Wandering and Recreating across the US Part 2

This is the second of several segments of basically putting together memories and photos of places I/we have found to recreate across the USA. This one, Wandering Tennessee, will have to be a little different in that I will only expound on places visited often or that have extra special memories because Tennessee occupied about 43 years of my life. Jodi and I met there and both our boys were born there. We hiked, biked, camped, rappelled, caved, canoed, rafted, kayaked and just all around wandered all over the state before moving to WA when the boys were both teenagers. Then Jodi and Jonathan and I moved back for a short time after Stephen was in the Air Force. That time we lived in extreme east Tennessee for almost four and a half years.

No single place in the state had as profound effect on me as did Cumberland Mountain State Park. I have to start with it and may end with it. I wandered many beautiful places, was involved with some great people in some wonderful organizations and saw a lot of sights and sounds I will never forget. Never WANT to forget.

My brother, professional free-lance author and editor Michael Sims, took the photo above of the Cumberland Mountain State Park bridge constructed by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) as part of the Homesteads Project during Franklin D. Roosevelt's term in office in the 1930's. The photo is better than anything I could find that I had taken and illustrates Tennessee to me as much as anything else.

Along with this park my brother and I spent a large part of our lives at well-known, exciting hiking destinations. Locales with names like "the quarry," "the cemetery," "the climbing tree," etc. OK, well-known and exciting to us anyway, these places were "behind the house."

We've loved wildlife all our lives but the first time I remember us being "scared" by any animal was in the above mentioned quarry. Mike and I were playing in the sand and on the rocks and behind the trees with our Johnny Wests when one of us, I don't remember which, spotted a scorpion crawl out from under a rock. We jumped and ran like crazy for home. Bad part was one of us dropped Johnny's six-shooter and we never found it, after many trips back and lengthy searches.

Tennessee State Parks

Parks that we visited, some many, many times, some only once.

• Cumberland Mountain
• Fall Creek Falls
• Frozen Head
  
• Rock Island
• Cumberland Trail
  
• Reelfoot Lake
  
• Roan Mountain
• Warrior's Path
  
• Burgess Falls
• Cedars of Lebanon
• Cordell Hull
• Long Hunter
• Tims Ford
• Radnor Lake
• South Cumberland
• Standing Stone
• Big Ridge
• Cove Lake
• Hiwassee / Ocoee
• Norris Dam
• Panther Creek
• Pickett

I've hiked all my life and had many great experiences all over the state. There is no way to describe each trail or trip so I'm going to just list as many of the places I went as I can remember and will highlight some of the ones with better stories.

Probably the single most memorable hike in Tennessee was on a Friday in the fall, can't remember year for sure but probably '95 or '96, in the Savage Falls portion of the South Cumberland Recreation Area. It had been very stressful at work and I had simply had all I could stand so I took Friday off and headed southwest for the day.

The weather was threatening rain and storms but I didn't care, I just had to get outside. It was about a 2 hour drive from home so I headed out fairly early. I did prepare accordingly for the weather. A decision that by the end of the day would really pay off.

As I was walking from the car to the trailhead I saw a park employee and stopped to chat for a second. She wanted to be sure I knew there had been a black bear spotted in the area just a few days earlier. I've hiked bear country several times (MANY, MANY times since) so I wan't worried about that. She had no way of knowing what else she should warn me about that day.

About a mile and a half into the hike I spotted something that didn't look just right only a few feet in front of me. A quick stop and a very little bit of closer examination determined this was one of the, if not the, largest snake I had ever seen up to this point in my life. I waited a minute or two hoping he would just crawl off and everything would be good. No such luck, it just laid there. So of course the next plan of action was to scare the snake off by throwing things at it. When he spun in one lightening-fast motion and struck at the stick I had thrown. This is when I got the first glimpse I didn't want. When he opened his mouth to strike and then to hiss horribly loud allowing a view inside his mouth. For you snake enthusiasts, the mouth just seemed to overflo with soft white fluffy tissue. Yes, it looked like cotton and YES this was a large, very aggressive cottonmouth water moccassin.

After about 20 minutes he finally decided to exit the trail and go about his business under a log. The log was close enough to the trail that I still very cautiously and nervously RAN past just to be sure. The whole time the ordeal was happening I considered going around and letting him be but then I reconsidered when I thought of the fact that there was ONE snake in front of me that I could see but I had no clue how many that I couldn't see were out in the underbrush.

