Oconaluftee River Trail 2

Hike notes written by Rod:

With the conclusion of this hike, Pam and Rod were finished with the 100 miles in the Smokey's Centennial Challenge. The trail head to the Oconaluftee River Trail is behind the Oconaluftee Visitor Centered and displays a period farm with actual working gardens at the beginning of the trail.

Much to our delight and relief, the trail was basically a sidewalk. It's only 1.5 miles in length and with sore feet and knees, it was a welcome change from the rocky wet surface for much of the lower side of Mingus Mill Creek Trail that we had just left behind. We also left behind our hiking poles and actually got to hold hands while hiking.

There are some interesting trees to consider. The trail passes under the Blue Ridge Parkway and provides a very nice backdrop for selfies ...

Pam stopped and took a picture of the fire danger for the area, which was HIGH. This was Friday morning. The ranger said there was only one fire in side the part, at the Chimney's. It was 100% contained and they were letting it burn itself out. Unfortunately, Sunday night and Monday the winds picked up to nearly 90 mph blasting this "contained fire" into a fire-y inferno that blew due north 8 miles and nearly destroyed Gatlinburg, killing 14 souls in the process. Our hearts go out to those who lost loved ones and property. All this happened by the time I could write this post.

Toward the end of the trail, it actually pokes out of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and ends in the town of Cherokee, NC. On the way back, we meandered off the trail and took a pic at the GSMNP sign.

As we approached the Oconaluftee Visitor Center, our hiking odometer was at 99.9 miles for the 2016 Centennial Challenge. Well, it's not good to celebrate until you cross into the the end zone, so on we plodded. Then, just as the magical unseen odometer clicked to 100 miles we were treated with an awesome gift from God.

Pam took a breath to say "we did it" when her eyes got big and she took off, camera in hand and pointing. There in the river were two elk, standing like trophies to celebrate our success. 

Then on to the visitor center we went. The rangers were very excited for us and we got the obligatory photos with the rangers.

The goal we all were looking forward to after finishing the challenge was the reception in Gatlinburg for all who had completed the 100 Mile Centennial Challenge. Due to the fires in Gatlinburg, the reception was cancelled. But congratulations to all the rest of you out there who finished the challenge this year. We hope to meed you on the trail someday.

Chuck and Heidi and ourselves had a little celebration meal at Panera Bread on the day it was suppose to happen in Gatlinburg.

Here's to many more miles of hiking!

Mingus Creek Trail Part 2

Rod and Pam were playing catch-up with this hike to reach the 100 Mile Centennial Challenge goal. Chuck and Heidi had done this same trail back in May of this year.  On Veteran's Day our group hiked for the weekend and several of us completed the 100 Mile Centennial Challenge. That left Rod and Pam with about 8 miles until completion, so they traveled to the Mingus Creek Trail during the long Thanksgiving weekend.

The rest of the hike notes are written by Rod:

Taking advantage of Thanksgiving long weekend, we got up early on Friday morning and drove to the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. There has been no rain and the south has been under a severe drought and fires have broken out in many ares of SE Tennessee and North Carolina. (Heidi breaking in here: This was just before the devastating fires in Gatlinburg). The visibility on the drive in was poor due to smoke.

Before we got there we knew we were in for a smoky day in the Smoky's. The ranger at the visitor center said there were eighteen active fires in Cherokee county alone. 

We opted to hike Mingus Creek Trail first.

The trail started out as a fairly level crushed stone path, soon we pass the archery range at Mingus Mill. 

After the archery range, the lower part of the trail became rocky and wet.

There were several creek crossings and a host of interesting fungi on trees begging to be photographed.

As the trail steadily rose we kept hearing voices. We were soon overtaken by Melissa and Kelly. We have quickly learned that folks we meet on the trail are typically very pleasant and eager to chat. These two were particularly fun to visit with.

In about 60 seconds we realized they are a cloned copy of our buddies Heidi and Chuck. Melissa is driven and has dragged her very patient, but a little more reluctant husband, Kelly, on over 1100 miles of the AT (so far). They were hiking the same section of trail we were, but much faster, so we said our goodbyes and they took off.

On the higher half of the trail, it was noticeably drier. There were no puddles of water trapped in leaves. The trail gets steeper and leads to a series of switchbacks. At the top, we were delighted to find our new friends bundled up with coats eating cheese and crackers. That's when we realized that the hot, sweaty climb was rewarded with a stiff, cool wind and little sun. A bit too cool, so out came our coats. We LOVE our new Eddie Bauer light-weight packable coats.

The trail sign for Mingus Creek trail and Deeplow Gap trail was laying on the ground. Nearby we found the rest of the trail post burnt off.  Heidi and Chuck had taken a picture of this very spot with an intact sign in May.

We took advantage of one of the switch backs and enjoyed a great lunch.

