ON TOP OF OLD SMOKY—THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS

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Memorial Day Weekend in the Great Smoky Mountains—What were we thinking?

This is actually my second attempt at writing this update. My first attempt was far too lengthy. I have made a commitment to myself to keep my post limited to no more than 2,000 words each.

We awoke Saturday morning, packed the backpacks, loaded the Pathfinder and hit the road. Our final destination was unknown (imagine that) but we were on a mission—to conduct a final function check on gear and finalize our packing list.

We took some back roads and headed up to check out Hiawassee Dam. On the way, the local police were thick as flies. One followed me for about 15 miles and paced my speed. Although I was breaking no laws, I got a little nervous with him behind me.

We departed the dam and headed towards Murphy, NC. We were a little concerned that we were attempting to camp on Memorial Day Weekend without any reservations, but our backup plan would be to stay in a hotel if necessary. We stopped to check out a campground along the way, but it was unsuitable.

We stopped in Murphy for a quick pizza buffet and headed down the road. The vehicle magically pointed itself in the direction of the Nantahala Gorge (with a little asstance from Lynnestar). For those who may not know, the Nanty, as locals call it, is our second favorite location in the entire US. As we entered the gorge, we drove by the location of our favorite campground. As it turns out, the campground located right on the Nantahala River was sold in 2005 for a whopping $4.8 Million to a developer. The new development will squeeze 66 luxury homes into the 1.7 mile stretch of river front. Our hearts were torn apart that this beautiful location will be destroyed forever.

The Nanty is one of the country’s most popular white water rafting destinations. We stopped along the river to watch some of the rafters drift on by. I asked Lynne if she would be interested in doing some whitewater rafting and she said yes. Wow, I couldn’t believe it and I didn’t even have to sell her on the idea.

We drove past the remaining campgrounds in the gorge, but they were all full. We then proceeded through Bryson City and headed to the Deep Creek National Park campground and found a suitable site.

After securing out site, we went back to the registration point and paid for the site on the automated machine. While there, we chatted with Donna, the park ranger. I pointed out Marco sitting on the dash and explained how Marco would accompany us around the world. I then informed her that Marco wanted to earn his Junior Park Ranger badge. She was a little baffled and said she would have to “check it out” and get back with us.

Ah Yes, camping on Memorial Day weekend in any popular destination is absolutely insane, but this fact didn’t set in until after we had set up camp. Actually Lynne did most of the setting up so see could get the experience. I was the fire master and had to tend to getting our campfire going.

We were camped on the loop above the primary tenting area. The area right down on the creek was jam packed and slightly resembled a dysfunctional circus to include a wide variety of animals (dogs). I must be missing something here, but when did it become popular to round up every dog you can imagine and take them on a camping trip?

After getting camp set up and a fire going, we began to settle into our home for the next two days. I immediately began to question my sanity for selecting this weekend to do this, but determined that this was our only opportunity to do our final checks.

We cooked dinner on the open fire and using a combination to two homemade alcohol stoves and my new MSR Pocket Rocket. I learned I would need to modify meal choices to reduce cooking times on the stoves. More to follow in a latter post on this subject.

Let me paint a little picture. Imagine 50 out of control, screaming kids who seemed to have left their medications at home. Imagine 50 untamed neurotic dogs who have never seen another dog or person outside of their immediate family. Imagine Cooter Brown in the next campsite who left his hearing aid at home and was forced to crank up his music in order to enjoy it. Oh, did I mention that Cooter had 3 dogs of his own. I think they were competing with the other dogs to earn the title as the loudest dog on the block award. I know this whole scene was just practice in tolerance for some of the stuff we would be subjected to on the trip.

10:00 PM was the magic hour. Quiet hours and an eerie silence fell over the campground. With the exception of Billy Joe Bob letting out his occasional wolf matting call, things quieted down for the evening. Lynne and I sat back and enjoyed the fire. We had the opportunity to reflect on previous camping trips and enjoy the memories of these previous trips.

Sunday, we awoke to the chilly morning air. I got a quick fire started using my Vaseline/cotton ball trick at had instant warmth. I brewed my coffee and made some bloatmeal. The bloatmeal proved to be a quick simple breakfast.

After breakfast we headed to the trailhead that would take us to Juney Whank Falls. Lynne made the climb remarkably well. We stooped at the falls for a while and enjoyed watching the water cascading downhill.

