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Smokies Chronicle

A Year of Hiking in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Of Hogs and Horace

This is the sixth in a series of hikes from the 2017 book Smokies Chronicle: A Year of Hiking in Great Smoky Mountains National Park by Ben Anderson. Anderson, a trail patroller and Adopt-a- Campsite volunteer for Great Smokies Mountain National Park, lives in Asheville. “The book provides a fresh look at the Smokies wilderness as witnessed during its four distinct seasons” in 40 individual hikes and personal narratives.

For a route that has long been derisively called The Road to Nowhere, Lake View Drive certainly leads to an inviting part of the park. But yes, it does end a long way from its originally intended destination near Fontana Dam. Today, on my final planned trip in the Smokies for the year, I travel the road again in order to hike out and back on more than half of the 10-mile Noland Creek Trail. Although the lower part of Noland Creek often flows at a relatively languid pace for a stream in the Smokies, on this mid-December day, it’s running fairly fast, thanks to recent rainfall that has provided some long-awaited relief to the drought-stricken park. Even so, this section of the creek seems in no great hurry to join Fontana Lake to the south.     

•••

It’s clammy and gloomy upon my arrival at a large parking area, located just before the long, curving bridge high above Noland Creek. There’s no car in sight except for a park-service vehicle that cruises by. Although dry for now, rain—a cold rain—is likely on the way. I ask myself if I really want to set out on what I hope will be a 12- or 13-mile hike round-trip. The answer is yes, as I’ve committed to it with a 100 minute drive from my house. After opting for heavier hiking boots, I walk down the steep, rocky access trail to Noland Creek Trail, well below the parking lot. At the latter path, I turn right, hiking away from the path’s Fontana Lake terminus and toward a junction with Noland Divide Trail. The junction is nine miles away, so I won’t reach it today. The tri-state Benton MacKaye Trail piggybacks the nine-mile section as it works its way northeast between Forney Ridge and Noland Divide, a stretch that climbs mostly gradually from less than 2,000 to more than 4,000 feet at the divide. But today, I plan to make it to an elevation of only about 3,000 feet before turning back.         

After walking beneath the soaring bridge span and crossing Noland Creek on a wooden bridge, I begin an easy ascent on the trail, which follows an old roadbed. The gray December forest, with its absence of foliage, provides a stark contrast to my last trip here on a sunny September afternoon, when the vegetation was almost jungle-like. But today rhododendron and dog hobble are all that impede—and just slightly—view after view of a lovely Smokies stream. 

Within a half hour, I reach a short side trail that leads to some mid-1980s memories, courtesy of Bear Pen Branch backcountry campsite. Situated where a school once stood, the campsite was then the jumping-off point for a couple of two-night backpacking trips. I rock-hop across the small branch to reach the site, a backcountry rarity in that it has picnic tables. Tall hemlock trees stand guard over the narrow, sloping camp. Leaning against one tree is a shock-corded tent pole that campers abandoned or forgot—likely the latter as it is still in good condition. As I rest at one of the tables, a few sprinkles start to fall, prompting me to don a rain jacket before I walk back to the main trail.

After returning to Noland Creek Trail, I climb the path, rising above a retaining wall, where I proceed to walk briskly on the gently graded roadbed. In about one-half mile, the trail passes through a handsome grove of towering white pines. Soon, the sprinkles become a light rain, and I begin to ponder how wet I am willing to get in 40 degree weather. I make a decision: if the rain seems heavy enough to halt a baseball game when I reach a junction with Springhouse Branch Trail—about 4¼ miles from my starting point—I plan to turn back. In the meantime, a series of creek crossings won’t be an issue, as they will be accomplished via wide—if slippery in places—wooden bridges. Soon, I reach Solola Valley, a formerly populated area, where a log flume operated in the early 20th century. (Commercial logging on Noland Creek actually began in the late 1880s.) In a few more minutes, I arrive at the trail junction, site of the expansive Mill Creek backcountry camp. By now the rain has stopped altogether, so I decide to poke around the site that not only has picnic tables of its own, but also a long hitching post with a battered horse trough.

About two hundred yards above the Mill Creek camp, just past a rock overhang, Noland Creek Trail traverses the stream on a rustically elegant footbridge, which features double handrails in the form of slender logs, similar to the bridge crossing Palmer Creek at the Caldwell Fork trailhead. Straight across the creek is the foundation wall of a former home. Within another mile, after the roadbed has yielded to a narrower, rockier trail, there’s a less elaborate foot log, positioned several feet above what has become, with the elevation change, a pushier Noland Creek. I hike past the Jerry Flats backcountry camp, where a side trail to the left leads to a cemetery, and then cross Noland Creek on yet another foot log. After a slight dip, the trail arrives at a wide creek crossing that is the end of the line for me, because the trail requires fording in the absence of a footbridge. With the temperature struggling to top 40 degrees, I’m not inclined to go wading in nearly knee-deep water six-plus miles from the trailhead. I reverse course in order to return to Jerry Flats, where a sign notes that the campsite is closed because of aggressive bear activity. I decide not to eat lunch in the middle of the camp, choosing instead a nearby off-trail spot. Soon, I’ll see a different type of large animal—an ill-mannered sort not welcome in the park.     