We soon heard another voice. Hiking alone and talking to herself, we met Jeanette. All her hiking parters were all off visiting family so she came alone and is knocking out some miles toward her 900 Mile Challenge. She has two trails left to hike and hopes to be finished in the near future.

On the way back, there is a cemetery a ways off the trail. Not part of the mileage we needed, so we stopped and took a pic of the sign and kept on hiking. Near the parking lot we could see Mingus Mill hiding in the vegetation to the right. We paused to snap some pics in passing, but we were just 3 miles short of the 100 mile goal, so kept on.

We made our first bear sighting in the Smoky's. Pam was not impressed.

Clingman's Dome Bypass Trail/Appalachian Trail to Newfound Gap

We are all doing another challenge, in addition to the 900 Miler Challenge and the 100 Mile Centennial Challenge. The additional challenge is called A.T. 100, which is to hike 100 miles on the Appalachian National Scenic Trail in the year 2016, with "at least one being on the Appalachian Trail."

So that leaves some things open to interpretation: "At least one being on the AT" could mean at least one mile, or at least one trail ... We took it to mean at least one trail. Since we hadn't hiked any of the AT this year, we decided to hike a section of it on Saturday, November 12, 2016. The section we chose was up at Clingman's Dome to Newfound Gap via the AT.

A little disclaimer: Each of us had hiked the .5 mile "there and back" (for a mile total) segment up to Clingman's Dome shortly before the official start of our 900 Miler Challenge. So instead of doing it again, we chose to add that mileage into our challenge and took the Bypass Trail up to the AT instead of the .5 mile paved tourist trap trail. The Bypass Trail included a short segment of Forney Creek Trail (0.1 miles).

At the top, the elevation is just over 6500 ft., and the views, which are usually remarkable, were instead quite smoky, and not the typical Smoky Mountain look. The air had the scent of smoke and we were reminded how dry the south is at this point.

Lisa had left before we arrived, as Ken drove up to Newfound Gap, picked up a carload of us (leaving a car behind for shuttling later).

This section of the trail was quiet and offered good views of the meandering Smoky's, (were it not for the smoke, they would have been rated "excellent.")

We picked up the Appalachian Trail and had to get our traditional selfie, using a trekking pole for a selfie-stick. It is beneficial to own Leki poles, as does Pam - she has an optional camera attachment for iPhone that she has added to the pole.

We have hiked a small section (1.7 miles) of the AT late last year, and picked up this section again at the end of this hike. We didn't see any through hikers on the trail. I was hoping to see someone that fit the description ...

Due to the elevation, the scenery was quite different from previous recent hikes, more pines, fewer leaves on the trail, cooler temps.

We met up with Lisa on the AT and took another selfie with the whole group.

And somewhere along the AT, we ended up on Love Mountain. Someone suggested Kiss-ey Selfies, so sorry if this is TMI ... but we couldn't pass that up:

Two hikers passed us in the middle of the selfie-kissing-multiple-attempts ... We suggested that they may be interested in knowing that they were on Love Mountain ... They quickly sped off, after a brief look of possibly horror ... It was suggested that maybe there were brother and sister. Who knows, but they didn't stick around to talk and we never saw them again. Oh well.

After what seemed like a very short time, it was noted that the sun was directly above and this of course signals the stomach to consider it's need for food. So we looked for sunlight along the trail and finally found enough to satisfy us all.

Then began the series of down hill sections, and several knees let several of us know they were quite displeased. It was slow-going for a bit.

On top of Mount Collins, Chuck and Heidi hit their 100 Miles for the 2016 Centennial Celebration! Woo Hoo!

The famous white trail blazes of the AT.

This is cool:

A section of the trail had downed trees everywhere, leaving the large root systems exposed and begging for photographs.

We met up with another hiker, Robert Burton at Fork Ridge Trail intersection. We talked for a while and found out that he has hiked 1600 miles in the Smoky's, has seen 89 bears, and has hiked all the roads in the park. This trail was one of his favorite hikes and he was happy to join us for the remainder of the hike.

He parked at the Road Prong Trail head, so we got a photo of us all at the white blaze for the AT. The best photo was blurry, the sun was setting.

We had 1.7 miles of the AT remaining until Newfound Gap parking area and hiked most of the remainder in the dark. Some of us tried it without headlamps for a while, which worked as long as a fellow hiker didn't ruin the night vision ...

We got in our car and drove back up to the car parked at Clingman's Dome parking area, then came back down and got this shot ... Ken and Lisa had taken off at this time.

The STATS:

Total Mileage hiked: 8.9 PLUS 1.0 miles to and back from Clingman's Dome done previously= 9.9

Mileage Added to 900 Mile Challenge: 7.7 miles

Total Miles Hiked Toward 900 Mile Challenge: 100.3

Miles Added to Centennial Challenge: 8.9 miles

Total Miles Hiked Toward 100 Mile Centennial Goal: 105.6