How About a Warm-Up Hike?

Cosby Weekend - Day One - 7/25/08 - Hemphill Bald Trail/Caldwell Fork Trail/Rough Fork Trail - 13.7 Miles
 

I am writing this many days after my last outing, so the facts may be a little fuzzy (embellished?) but the great feeling is still there. First of all, I have to say that this hiking weekend was an absolute delight with seven very cool and accomplished outdoorsy women. I had to work hard to keep up my self-image as a savvy hiker. There was lots to learn from this group, many stories (some of which shall remain confidential) and lots of laughter.

For my first trick I talked Carolyn into leaving Charlotte at crack-of-dawn-thirty to squeeze in a little hike on the way to Cosby Campground in Tennessee, our weekend home base. Yes, that's why you can't find the above referenced route in the Cosby area of the Park map - it isn't there! This is Hike #3 in the Cataloochee section (yes, I know it's closer to Balsam Mountain but...) in Etnier's book. The Hemphill Bald Trail is accessed from Heintooga Ridge Road on the NC side of the Park and actually follows the eastern Park boundary. You can stick your hand over the fence and be on private land. You can also get licked by a cow. The upper part of the trail looks out over...that's correct...a bald and open fields and the ski lift for Cataloochee Ski Resort. 
 

We could also see homes and farms and roads and man's best friend. As Carolyn and I were walking up the trail, these two fellas were walking down, and they turned right around and accompanied us for a spell. Our repeated stern "NO!" was met with tail wagging. Eventually we followed a short side trail to the fence to take in the view, and when we moved back to the trail the dogs headed left (the way we had come) and then we snuck off to the right, snickering at our brilliance. No more dog followers for that day.


  

What we did see much more of was Turk's cap lilies everywhere, sometimes nodding on stems at eye level across the trail. They are stunning, large blooms, often in bunches, and we were constantly pausing to admire them. (Click to see full screen and see if you can find the spider.)
 

Just before Hemphill Bald Trail takes a sharp left back into the woods and away from the view, there is a small fenced-in area that contains a welcoming shade tree and an enormous stone slab table and stone benches. Embedded in the table top is a schematic of all the mountain tops overlapping in waves before you and the distances from you to them. On this clear day Carolyn and I saw Mount Pisgah, Cold Mountain, even Mount Mitchell. We had lunch and enjoyed the idyllic setting and talked about how everyone on earth should do this hike.
 

At the end of the Hemphill Bald Trail sits this impressive rock cairn.


Here we turned left onto Caldwell Fork. I had been on this trail before on Memorial Day weekend with Stephanie - this is where the Big Poplars are located. Somehow this trail had increased in elevation since I was last here (well, this time I was hiking in the opposite direction), but our section was short (1.7 miles) and we knocked it out. Then we took another left onto our final trail, Rough Fork, and began to climb again.

Have any of you hikers noticed this phenomenon? It doesn't matter whether the trail is 3 miles long or 13 or 23, if the last couple of miles are uphill it is just not fair. I have decided that I like getting the big ups over at the beginning so I can slouch downhill the rest of the day. Then I can have enough breath to complain about my knees hurting...

But the car was right where we left it and we headed towards Tennessee. The Foothills Parkway was closed because of smoke (found out later there had been a rather large fire started by a lightning strike earlier in the week) so we had to do some back roads driving to get to Cosby. When we arrived at camp, our friends Ruth Ann and Barbara were ahead of us and had moved us from the campsites that I had reserved to more choice sites on another loop. (Note: only 20 sites at Cosby are by reservation but most of the campground is first come, first served, and as you all know, I don't like taking chances.) As it turned out, the campground wasn't even half full for the weekend. I was shocked. Doesn't everybody in the world want to be in the Smokies all the time??

Arriving soon after were the rest of our cohorts, Marta (AT thru-hiker 2006), her friend Judy (AT section hiker and looking to do it all the way through in 2010) and Dawn (strong hiker who has been so many places I can't keep up). Since Ruth Ann and Barbara had actually erected a tarp over their picnic table, the rest of us didn't even try, but simply proclaimed their site the gathering space. We discussed the weather forecast for Saturday (30% chance of rain), set a time to set off in the morning on our epic hike and eventually went to our tents. I had my own tent to myself for the first time ever!

We woke up at 5:00 AM to that 30%.