Don't think my adventure stopped there. Another 3/4 mile in on the trail I rounded a blind corner going down a hill into a shaded little spot when I saw a pretty good size buck and doe in the process of making little fawns. The doe took off like an embarrassed school girl and the buck, well a great understatement would be that he wasn't happy. He dropped his head with antlers obviously and intentionally in my direction, stomped his front feet thunderously, snorted and swung his head back and forth crazily. I just knew I had survived the cottonmouth just to be gorged by this ticked off buck. I slowly backed away never taking my eyes off him. To this day I have no idea why he didn't charge but he did follow along the ridgeline above me because I heard him snort and stomp a couple more times.

I hiked on feeling very lucky to be standing and not bleeding in such a pretty locale. But as the day passed the skies started to darken. I wasn't worried, I knew I had my poncho and the weather was pretty warm. Little did I know what Mother Nature had in store for the afternoon. Apparently the area was overdue to be rocked and rolled by horrendous wind, rain, deafening thunder and enough lightening to get anyone's attention. And here I am amongst a million forty plus foot tall lightening rods that were swaying in the wind. I wondered which would get me first, electrocution from the electricity that had to be running through the over-ankle-deep water that was now coming down the hills and standing in the flats or a head concussion from falling tree tops and limbs.

The deluge lasted for close to an hour and thoroughly soaked me as well as everything within many miles but no catastrophic injuries occurred. I didn't even get a blister from hiking in soaked socks and boots (waterproof didn't meant a thing today!). I have always talked about this as the day I really "bonded" with nature. And with every other crazy adventure I've enjoyed I declared once again, that which doesn't kill you was a freaking blast!! Needless to say, I destressed from work that day.

• Cumberland Mountain State Park
• Big Rock
• Hinch Mountain

Another very memorable trip was the first backpacking trip I ever took my oldest son Stephen on. I had wanted to do the Piney River Trail (I found this link and must share it since I can't find more of my photos and theirs are great) for a long time and decided to car shuttle and do it as an overnighter.

Jodi dropped us at the upper trialhead at Newby Branch Forest Camp so we weren't climbing the entire hike. The ladders were the most unique part of the hike but there were many beautiful sections. I have always tried to practice Leave No Trace ethics and used this time to illustrate them to Stephen. We camped near the river but were careful to not pollute. It's been a LONG time ago but I remember a very lush setting for our camp, quite a bit of moss on the rocks nearby, etc., and another group of best I remember 2 or 3 people camped fairly close by. I wish I could remember more detail such as menu and how we slept etc but like I say, it was a long time ago.

As always we didn't have a lot of time for the trip, working for a living SOOO sucks!!, so we didn't hike in very far. We had a beautiful campsite right beside the Laurel Fork of the Doe River on the Appalachian Trail though so distance did not matter.

We set up camp after dark, started a small fire and roasted hot dogs (an advantage of not hiking far is meat being fresh for supper... if you want to call hot dogs fresh).

The next morning we got up to a quite brisk partly sunny day, enjoyed a small fire and breakfast, took our time breaking camp and then headed on in to Laurel Fork Falls.

This hike consists of a lot of pretty steep rock steps but the pay-off is a beautiful east Tennessee waterfall. I've been back, this was my second trip to the falls, several times and have never come close to being disappointed. The link above takes you to an article about my first trip in from the other trialhead right off the highway. Jonathan and I came in from the Dennis Cove side. Both directions and/or continuing in either direction along the AT from either trailhead takes you to beautiful hiking in the Tennessee hills.

I cannot talk about backpacking in Tennessee without sharing this trip report. My wife proved two things, 1) she's more brave than I thought (you'll understand in a minute) and 2) she knows I am big enough to block her from injury.

Jodi and I waited until a little bit warmer time of year (I said she was more brave than I thought, but she still hates cold weather) to pack into the Laurel Fork area. We also wanted to spend the night in an AT shelter since we never had.

Laurel Fork shelter is an easy hike with a lot of it following right beside the fork with great views and sometimes sounds of the water babbling across the rocks on its way to the river and falls below. This time of year, May 2007, the rhododendron, Solomon's seal and a lot of other bushes, shrubs and wildflowers are in bloom so it makes for just a lovely hike.