•••

There is a wild hog in these woods

Doodle um-day

There is a wild hog in these woods

Doodle um oh day

There is a wild hog in these woods that 

eats men’s flesh and drinks their blood

Cut him down

Cut him down

Catch him if you can

—from an old ballad  

•••

Yes, there’s a wild hog in these woods—actually hundreds of them, or more. They are the descendants of about 15 European wild boar that were brought to a private game preserve on Hooper Bald, southwest of the Smokies, in the early 20th century. Local residents began referring to the boar as “black Russians” or “Rooshians,” thinking they came from the Ural Mountains of Russia; more likely, they were from Germany or Poland. At any rate, their numbers multiplied rapidly before about 100 escaped the fenced preserve and disappeared into the surrounding area. They arrived in the southwestern corner of the park around mid-century and proceeded to establish themselves as easily the park’s largest exotic species. Occasionally, a boar will exceed 300 pounds. Although the boar is often nocturnal and rarely seen, signs of its rooting and wallowing are not uncommon, as the Rooshians essentially become hairy bulldozers in their unrelenting search for just about any kind of food. The boar—prosaically called wild or feral hogs by the park service because of their breeding with domestic hogs—is cunning, stealthy, and ornery. They are likely here to stay, despite being slowed by the viral disease pseudorabies and ongoing park efforts to control the population by trapping and hunting. In fact, the park service has removed more than 12,000 boars from the Smokies over the past half-century—800 times more than the 15 or so that came here originally.  

I note all this because this afternoon I’m startled to see my first wild boar of the year. After dozens of outings and more than 420 miles of hiking, the sighting occurs just a few miles from the end of my travels. He’s about 50 yards down trail before he dashes away in an impressive imitation of Olympics champion Usain Bolt. (Boar actually can run as fast as 30 miles per hour—faster than Bolt’s fastest short distance.) He stops, and then takes off again when he sees I’m still headed his way. When I round the next bend, he charges off a third time before finally taking a right turn off-trail into the woods. He waits there watchfully until I pass, and then heads back at a slower pace toward his original spot that I have apparently intruded upon. Perhaps the Rooshian has finally finished his afternoon wind sprints. 

After the entertaining boar show, I resume hiking at a fast pace, partly because drizzle has returned. As the trail rises well above the creek in some places and runs alongside it in others, I continue to enjoy the creek’s many beautiful stream scenes, featuring crystal-clear water. I briefly consider continuing on Noland Creek Trail to its southern terminus at a finger of Fontana Lake, thereby adding two miles round-trip to today’s excursion. Alas, a light rain starts to fall again by the time I reach the access trail to the parking area, and, no, Fontana Lake is not in the cards today, even with my rain gear. Instead, I reluctantly hike up the short path that connects to the parking lot, wistful that my year of hiking in the Smokies is ending. The cold rain suits my subdued mood.     

•••

Some of us outlanders who are attracted to live in or near the Great Smoky Mountains consider Bryson City a sort of spiritual home. Yes, it’s a lovely little town on the edge of the park, but it’s also where Our Southern Highlanders’ author and Smokies champion Horace Kephart lived during the final two decades of his life. More than a century after its initial publication, the seminal work and Kephart himself continue to be debated, stirring strong feelings among detractors and admirers alike. (Despite Kephart’s personal failings, I’m firmly in the latter category.) One Appalachian historian, for example, wrote that Kephart “completely distorted and misrepresented mountain life and customs,” adding that he depicted mountain people as “wretched backward creatures living in depravity and degradation.” That would not be my reading of Our Southern Highlanders. I thought the book was written by a perceptive observer, who lived among the people he wrote about, describing what he called their picturesque ways and charm of originality. And apparently many of them held the sometimes inscrutable “Kep” and his work in very high regard.

Soon after finishing today’s hike—my 40th excursion of the year into the Smokies—I find myself on School House Hill, overlooking holiday-bedecked Bryson City and the much higher terrain rising in the distance. As the season provides some cheer on what is now a dark, rainy December afternoon, I’m here to revisit Kephart’s gravesite, marked by a massive boulder in a prominent location in the town cemetery. Yes, I’m unapologetically paying homage to Horace after my year of hiking. It seems only fitting that I do this, for Kephart wrote and worked tirelessly to create the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. For example, in a magazine article published in 1926—the year the park was authorized—he wrote that if the Smokies’ remaining primeval forests could be saved “it will be a joy and a wonder to our people for all time.” In the light rain, I reflect for a few minutes on Kephart’s accomplishments and unconventional journey in life. On this latest of many visits to his resting place, I am moved, as always, by the unembellished words on the boulder’s plaque:

HORACE KEPHART

1862-1931

SCHOLAR, AUTHOR, OUTDOORSMAN.

HE LOVED HIS NEIGHBORS

AND PICTURED THEM IN

“OUR SOUTHERN HIGHLANDERS”

HIS VISION HELPED TO CREATE

THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS

NATIONAL PARK

Tragically, Kephart died in an automobile accident three years before the park was established; his esteem was such that people packed the local high school auditorium for his funeral. But as Kephart scholar George Ellison noted, he departed this life knowing that the park would become a reality. Thus, his beloved forests would be spared further desecration by large-scale logging operations. Kephart’s determined efforts, along with those of many others, gave succeeding generations a gift that should not be taken for granted. As for me personally, the gift I’ve received from Kephart and his fellow park advocates and benefactors is immeasurable: more than 30 years of adventures in the Smokies, none more memorable than an eventful year of hiking at age 64.

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