Hardy Hiking

  Snowy road conditions in the park kept us from our January 19th hike, which brought us to Noland Creek on the 26th. Driving up through the main drag (Everett St) of Bryson City and on past Swain County High School, the road becomes Fontana Rd (Lake View Drive on the NSMP map), otherwise famous/infamous for its local title as the Road to Nowhere.  This time of year, the end of the Road to Nowhere is blocked to the parking lot by the tunnel. A half-mile before that and a sweeping curving bridge is a parking lot on the left, from which a trail leads down and under the bridge. In sunny 30 to 40 degree weather, we hiked upstream climbing some 300 feet of elevation over 4.2 miles, to the planned lunch-site at the 3 picnic tables of campsite 64. "Trail/hike" implies something much less, but this is a wide, easy-walking flat dirt road. From the clear imprint of the tire tracks, this is a road well traveled by park rangers as well. Rare that a winter plant climbs, that a fern climbs...

The hike for Wednesday, January 12, 2022 hike went from the SMNP's Mingus Mill parking lot, bypassing almost any sight of the Mingus Mill operation and its productive January icicle making charm, and continued over 2.9 miles to Deeplow Gap.  It follows Mingus Creek initially, then branching left, follows Madcap Creek for a while before hikers climbed the switch-backing slope to the gap. The trail is part of the 1,100 mile Mountains to the Sea Trail. The morning below-freezing temperatures enabled creeks and contributing rivulets to be busy with their own popsicle-stick-making designs. If you don't hike in the winter you always miss these wonderworks of nature.  Many "winter-green children",  many in symbiotic-like collages of multiple species, lined and enriched our route. A few examples follow. Woodland Stonecrop sedum Dog pelt lichen intermediate wood fern scarlet elf cup (a fine catch by sharp-eyed J. Smith) club moss The hoar-frost was putting on quite a show. pa...

Some 20 hikers well provisioned with winter gear, poles, packs and lunch took on the brisk 37 degree January air alongside the Bradley Fork Trail. It eventually warmed into the upper 40's as the sun's winter heat began to penetrate the valley. The car pools left Poteet Park and regathered at Smokemont campground (GSMNP) for the trailhead around 2200 feet altitude. The goal was simply to get some distance up the trail, with some going the 5.1 mile distance to lunch at Cabin Flats (around 3,000 feet) and others lunching and heading back at earlier points to create 4 to 6 mile events. (Click to enlarge images.) asdf Throughout this hike the Bradley Fork and other streams are almost always in full view and hearing. They were in their energetic glory this day with the snowmelt yielding heavy cascades of water spilling over nature's randomly fashioned rock tumbles, making an endless variety of creative falls and pools that beg for photographing. Cabin flats (GSMNP camp site 49) O...