Ok, to get to the brave part. We got to the shelter, dropped our packs and began to settle in for the night. We built a fire, had supper, did a short walk around the area and got in the shelter to play cards as we always do when we camp. I was a good little camper-in-bear-country and secured our food bag in a tree many yards from camp (of course now the excepted method is bear canisters because the wily Ursus americanus has figured out what it is that's hanging in the tree) and of course did dishes a long way from camp, following as closely as I could Leave No Trace ethics. The only thing we kept out of the food bag was something to drink and 3 no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies we planned for a just-before-bedtime snack. Well, of all nights, we didn't want a snack and being nice and comfy I didn't want to get out of the shelter, untie and drop the food bag just to put the cookies away. Mistake.

After lights out and getting cozy in our bags we heard light but fast footsteps on the plywood floor of the shelter and the rustle of the plastic bag the cookies were in. Assuming it was a mouse I slapped the plywood hard with my hand and the footsteps in the opposite direction were much faster even. Less than a minute passed when we heard them again. This time I grabbed my trekking pole, I always keep something close by at night just in case, and slapped the floor much harder. Footsteps running away weren't any faster this time but it did run away. Maybe two minutes passed this time before IT returned. Tired of this now I grabbed my headlamp. Keep in mind that this is all happening about 3 feet from my shoulder and Jodi is lying on the opposite side of me.

The first click when I turn on my headlamp I get a red light, the second an LED light and the third a spotlight. The least blinding when you first turn it on is the red so that was what I decided to use. Turned out to be the most eery possible choice. Standing there 3 feet from my shoulder, staring straight into the red light with it's beady little eyes and pointed ears was the biggest freaking rat I had ever seen in my life!!! And he never flinched when the light hit him, he wanted those cookies far too badly. Jodi is laying on the other side of me looking at this behemoth and never screams, doesn't jump out of the sleeping bag, out of the shelter and to the ground screaming, jumping and yelling at all like I expected. She just laid there!!

At this point I slapped so hard the whole floor shook. The rat ran off and this time I watched to see where the hole was he was coming in through. I opened the bag, took the cookies out and one by one tossed them down the hole so the rat would be happy and let us sleep. But, there were crumbs. About 10 minutes after tossing the cookies down the hole we heard footsteps again. Much more faint this time and coming from closer to us above our heads. On came the red again. This little sucker may have been the grandchild of the behemoth but all he wanted was crumbs so we rolled over to go back to sleep.

I could not refrain from asking why in the world Jodi had reacted so bravely. "He had to eat through you to get to me."

So much for bravery.

Shortly before Jonathan left us in east Tennessee and moved to California for a few months I had met a guy at work, Bill James, that was a member of the local spelunking club. Through a few times of talking to him I was invited to their monthly meeting so along with Jonathan I attended the next meeting and learned of a trip to a very cool sounding cave, Morrill Cave, or as some people call it Worley Cave, in Bluff City, TN. We were not disappointed. Jonathan and I were the second group to arrive so we had plenty of time to hang out in the parking area and talk to everyone as they showed up. Several people came to get muddy that night. Talking with one of the local members, Mark Woods I believe was his name, he found that Jonathan and I were definitely not rank beginner cavers so he promised if we stuck with him we would get a little more out of it than most of the group. How we fit through the hole that he took us through I will never understand but we did in fact get a better tour than the bulk of the crew. The main entrance to the cave is pretty big compared to a lot of caves so you don't have to crawl in and most of the trip you remain upright. There are a couple places that you have to scramble over and up a ledge, one is steep enough a permanent rope (OK, no such thing as permanent rope, but it's permanently there until it wears out and has to be replaced) to aid in the ascent. The last roughly mile of the trip you walk in rather chilly water above the ankles. On me, so some of the lesser in height folks were probably wet half way up their calves. I attended a couple more meetings but for me there was too much talk about expanding cave systems by use of explosives and tools though the club claimed to be very involved in cave conservation. The best way to conserve a cave in my opinion is to explore what you can and let Mother Nature supply further access when she wants to. I've seen her handy work in changing a cave system.

Over the years our family has played in several underground holes, from commercially guided caves like Cumberland Caverns and the Lost Sea to Buggy Top Cave, Salt Peter Cave, Windlass Cave and the above Morrill Cave. The best cave the whole family ever went to was without a doubt Buggy Top Cave in the South Cumberland Recreation Area. It isn't a very big cave but the entrance, the features of the cave and the fact that the creek runs through the cave make for really cool pools, etc on the floor of the cave. The boys were young so they could stand upright in almost all of this cave, I had to bend over almost double to walk but it was a very good trip and much, much fun.

