The Great Smoky Mountains is a land saturated with esoteric wonder. Dew glistens on ferns whose memories recall epochs of the unknowable past, of ice ages and beyond. Shadowed vales are still home to ghosts of fantastic creatures who once thrived in these forests. Elk. Wood bison and mountain lion, who disappeared not so long ago. Obscure fauna older still, described only by fossils. The moss knew them all. And while the moss holds its secrets closely, it radiates this ancient aura through the stillness of the mountains.
Crowds in the national park converge in the most easily accessible areas. Parking lots at trailheads along Hwy 441 traveling through its midst are overflowing with vehicles shortly after dawn. Visitor centers are full. Any point with a view from the car or where an animal steps within view is a point of traffic coagulation. But these highlights are a noisy distraction from the subtle power of the Smokies, where the weight of time has embraced the bones of the earth.
This powerful ambiance is evident in its omnipresence here. All it takes is stepping off of the the most common paths. Around the corner from the crowds there is silence and wildness flowing freely with the boulder strewn streams.
A day on my family vacation near the Smokies offers the time and space to go to the park on my own. I have no parking pass, so the first place I must go is the Sugarlands Visitor Center to try to buy one for the day. Passes are not expensive, but the challenge is finding parking at the visitor center to be able to get a pass. I circle the parking lots several times before finding a lucky space.
The trails around the visitor center are easy strolls. Families clamber around the base of Cataract Falls. From there I wander towards the John Ownby Cabin. Buildings are visible through the trees and a steady stream of traffic on a road traveling parallel to the path. So I turn my attention to the smaller things. Mushrooms on the forest floor. A hornet nest in the branches above.
This walk is short and I am left wanting for more. Scanning the map, I see a trail nearby, though no clear way to walk to the trailhead from the visitor center. Undaunted, I tread past a construction area and stride along the shoulder of Hwy 441 with its steady flow of automobiles.
The trailhead isn’t far at all, just less accessible. It is the Old Sugarlands Trail, following the West Prong Little Pigeon River. As soon as I am on this path the superficial mask of the Smokies’ popularity is lifted. This tumbling stream embodies the flowing vitality of wildness. Its voice sings synchronously of loss and of eternity, yet the quiet echoes are neither nostalgic nor remorseful. Just estranged from any contrivances of man.
I do not hike far down the Old Sugarlands Trail. An easy route down to the rocks and the water offers me space and time to photograph the river and simply to exist in its presence for a while.
The next morning I have a plan. Rising early, cousin Kaden and I will take a car with a parking pass for a hike to Grotto Falls. The sunrise is brilliant, but the drive there deceptively long. Not in distance, but in time. The roads are small and windy. We follow other vehicles easing along the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail, a narrow driving route through this section of the park. We reach this popular trailhead early enough to find parking, but too late to see the train of Llamas packing supplies up the Trillium Gap Trail from here to the lodge atop Mt LeConte.
A steady climb rises before us. There is no shortage of other hikers along the way, though the day is still early and the numbers of other people not yet teeming.
Steep valleys choked with waxy rhododendron fall away down the mountain side. Soft sunlight falls down in an irregular patchwork through the tree canopy overhead. A warm beam lands on a fern arched gracefully over damp shadowed soil. Other delicate ancient things stand illuminated by the gentle brush of the sun. Moss on a musty stump in decay. The coiled shell of a snail. It all could so easily be overlooked, yet here in the Smokies on this slow ascent, these small scenes present as enchantments. As glimpses into long forgotten, arcane truths about the world.
Grotto falls is a unique free falling waterfall. Unique in that it is one of the few places where the trail actually proceeds behind the falls. A cool dampness reigns in the air and, as to be expected here, people are congregating for their opportunity to have pictures made standing behind it.
Salamanders scamper away as I find a photo composition and set my tripod in the stream. Then comes a time for waiting. Not waiting for the right conditions, for the right light, or for weather to shift or the sun to be angled just so. No, this is waiting for a gap in the groups of people. Waiting for my own moment to capture the falls, just without the humans.
We are back at the cabin mid morning. But, it is not long before I learn that Aunt Charlotte wants to go for a hike and so of course I’m going out again as well.
This time we head to the Middle Prong Trailhead at Tremont. It is a wide and flat path, a former railroad bed, following the Lynn Camp Prong. This path gently climbs towards undesignated destinations. I’m not sure how far we plan to go and simply absorb the turbulent wonders of the adjacent river.
Again, there are other hikers here. Fewer than at Grotto Falls, though. Not crowded at all. Rounding a bend in the trail, a buck with antlers in velvet steps into plain view just ahead. It knows we are here, cautious yet not frightened. We watch as he makes his way across the stream to a small clearing of flat land on the far bank. There he stands awash in light beneath the contrasting foliage, prince of a realm that has nearly lost mankind’s appreciation.
Some might call such a hike uneventful. We reach a split in the trail at a crossing of the river and there realize we have come as far as we need to this day. The cold pure water rushes over my skin as I sit soaking my feet. Sunlight filters through the leaves, salamanders hide amongst the rocks, and the only sound is the steady trickle of the stream.
Uneventful it is not. This is how the ancient magic of the Smokies is conveyed from its living things and endless crystal streams into the few human beings who remain open to receiving it. Not through explanations or justifications, but through connection. These mountains, older than our imagination can conceive of, cradle the same wildness that lies latent within us. Immersed in them, we can recognize ourselves.
This wraps up most of my experience of the Smokies in June. Really happy with how several of these stream/waterfall/cascade photos turned out, and that picture of the buck was a happy surprise! I hope they resonated with you, too. Let me hear your thoughts!
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