Route: Campsite #83 on Hazel Creek @ Bone Valley
to backcountry campsite #90 on Eagle Creek via Hazel Creek and Lakeshore trails.
Statistics: 9.7 miles traveled. 2,105' of hill
climbing and 3,150' of descending. Average hiking speed 1.5 mph.
Nearly 10 hours of sleep last night was something
of a record for me. All that bear-lookout duty at Spence Field combined with the pounding I took on Jenkins Ridge trail
finally caught up with my aging body. I'm out of the tent at 6:30 am and probably thanks to the miracle of ibuprofen
I'm feeling just grand. Today's hike is to be along two trails with completely different characters (much like yesterday!).
A quick check of my laundry reveals the usual for air-dried clothing in the Smokies: It is still wet. At least
it doesn't smell bad which would have been the case if I'd not rinsed everything out after yesterday's sweat hog event.
I took some extra time this morning to write in my journal while savoring
my oatmeal and hot tea. A bit of chatting with my NC camping neighbors (Richard and Jimmy) this morning and
I learn that all of that extra food (chicken & stir-fry veggies) they'd cooked but not eaten last night was
preserved in the Hazel Creek refrigerator (that'd be a zip lock bag held underwater in the cold creek with a big rock).
They also told me they'd "discovered" a bottle of bourbon in their gear last night and had considered inviting me for a nightcap
but figured I'd already gone to bed. Shucks. Both gents looked much refreshed from their appearance
yesterday. It had been a long walk for them from the boat dock where they'd started (5.8 miles) and it is also nearly
1,500' of elevation gain. Judging from the amount of stuff they have in camp the little two wheel cart they'd used to
help haul all that gear must have had 100 lbs or more of stuff in it plus I think they each had a backpack. That
is a lot of work for two old guys who are probably lawyers in their other life (grin). Anyway, after bidding
them farewell I climb into my pack harness and proceed southbound on Hazel Creek trail by 9 am. Almost immediately
I pass yet another freshly raided yellow jacket nest beside the trail. I've been lucky this trip to have avoided getting
stung--there have been countless numbers of these nests alongside the hiking trails. With berries and nuts in short
supply it seems the bears have gone crazy over yellow jackets this season.
Hazel Creek appears quite large at this point in its run down the mountain
toward Fontana Lake. Its headwaters are somewhere near Silers Bald on the AT some 8.5 miles away (as the crow flies)
and an elevation some 2,700' higher than where I am now at the Bone Valley trailhead. Hazel may be one of the largest
creeks in the Smokies and certainly gets high marks as one with an extensive human history. There is a 133
page book about this area titled Hazel Creek from Then til Now by Duane Oliver which was published in 1989.
It is available at the Knox County Public Library's McClung Historical Collection located in the East Tennessee History Center, 601 South Gay Street, Knoxville. Materials in this collection cannot
be checked-out. Blount County Public Library (Maryville) also has two copies in their Genealogy section.
These also cannot be checked-out. I'll be looking through one of these books in the near future prior to my next visit
to this area.
Twenty minutes into my hike as I once again cross over Sugar Fork I again
think of Horace Kephart who lived here from 1904-1907.
Click here to read a very interesting article about Kephart's cabin on the Little
Fork of the Sugar Fork. Note: If you like the George Ellison article on the Kephart cabin then I suggest
you search the Smoky Mtn News archives using the words "George Ellison" to find more of his stories.
The Hazel Creek trail--a grassy dirt road really--is unremarkable over the
next few miles. It follows beside Hazel Creek which affords nice
views of a few cascades and lots of varied vegetation and tall summer wildflowers that are in full bloom. Soon I arrive
at the location of the former community that was known as North Proctor where some old concrete foundations and a small masonry
building or two are nearly hidden by the overgrowth of the vegetation.
My trail guide says the first white settler here, Moses Proctor, came
over the mountain from Cades Cove with his wife and young son in 1830. Lumber operations were underway by
1892 as well as on again/off again attempts to mine copper. Lumber was the big business here until around 1929 when
some wealthy families bought land to establish a private outing club and a game and hunting preserve. Further development
stopped around 1941 or 1942 when TVA started condemning land for the Fontana Dam and Lake. By 1945 TVA reports
that 1,319 families had vacated the North Shore area--I understand that most of those had been living in the Hazel Creek watershed.
So where are all the old buildings? The answer may surprise you.
Few hikers access Hazel Creek trail by foot; most come by boat or horseback
and when you get here it turns out there is little to see in terms of old buildings since when the land was purchased
for the national park all of the wooden buildings except for the 1928 Calhoun House were burned.
There are various accounts alleging that bad intentions on the part of park
service personnel were the cause of unnecessary destruction of many structures. Calhoun House, some stone foundations,
excavations for holding ponds, chimneys and a few masonry building remnants are all that remain of this once thriving community.
Even most of the old bridges spanning Hazel Creek were rebuilt by the park service in the 1990's.
