Our last day in Smokey Mountain National Park – and no pussy footing around…it was time to hike! We got up early and were at the park gates by 9:00 a.m. We headed up the 45 minute long drive to Clingman’s Dome – the highest point in the park.Two things we noticed about this climb: 1) the air was chilly, and 2) the trail was steep. The walk to the top was a little dampened by the results of a Frasier fir eating aphid called the Balsom Wooly Adelgid. The insect came to the US on imported nursery stock in the 1950s from Europe. It has been eating the snot out of all the Frasier firs since. The rangers are concerned because this is one of the only places in the United States that the Frasier Fir appears in the wild. They are attempting to control its spread, but it is a tough job.
The devastation of this tiny, little bug was far-reaching. Thousands of bare trunks stuck up amongst living trees marring the landscape and creating and eerie mood. As we and some of our fellow hikers looked at the ravaging, one phrase from an earlier trail guide came to mind. “The only thing in a forest that is constant is change.” And so, though this may be sad right now, it is a blip in history. The future can hold much – the majority of which is unknown.
So, our hearts a little lighter for remembering that God is in charge, we headed back down Clingman’s Dome and on the way hiked another ¼ mile section of the Appalachian Trail. This part of the trail near Clingman’s Dome is narrow and rocky. We got lots of mountain kisses on our legs (dewy grass drying itself on our shins). And, we enjoyed meeting several hikers like ourselves. We also met two real, honest-to-goodness, bed-roll packing, in-it-for-the-whole-shebang hikers. The boys were impressed.
After we returned to the car, we finished the 8 page requirement in the Junior Ranger books and headed on back down to the Oconaluftee Visitor’s Center. The boys had to do 8 activities each, attend a ranger talk, pick up a bag full of trash and then get sworn in. To get our “Not So Junior Ranger” patch, we had to attend 3 ranger talks. We were not done with our job. So, we headed back to the Mountain Farm Museum to attend a presentation called “Batteries Not Included.”
This ranger led activity was really fun. The whole family enjoyed playing fox and geese, tops, corn darts, clothespins, a springy thing that I don’t know the name of, a wooden dancing man, marbles and stilts! Dad’s particular skill was with the fox and geese game, our youngest was a whiz with corn darts and our oldest gave several lessons on how to make the dancing man dance.
Mom, however, was declared the best all-around at stilts impressing several tourists and the ranger with my excellent stilt skills. Little did they know that I spent many childhood hours walking from the garage to the machine shed on my very own pair. Apparently, walking on stilts is like riding a bike – even I was surprised at how easily it all came back. I ended up holding kind of a stilt clinic right there teaching several other families the best grip hold and the easiest style of mounting.
After that, we ate a lunch of boiled eggs and headed into the ranger station to be sworn in. We got a really good ranger who looked carefully over all of the boys’ work in their books asking them questions while he looked. “What’s your favorite national park?” he asked. “Yellowstone,” the boys promptly answered. Not missing a beat he said, “That was the wrong answer, try again.” They got it right the second time.
Properly sworn and badged, we hopped into the car and drove to the Deep Creek campground to do some more hiking around two water falls found in that area. We ended up hiking about 4.5 miles of trails from about 2:00 to about 6:00 p.m. We hiked up the Deep Creek Trail and then joined with the Indian Creek Trail about halfway in and followed it down. We waded at the bottom of Indian Creek Falls – freezing water, but it felt excellent on the feet and shins after 3 miles of trail. We finished by watching the tubing along the bottom half of Indian Creek.
The tubing looked very fun, but we were most entertained by a tattooed woman getting out of the creek wet, smiling and exclaiming to anyone who would listen: “That is dangerous! I was wondering why everyone was walking back down with their tubes, but now I know why! They need to post danger sounds around here!”
Secretly, we thought she probably had a pretty good time.
We met some people on the trail. One family from Raleigh, NC waded with us at the falls and a mother, father and daughter were fly fishing up at the top of Deep Creek and followed us back down the trail. It was nice to have their company.
On the trail we saw several of the plants that we had learned about in the junior ranger books. One in particular is the tulip tree. The leaves of this tree look chopped off at the top – sort of like it forgot to grow in that part. We also are seeing Rosebay Rhododendron everywhere – even though there is a small family argument about whether or not to call it R.R. or Mountain Laurel.
After the trail, we were definitely ready to get back to the cabin and spend our last night enjoying it. We ate spaghetti for supper and then got into the hot tub to soak our sore muscles. It was incredible. We will miss our little cabin on the side of the mountain very much.
While we were soak
ing, we sat and watched a rather large spider gather her dinner for the evening and talked about the last few days. For my youngest, the best part was the nature trail where we discovered the remains of Nick McCarter’s cabin and explored John Ownsby’s cabin. For my oldest, it was the hike to the top of Clingman’s Dome to look around. For my husband, it was holding the honor of being one of the very first ever “Not So Junior Rangers” sworn in on the first year of the only National Park that has the program in place. For me, it was making the corn shuck doll and playing with the old fashioned toys.We each enjoyed the Smokies in our own way. Tomorrow we turn west and for home.
