Winter Hiking: Noland Creek & Noland Divide Trails

4 am Saturday and I'm driving along the Foothills Parkway enroute to Bryson City, NC for my rendezvous with Joe Fleming (Kingsport, TN). It is a 2 hour 10 minute drive for me along a route that includes the twisting 318 curves of U.S. highway 129 that is better known as "The Dragon." There are several places where I can see lots of road salt remaining from the latest round of snow removal--necessitated by the snow which had fallen a couple days earlier. Most of the snow is gone but with current temperatures ranging between 25 F to 34 F those wet spots could be icy and I drive a bit more slowly than usual. Joe is waiting for me at the Deep Creek trailhead parking area when I arrive at about 6:20 am. He reports he'd departed at 3:30 am. Talk about dedication to a hobby.....

We ride in Joe's truck along the Road to Nowhere to the parking area for Noland Creek trail (about 1 mile from the tunnel). A park ranger has followed us and checks on our activities as we unload our packs from the vehicle; he is friendly enough and his demeanor reminds me that not all of the park's rangers are pricks. By 6:20 am we are hiking. The outside temperature is 25 F and the wind is calm. Our skies appear to be mostly overcast but we did get a glimpse of the crescent moon and morning star as we were driving to the trailhead. Yes, it is still very dark outside at 6:20 am in early January.

There is snow on the trail as we walk down the spur trail from the parking area to Noland Creek trail. It is a bit slippery but there doesn't seem to be much ice. It is still too dark to really tell what things are going to look like but it definitely seems we're going to have a snow-covered trail surface. At the first bridge across Noland Creek I can see ice on the rocks shining back at me thru the darkness. Oh boy, that looks cold.

The trail begins to climb and becomes more icy. We begin to wonder aloud if perhaps we should have brought our ice cleats/crampons; neither of us did. Still, with a bit of care, the walking is easy enough and as it becomes more light we can see lots of animal tracks in the snow. Over the course of this day's hike we'll be amazed at how much animal activity there is along and across these trails. We clearly make out the tracks of coyote, fox, turkey, grouse, deer and a few more kinds of tracks that went unidentified. There is also one set of hiker tracks which looked to be only a day old. The hiker had been traveling south (exiting the trail).

There are a few footbridges that span Noland Creek before a hiker has to resort to fording the unbridged sections. Joe has just reached the first one and I hear him say that it looks impassable and that we are going to have to ford the creek. Sure enough, I look at the footbridge and it has a coating of ice below the snow. This wouldn't be so bad except that the handrail for this bridge is angled far enough away to be of little use and the bridge surface is steeply sloped to one side along much of its length. We decide to ford the creek.

Fording creeks is nothing new to either of us but doing it in cold weather involves a bit more preparation and a lot more willpower. First you have to strip off the hiking boots and warm wool socks, pull up your pant legs above the knee and put on the wading shoes. It helps when you can find a place to sit down while changing but this was usually not possible since everything was covered with either snow and ice or a muddy mix of melting snow and ice. Now comes the willpower part: Find a place where the creek doesn't look impassably wide, deep or treacherous and then wade into the frigid water. It is always a shocker when those feet go into the icy water. About halfway across your feet go completely numb from the cold and it becomes even more difficult to "feel" your way along the slippery, boulder-strewn bottom of the creek. Getting out on the other side without having taken an ice water bath is exhilarating but soon the feet start to come back to life and you realize you'd really like to get those wet shoes off and some warm, dry footwear back on. Reverse the process of changing shoes. Hopefully you remembered to bring a towel with which to dry your cold, wet feet. All of this takes about 10 minutes so if you think the next creek crossing is just a short distance up the trail then you might elect to postpone changing back into your boots until after you've crossed the creek a 2nd time. We did this the first time and I can tell you now that it isn't a good idea in really cold weather. By the time the next creek comes around your feet are near the frostbite stage and after crossing that 2nd creek they're so darn cold that you wonder if you even have feet (Feet? What feet? I don't feel any feet!). All of this makes you really dread the next crossing. The good thing is that whenever you have a hiking buddy who can laugh about the entire process then it becomes truly funny. Seriously cold--but funny. Honest.

We did the icy creek fording four times with each place being about 20 or 30 feet wide and knee deep (or deeper). Joe did one more crossing than me since I'd elected to "risk" crossing a snowy footbridge while he'd again opted for the wet route. We also slipped and splashed thru six of the three rock hops mentioned in the trail guide. During the first creek crossing one of my pant legs came unrolled and I emerged with one pant leg soaked thru all the way up to my thigh. It didn't seem to bother me much and by the 2nd crossing I'd discovered the reason: The wet pant leg had frozen solid. Fortunately I was also wearing thermal underwear and the icy pant leg didn't rub against my bare skin. Such are the joys of fording creeks in the winter.

We'd wondered about how icy and snowy the upper elevation Noland Divide trail would be but it turned out to be in much better condition than the Noland Creek trail. There was very little snow and almost no ice along Noland Divide trail. And the views were fabulous. This was one of those days when the skies were so clear you could see nearly a hundred miles. Hiking along Noland Divide in winter you can see thru the bare trees and make out details of the land that are obscured by vegetation during the warm season. Also there wasn't one man-made sound to be heard anywhere along most of the entire hike. Walking along Noland Divde trail we could hear the muffled roar of Noland Creek far below us. Aside from spooking a few ruffed grouse and the distant call of a pileated woodpecker, we had complete solitude and exclusive use of the trails for most of this day. It was a very special experience that reminds me how much fun it is to hike in the Smokies--even on a very cold winter day. We didn't see another hiker until shortly after departing the Lonesome Pine overlook when we passed a few other people who were day-hiking up from the valley--presumably to enjoy the grand vistas we enjoyed while at Lonesome Pine overlook. By this time the sun had been in and out and the temperature had risen to around 46 or 48 F.

This was a fabulous hiking experience for me and I look forward to another hike with new-found friend Joe Fleming. Altogether our hiking distance for this trip was about 19.2 miles--maybe a bit more. Usually I take more photos but because of the cold temperatures and uncertain footing during this hike, I had stowed my camera in my pack. There were a few times when we stopped to snap those Kodak Moments and I hope the photographs we took will give you a sense of our overall experience. Update: Joe's photos added 1/8/2008.