Smokies Trip Planning

Blog Post March 19, 2013

While the world outside our home in Michigan is still wrapped in winter’s icy grip of death, our first backpacking trip of the season is drawing near!  Ten days from tomorrow we will depart in the early morning hours and begin the half-a-day drive to the mountains of Tennessee.  Our new tent arrived in the mail today, and soon we’ll be planning and shopping for our meals during the hike.  I thought today would be a good day to provide some of the details about our trip plan. 

We’ll depart from the Big Creek Campground in the northeast corner of the park.  We were planning to camp right at Big Creek Campground the night before our hike began, but the combination of federal sequester cuts and a late spring has pushed back the opening date for a number of front-country campgrounds, Big Creek included.  We did some online shopping and found a cheap hotel in nearby Newport, TN, putting us only a thirty-minute drive from the trailhead.  The hotel will have the added bonus of letting us watch our Michigan State Spartans play in the sweet sixteen of the NCAA tournament if they make it that far.

Our first day of hiking we’ll follow the Big Creek for several miles, before making the steep climb at Low Gap to joint the Appalachian Trail, a climb of 3,000 feet over 8.4 miles.  Since this will be our first day hiking with packs on since last summer, and our packs will be at their heaviest with 7 days worth of food, this promises to be a rugged day.  We’ll at least have the comforts of a shelter to look forward to that night, with reservations at Cosby Knob Shelter.

We’ll spend the next couple of days marching counter to the AT thru-hikers making their way north.  At Peck’s Corner we’ll drop off of the crest of the Smokies and follow the Hughes Ridge Trail down to Enloe Creek.  This day presents our only significant stream crossing of the trip.  We’ll camp at Enloe Creek, and then make another grueling climb up to Laurel Gap, where another shelter will await us. 

Our last full day of hiking will take us up the ridge of Mount Sterling to the summit, where we’ll spend our last night hopefully watching the sunset from the fire tower.  We’ll make a quick 4,000 foot decent down the Baxter Creek Trail the last morning, returning to Big Creek.  I’m sure we’ll be ready for hot showers and cold beverages by then!

In all, our itinerary will take us from a starting elevation of 1,700 feet to high points of 5,920 and 5,820 at separate points.  We’ll follow several mountains streams, hopefully catch a glimpse of some spring flowers and take in some stunning vistas from the high country.  Now it’s just time to start crossing our fingers for some warmer temps and clear skies…never a guarantee in the mountains in April.