The boys both visited Salt Peter Cave in Grassy Cove as many times if not more than I did through trips with youth groups etc. We made a couple memorable trips into there. One trip there were 18 of us including Stephen, my cousins Janet and Bill and friends and other family of theirs. I took my rappelling gear so we could drop to the lower lever and explore further. Several of the people had never rappelled so it took a LONG time to get everyone down and even longer to get them to all climb out. The photo above of Stephen climbing back up was from that trip. Everyone got out safely and had tons of fun. Another trip my nephew Kevin, Adam the son of one of the guys I worked for and a few others were enjoying a great trip through when we got to a room that Kevin didn't recognize. This wasn't a great feeling because he was the leader of this trip because he was the only one of us that had been to this part of the cave. The floor slanted fairly steeply and the exit to the next room was steeper and quite muddy so I stayed in this room with my rope and gear in case the rest of the crew needed help getting back up. I planned to let them explore then take my turn while someone else stayed at the top. While they were all below I succumbed to the natural tendency in a cave to sit down and turn off the light. I sat for several minutes to let my eyes get used to the dark. When I turned my headlamp back on my eyes were more sensitive and noticed that the ceiling was a lighter color than the walls but the floor matched the color of the ceiling. A little more inspection showed that what was now floor, a slab of rock about 8 inches or so thick, was previously ceiling. The entire roof of this room had come loose and fallen to the floor, obviously flattening everything underneath. This is why Kevin had not recognized the room. As I sat there looking at it I remembered Bill a friend of mine from The Tennessee Trails Association had called me to ask if I had felt the earthquake. I knew what I had to do when I got home. When the group got back up from exploring I showed them what I had found and we all decided it might be a good idea to get out of there for now. When I got home I searched the earthquake and found that a line from the epicenter of the quake to where Bill lived exactly dissected Salt Peter Cave. Now I know when the ceiling fell.

My favorite small cave to explore that was close to home and accessible via a less than 2 mile hike at the base of Black Mountain was Windlass Cave. With an entrance tall enough to stand up through and only a couple hundred yards to the farthest point we ever made it to it could be enjoyed when I didn't have a lot of time or anyone to go with me. The only issue with this cave was knowing not to go in when it had just rained, was raining or eminently threatening rain because the chance of drowning is far too real. The entire route is on a slight descent so the water would get deep very quickly. The formations in this cave are as lovely and impressive as bigger caves, there just aren't as many. I've seen albino cave crickets, crawdads and a few bats in the cave. We were in the process of trying to find ways to get further when I moved to WA. We had gone so far as to crawl in one direction to the point that we had to remove our helmets, turn our heads sideways and push forward with our toes. Wher I moved back to TN the final push was to be to take my dive gear, including my best lights, and enter the pool of water at the back. Somehow that never happened before I moved to New Mexico. Who knows, it may yet.

I rode all over Cumberland County before we moved to Washington state, but apparently back then I rode for the ride and not the photos/stories because I can't find a single photo from there. I started riding in April of 1996 through the encouragement of David Cox, a guy I had known in high school and saw occasionally through work. He sometimes rode competitively on the road but mountain biked also. I wasn't interested in road riding at the time so I bought a mountain bike. Not much at under $200 but between April and October I put over 1400 miles on it and lost over 60 pounds. I was hooked for life. For Father's Day 1998 Jodi bought my first what I call a "real" bike, a Nishiki Colorado 8 speed (24 speeds, 8 on the rear with a triple front sprocket) with front suspension. I was in heaven for $600. That was the bike that somehow survived the rest of that year in Tennessee and 6+ years in Washington. When we moved back to Tennessee in 2005 the Nisihiki was tired so I bought a Trek. I assumed an entry level Trek would be as good as a higher end less popular brand. Unfortunately Trek had joined the ranks of mass producing entry level bikes. It sucked. Finally, near the end of 2007 I broke down, dropped the cash and order the sweetest piece of aluminum I had ever ridden. Daniel, a buddy of mine at the bike shop in Johnson City, TN let me borrow his Scott Scale 50 because that is what I had picked out but I was nervous because I was special ordering a new 2008. After riding it I knew I wanted no other bike. It arrived in February and changed my riding for good. What a sweet frame.

