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Where to begin? I've hiked the White Oak Sink (this
is the spelling on topo maps) area more than I've walked the wooded area around my own home. We hike this
area at least two or three times each year.
What's the attraction? Wildflowers. Artifacts. Caves. Unusual geology.
A waterfall that disappears underground. Off-trail adventure. Solitude. Proximity to my home.
This page will become the catch-all site for more
than one chronicle of my visits to the White Oak Sink area. Enjoy the stories but let me warn you now:
White Oak Sink is not accessible via the Smokies' maintained trail system.
Lost!
You can easily become disoriented or even lost in this area filled
with several winding footpaths--many which lead away from the way out of this area--and all of them are unsigned
and not on any map I've ever seen. If off-trail hiking using a map and compass is not your strength then you'd best not go to White Oak Sink without a guide familiar with the area or at least one
prepared for off-trail navigation in this area. Oh yeah, you may as well leave that niffty little GPS at home:
White Oak Sink is located in a heavily forested area within a lower elevation depression--a combination that makes use of a GPS for navigation very difficult if not outright impossible. Still interested?
Click here to see larger map.
Facts and Tidbits
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The stream forming a waterfall at White Oak Sink disappears into Rainbow Falls cave at at the base of the waterfall, about 1700 ft elevation,
and is thought to emerge about 3 miles to the northwest at Dunn Spring, about 640 ft lower in elevation.
Dunn Spring is outside the park boundary and is actually the water source for a local farm-raised trout supplier and fishery.
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Land snails can be found in great abundance in the White Oak Sink area.
Discover Life in America researcher Ron Caldwell (Lincoln Memorial University) collected some 25 species in a relatively small
area. One snail found by Caldwell, Paravitrea umbilicaris is new to the Park. The Smokies are home to at least
100 species of land snails ranging in size from a silver dollar (the largest in the eastern U.S.) to something small enough
to crawl around on a pinhead.
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A gravestone for Abraham Law is located in White Oak Sink. Law was the father of Caroline Law Spence, who lived with her husband
on a grassy bald overlooking Cades Cove; this bald later became known as Spence Field. Ms. Spence is buried in the Myers
Cemetery adjacent to the Townsend Visitor Center.
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Blowhole Cave is one of only a few winter hibernation homes to the endangered Indiana bat. 85% of these bats hibernate in only 9 locations. The cave's entrance, a 50' vertical shaft, has
been permanantly barricaded against human entry.
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Schoolhouse Gap trail, used by many for access to the manway leading to White Oak Sink, was originally part
of a toll-road project began in the 1830's to connect Tuckaleechee Cove in Tennessee with the Little Tennessee River valley
in NC. This road, known as the Anderson Turnpike, was built on the TN side as far as Spence Field, via Schoolhouse
Gap, White Oak Sink and Bote Mtn, but the part down into the Hazel Creek area in NC was never completed. The
road ran thru the White Oak Sink via what is now the unmaintained "manways" used for access to the area.
Tuesday, 4/24/07
The four-day hard freeze we had in early April apparently didn't hit White Oak Sink as bad as it did other
areas I'd visited. Enroute via Schoolhouse Gap trail we'd noted there were hardly any of the usual abundance of flowers
typical of this route so Jan and I were surprised when we dropped into the sink to find lots of phlox and trillium making
a showy display in this area. We even found a few of those delicate bishop's caps still flowering. Perhaps no
other area we've visited can match the showy displays of phlox that one sees when visiting the White Oak Sink. If only
the aromas of those phlox could be packaged with the photos then you'd come closer to understanding the special appeal this
day's visit had on our psyche. Ahhhhh.
Cloudy skies are often the best lighting condition for photography and today was cloudy. We enjoyed touring locations
that were old favorites and managed to spot a few rare wildflowers among which were shooting stars, larkspurs, bluebells
and green violets. Unfortunately, some of the rare flowers have been discovered by uncaring people and they'd trampled
many of the plants while trying to see them up close. In fact, this entire area seems to have become one of the
most hiked trails in the Smokies--notwithstanding the fact that this isn't on the Smokies maps and is not accessible
via official maintained trails.
I've posted several photos taken in this area to give you an idea of its diversity. I have
two photo galleries for White Oak Sinks:
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