Of course there are several cemeteries including the large Proctor Cemetery
which has 192 graves. The community here in the early 1900's was large enough to have two post offices: One in
Proctor and one in Medlin--a small community on Sugar Fork about 3/4 mile down Hazel Creek from where I'd spent the night
at campsite 83.
To really appreciate the history of this area will require more advance
study than I've done for this hiking trip. I can see the potential to spend a few days exploring this region's ruins,
old trails and cemeteries. Perhaps I'll revisit later this year and persuade Janice to join me for some quiet time beneath
the fall foliage.
The end of Hazel Creek trail brings me to the Lakeshore trail junction in
what would have been, more or less, the central part of the old town of Proctor. It is here I make first contact with
a group of seven students from Clemson University who are also bound for campsite #90 on Eagle Creek--my planned destination
for the evening. I invite them to go ahead of me since I was about ready for lunch and they'd just gotten off of the
boat shuttle from Fontana marina and were champing at the bit to get moving. They zoom ahead like a pack of school kids
on an Easter egg hunt and zip right past the 1928 vintage Calhoun House with nary a glance. Go figure.
I stop at Calhoun House for lunch. It is open to the public although
nothing is posted to offer any interpretive assistance other than a very dilapidated sign out front. Parked in back
of the house are three park service vehicles. There is a well with a solar powered pump and facilities for long-term
keep of horses--presumably for use by park service personnel. Around front of the house I find some nice cushion-equipped
metal frame chairs arrayed on the front porch with a grand view of the creek. I make myself comfortable in
one of them while dining on hickory smoked tuna and Ritz crackers.
A small convoy of horseback riders complete with two animals loaded with
packs pass by in front of me from the direction I was planning to travel. Darn. I guess I'll have to be extra
careful to avoid the green stinky stuff for the next 4.9 miles on Lakeshore trail. After lunch I explore the old house
and can see that its original owners must have been people of privilege. Notable even after more than 60 years
of vacancy were the triple room brick chimney with two fireplaces and one stove connection, provisions for running water and
a fancy wood burning stove in the kitchen complete with its own hot water heater. They had electricity too.
I was impressed.
For the remainder of today's hike I'll be trekking about 4.9 miles on Lakeshore
trail followed by another 5.6 miles on the Lakeshore trail Sunday. Lakeshore trail is a conglomeration of
old roadbeds & trail segments that were joined together to form a 35 mile trail system between the tunnel at the end of
Lakeshore Drive--better known as "The Road To Nowhere"--and Fontana Dam. It is 2nd only to the AT for the title of longest
trail in the Smokies. With a name like Lakeshore you might picture in your mind a lovely waterside path along which
you meander left and right with the sound of water lapping at your feet. Don't let the name fool you: There is
little of this trail which follows the shore of Fontana Lake. Most of the time I was lucky to see any portion of the
lake while hiking the trail. Occasionally I'd hear a boat in the far distance. Instead I spent most of my time
alternating between two primary directions: Up & Down. This section of the trail was constructed
by the park service in 2001 and is a good example of how the art of trail building has waned since reaching its apex during
the time of the C.C.C. in the 1930's. Of course the weekend convoys of 1,300 lb. horses burdened with their 250
lb. cargoes don't do much to help the condition of such a steep and poorly contoured route. Note: If you have
old maps (pre 2001) or trail guides then this section of the Lakeshore trail is not properly illustrated or described.
Instead those old maps and trail guides will refer to the section of trail between Pickens Gap (formerly the terminus of the
Jenkins Ridge Trail) and Lost Cove at Eagle Creek. I refer to that now-closed section of trail as the Pinnacle Creek
trail.
About half-way along this trail I caught up with the Clemson group.
They were taking a rest stop and were sprawled across the trail near the top of one of its numerous ridges. The
hilly and humid route had apparently taken some of the bounce out of their step. To their credit, I learned later that
most of them had little or no backpacking experience. All of them appeared to have heavy backpacks. None of them
were complaining. After several minutes of chatting with them while we rested together they arose and continued at what
I considered a jack rabbit pace. Oh to be young again!
The most enjoyable highlight along this trail segment was the point at which
I could see the trailhead sign indicating I'd arrived at its end. I got a few good whiffs of what smelled like a Mary
Jane cigarette as I trailed the younger set. Just before arriving at campsite #90 I crossed a rather boisterous
Eagle Creek via what looked to be an old iron railroad bridge. My trail guide indicates the bridge was actually
built in 1991 in a manner to make it look like an old bridge. I think they succeeded. What do you think?
By the time I hit #90 the kids were immersed in Eagle Creek. They
didn't even go to the campsite but instead parked their packs beside the banks of the creek at the point where it flows into
Fontana Lake--a place that looked more like an old rock quarry than anything. That is where they remained for the night--tents
pitched right beside the lake.
I found a mostly quiet, streamside camping spot at the upper end of campsite
#90 which turned out to be my private domain for the rest of the evening.
Tomorrow: The final 5.6 miles to Fontana.
