the sky is so often your favorite color of soft bluish grey.

LOVE
COUGAR AND TATER