While living in Cumberland County we rode all the time, including up the back side of Big Rock. We also took the bikes to Fall Creek Falls State Park and did the early morning ride in Cades Cove in the Smokies, before they opened the road to vehicles and of course we carried the bikes to several other parks over the years.

One of the rides we planned the longest for, and were most excited about was with above mentioned David Cox, his wife Darlene and Jodi. Since we had planned this ride for so long we did not let the fact that it had poured the rain for a couple days and that is was coming a flood on the day of the ride deter us. We headed to Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area  for a little over 8 miles. We parked at the Bandy Creek Visitor's Center and headed down the gravel road in the rain. After a little over 1/2 mile we left the gravel and hit the trail. A great trail it was even in the rain. The trail wound through the woods and over a few small hills and started down a pretty long incline to a creek that was quite small the last time we saw it. But with the recent deluges it was a roaring river. That was a problem for the whole group, but I had a bigger problem of my own. As I was flying down the hill something felt very rough. When I stopped at the creek (river) to inspect what was up I found the rear wheel hub had a bearing going down. A wonderful ride in a beautiful place and I'm already soaking wet and have to WALK out 2 -1/2 miles in this rain. It really sucked helping them all get across the creek and watch them ride up the hill then turn around and walk out. At least they all enjoyed a great ride. I never made it back there before we moved.

When we moved back to Tennessee in 2005 I rode the Kingsport Greenbelt dozens and dozens of times. There were great greenbelt trails in Elizabethton and Erwin also. All of them for at least part of the route followed a creek, stream or river. The Elizabethton trail traveled through the Doe River Covered Bridge which helped make for a very cool, beautiful ride.

Mountain biking was fantastic there. There are some great true mountain biking trails there. The above photo of Darwin's Revenge in Warriors Path State Park shows one of them. Darwin's was rated "Difficult" and did lead to probably the worst crash I ever had, blood spurting from the front of my calf and all. ETSU (East TN State Univ) supported a mountain biking team and several annual competitions but anyone could ride there. Some areas were quite challenging but all-in-all these were a great place for a great workout.

I dove this lake twice while living in the Johnson City/Kingsport area, once with Jodi and once with a group from a local dive shop. The first time, with Jodi, was a nice day and we looked forward to a good dive, rented tanks and drove up there. It had rained earlier in the week but we thought surely it would be ok since it had been 5 days. As we descended the silt became horrible by 8 or 10 feet down. The visibility was so bad we could literally not see our hands two feet in front of our masks. I decided to use it as an opportunity to practice navigation diving, Jodi did NOT like the low visibility. We ended up not even using 1/2 tank of air.

The next time when I went with the group the weather had been beautiful all week then Saturday morning came and the temps dropped drastically and the clouds moved in. When we got in the water the visibility was much better. Fresh water lake diving isn't all that much, I just wanted to get wet so I had a good time. One young girl was having trouble equalizing her ears and needed to go back to the beach and get out and I had accomplished my task of getting wet and having fun so I went accompanied her so she wouldn't return alone. I'll take salt water everytime.

We camped so many places so many times there is no way to cover it any more than I can cover the hiking. We camped with the boys and without the boys, with groups as big as 18 and I sometimes camped alone. At one time or other we camped in almost every state park in the eastern half of the state. Jodi and I were seldom happier than when in a tent no matter where it was. For this section I will just post a few pictures and let them tell the story.

One of my favorite things I was involved in while living in Tennessee the first time was being a member of the Tennessee Trails Association and The Cumberland Trail Conference. I faithfully attended meetings and was involved as time would allow. Then as the CTC developed more and more I became involved with them as a "Trail Steward" and attended as many work weekends as possible. The photo above was a trip into the Catoosa Wildlife Management Area to work on trail and install signage. The group I worked with that weekend along with others from TTA / CTC were college students that would rather do some good on spring break and came to Tennessee to build trail rather than attend your typical spring break. As Trail Steward I took care of the section of the CTC from the highway in Grassy Cove to the top of Black Mountain. It was very hard to leave and no longer be involved with these great folks but at least I was there, and Jonathan joined me, on the day that the governor announced the adoption of the Cumberland Trail as Tennessee's first Linear Park.