After returning to camp. We finalized our decision to take the whitewater rafting trip. We headed back to the Nanty and decided to go with the Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC). We opted for the guided trip because Lynne was a little apprehensive about attempting this. This 8.5 mile trip were classified as Class II, but had one Class III rapid, the Nanthala Falls. After signing up and waiting for our departure time, they took the group to the pavilion for a safety briefing. Although the guy giving the briefing attempted to be humorous, he missed his mark when he began discussing an “out of boat experience”. Lynne was not amused. We then got outfitted and loaded the bus for the journey upstream. We were paired up with four pretty cool guys from India. The trip was really spectacular. The water coming out of the Nantahala Dam was a brisk 50 degrees. As we hit a few of the small rapids, the cold water splashed the boat. Because it was a warm day, it actually felt quite refreshing. During the course of the trip, we engaged in multiple splash fights with other rafts on the river. Lynne still hasn’t figured out that when you get grown men on a trip like this, we resort back to our childhood and have a blast by splashing water. This is where I insert a great quote from my late brother Michael. “The world is my playground and I refuse to grow up.”

Our guide did a remarkable job steering us down the river. On several occasions he set his course to intentionally crash us into boulders so we could spin off of them or simply just crash into them head-on. What a blast. When we approached Nantahala Falls, he cautioned us that if we hit the falls sideways, we would most likely have “an out of boat experience”. He plotted his course and instructed us “all forward hard and fast”. We immerged from the falls unscathed except for a good dowsing of cold water.

After beaching the boat and turning in the gear, we headed up to the photo center to check out the tourist photos. I typically refuse to buy tourist photos, but we had to have proof that Lynne had her first white water experience. Lynne kept saying “no one is going to believe I went white water rafting”. She did awesome and has added that to her list of accomplishments.

After returning to the camp, we cooked dinner, sat around the fire for a while and crashed for the evening.

Monday morning we were preparing our breakfast and Donna, the ranger stopped by and said she could hook us up with a Junior Park Ranger badge for Marco. We packed up and headed up to the park entrance. Donna presented Marco with his junior ranger badge. This was too cool. Marco had to take some pictures of the occasion for his scrapbook as well.

We headed into the Great Smoky National Park. The place was packed with visitors from the weekend. I would recommend this park to anyone, but would caution to stay away on holiday weekends. These mountains are full of awesome vistas and valleys with plenty of spring fed waterfalls. We headed up to Clingman’s Dome, the highest point in the park and along the entire Appalachian Trail. She peaks out at 6,643 feet. Upon reaching the summit, we notice the forest of dead fir trees. The firs were killed off by an insect imported from Japan. These little critters nearly wiped out the entire fir population before a beetle was brought in to eat the insects. The firs are slowly beginning to rebound. I could get into very descriptive details about the beauty of the Great Smoky mountains, but this is one park you will need to see for yourselves.

We took our time coming back to the mountain and the weather was perfect the entire trip.

Ok, so let me address a few lessons learned from this final function check.

Camping meals will be adjusted to get rid of long cook time meals. Instant noodles are scratched. Instant mashed potatoes rock. Oatmeal passes the breakfast test. I will carry a limited amount of food to sustain us in the event we find a stealth camping opportunity.

Lynne’s self-inflating sleeping pad is too short. We will trade up for a longer pad before we depart.

The sleep sacks work great during moderate temperatures, but sleeping bags are essential when the temperature drops.

Color coded stuff sacks worked out great. Everything had it’s place and easy to find in a hurry. I knew what was in Lynne’s and she knew what I had in mine. Stuff sacks made packing the backpacks a breeze. We will trim down a size of a couple of these sacks.

The LED headlamps proved to be invaluable. Well worth their weight.

Our trekking shoes were right on the money. These turned out to be extremely comfortable.

All of my clothing options are final and minimal. Lynne will find another pair of pants to replace her “quick wicking” pants. She was not impressed with the way they felt.

I was concerned about packing my Gerber “Gator” knife, but it proved far to valuable to leave behind.

This function check was effective. I determined that we need a written checklist to prevent leaving anything behind. As it turns out, I left my shorts behind and did not have them for the trip. We will use this checklist for our final packing list. Beginning tomorrow, we will finalize our packing plan. This will entail, laying everything out several times, packing everything into the stuff sacks, loading the backpacks, weighing the packs, and tweaking our final list.

Keep the questions coming. I will be posting Volume 3 of FAQs in the next day or two. We are 8 days out from our departure now.

Check it out. I squeezed all of this information into this post and still had 20 words to spare to keep it under 2,000 words.

Happy Trails to you—Until we meet again…

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Photos

Nantahala Falls
Shooting a rapid at Nantahala Falls

Marco Takes a Hike
Marco and his hiking buddy

Warning
Rachel, Here's another sign for ya. Marco wanted to pass this one on to ya.

Old Farmhouse
Farmhouse in the Smoky Mountains