What a hiking trip, Smokies trip

chiefjason

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I'm just going to tell the story in it's entirety and post pics, lots of pics again, in the next couple posts. The entire story is just too good. This is about the worst situation I've gotten myself into in the woods.

We planned on spending 3 nights and 4 days in the Smokies. Hiking a loop from the Road to Nowhere tunnel, up Forney Creek, over to Hazel Creek, and back. First day went great, even got a little fishing in and caught about 5 decent rainbows in the little time I had.

The next days hike went well, but ended up being much further than I had anticipated. I guess that's part my error for not researching it, but I did find a glitch in the NG map and Avenza program that has the trail length off by several MILES. Not the end of the world but it made for a long day and I had to carry both our packs for the last couple miles to make camp by dark. 13.6 miles instead of my estimate of 10 ish. We got dinner made and camp half set up when it started raining.

And raining

And pouring

All night.

Got up and made Bfast before the rain started...again. Made the creek crossing for Cold Spring Trail. I made it less than 1/3 across and it was to the top of my thighs. Not taking that kind of chance. Set there for an hour and a half and it came up 6" instead of falling. I was already looking for the way out since we could not cross the creek to get back to the truck.

Ate lunch and headed for the mouth of Hazel Creek. Ran into a trail crew and discussed what my plans were with them. Which were to hike out to Fontana Dam in 2 days or get lucky and get a boat out. They offered to send a boat back for us if we needed to get out. We could have made the hike out tomorrow, but it would have been more miles than we had planned. Again. And it would have put us getting out late in the afternoon, with little food left, and likely no one around to really help.

We opted for the boat ride. $50 to get to Fontana Marina. But now we were on the wrong side of the park than my truck. I explained our situation to the captain on the way across and since he lives in Bryson City he offered to drive us back to the Ingles there from Fontana. He had to pay a couple guys to cover his work. Then his brother drove us from Ingles out to the truck. He asked for $100 and I gave him $150. Much cheaper than getting into something stupid at that creek crossing. And Lauren and I have a story the might get told a few times, here and by our captain. lol
 
Day 1. Road to Nowhere to Campsite 70 on Forney creek. A bit over 7 miles in.

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Bear tracks

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I think this is an old water wheel footing.

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Got a couple of these guys after pitching camp.

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Day 2. Site 70, over Welch's Ridge to site 82 on Hazel Creek. This was one long day, about 13.5 miles. That was several more miles than the map seemed to show, but that's the GPS reading anyway. And it sure felt like it. Rained most of the morning and started raining again after dinner.

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Day 3, and where it got interesting. It had rained all night and started back after breakfast. Kept raining until about 10:30 or so. When we got to the trail crossing it was too swollen to cross. So we hiked out to the mouth of Hazel Creek and got a boat ride out.

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This is Cold Spring Gap creek crossing. It was upper thigh deep less than 1/3 of the way across. I could barely get my trekking poles to the bottom. Couldn't see the bottom. And Lauren could barely move her feet when I made her turn back. Check up and down stream and it was just as bad or worst.

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Upstream

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Downstream

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Pics of lower hazel creek. Thankfully all the crossing on the way to the lake had bridges.

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This is how to carry 60 lbs with a 60L pack, you carry both of your packs. lol

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Calhoun house at the bottom of the valley.

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The boat ride out was absolutely gorgeous. Lauren was none too happy to find out we were in 450' of water.

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The GPS log of our trip.

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@chiefjason

Why was your daughter none too happy to find out you were in 450 ft of water?

PS, good call on not fording the creek. That was a lot of water. I wouldn't have done it either.
 
Last edited:
@chiefjason

Why was your daughter none too happy to find out you were in 450 ft of water?

PS, good call on not fording the creek. That was a lot of water. I wouldn't have done it either.

She just doesn’t like being over deep water. One of those things. She would have rather walked out than taken the boat out I think. Or at least that’s what she said initially.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Great trip Jason, thanks for posting. Oh man...a dad and his kid, sharing time for more than a couple of hours, a challenge ahead, and memories that will be shared for a lifetime. Well done.
 
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