Rex's Adventures

Hiking to the Highest Lodge in the Eastern United States-Mount LeConte Lodge

2011-11-15T08:28:00.013-06:00

A few times in your life, you are offered a unique opportunity to do something. Many people do not realize this opportunity in their life and simply pass it by. Others say I don't have time, maybe another day or another time in my life. There are a few that say "hey, I am doing this at all cost! I may not have another opportunity!". This is what fell my way recently with this trip and it will go down as another one that I will remember until the day I die.

This is a story and an adventure trip about Mount LeConte Lodge in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park in Tennessee (USA). Pack your day pack up and go along with me. All you need is a change of clothes, some lunch on the trail, water, and a few toiletry items. Before we start, here is a background on this amazing place. It's impact on my wife, my friends, and myself will live with us forever.

About 8 years ago, I went to my doctor and I was telling him about all the backpacking trips I had been on that year in the hopes he would tone down on chewing me out for high cholesterol (it didn't work). He replied with "my son and I just got back from Mount LeConte Lodge in the Smokies and had a great weekend". I told him I had never heard of this and he began to explain. I consider myself to know a lot about the Great Smokey Mountains National Park and he threw one over on me with this one. The ole "Google search tool" later on when I got home was the answer to a lot of questions he presented by telling me about this lodge. I became more curious and decided to get a group up and go. For 3 years, I fought to try and secure reservations at this amazing place and failed. I called and called, sent E-mails, and no luck. They either did not answer the reservation phone or never returned E-mails. My good camping friend Brett changed all of that this in 2011. He made it happen. How, I don't know but he made it happen. That is all that matters!

Mount LeConte, is one of the three tallest mountains in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. It is right up there with Clingman's Dome (6,643 feet), Mount Guyot (6,621feet), and then Mount LeConte at 6,593 feet. There is controversy over this mountain's name and which member of the LeConte family it was named for, so we will not go there. Paul Adams, an enthusiastic hiker and explorer that had moved to Knoxville, Tennessee in the early 1920's started out with tents up on the mountain to promote the beauty of the mountain to customers. He later built a lodge. The National Park Service took over the land where the lodge is located but contracts the use of the lodge out, continuing a tradition that was started many years ago. Mount LeConte lodge is now a series of buildings or cabins. The main office and lounge area were built in the 1960's, but the first lodge built still stands. On this trip, we got the honor of staying in this first cabin that was built. The first site was actually at a different spot, just a short piece back up the trail. The current lodge cabins can accommodate a total of about 50 people. The most amazing part of the lodge is that it is a trip back in time! Relics from the 20's are still up there. There is no power available, and only kerosene lamps light your way in the cabins. The workers and all guests MUST hike to this place. Lamas are used twice a week to deliver supplies up the mountain. A helicopter changes out the propane tanks every so often. This practice has only been done the last 3-4 years. Prior to the propane tanks, they had used kerosene heaters since the 1920's. The lodge is open from March until November of each year, and some lonesome sole or soles have the duty of staying at the cabins all winter long to watch and care for this amazing place during it's closure of the winter months. More about this place later on. For now, grab your pack and lets head out in the car to get to the trail head!

THE LONG HIKING JOURNEY BEGINS

Sunday morning, November 6, 2011-We meet at a pancake house in downtown Gatlinburg, Tennesee for a large breakfast to start the hike out. The route we are taking up is one of about 5 trails available to reach the lodge. On this trip, we have picked the shortest (5.3 miles) but also the steepest! After eating, we drive on down to the Sugarlands Visitor Center of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park to meet all parties in the group. After we depart from there headed on up to Chimney Tops and Newfound Gap, we stop just past Chimney Tops on the left at Alum Cave Trailhead. Being the "geek" that I am on electronics, I am constantly watching my altimeter watch as we climb higher and higher in altitude with our cars. It is here at the Alum Cave Parking we get out all of our packs, hiking staffs, and mentally start preparing for the big challenge. My wife has been nervous about this part for some 2 months. I too, not having been hiking in a while have some visions of what lay ahead. It is a beautiful day. The high temperature in the low areas is in the mid 60's. The high at Mount LeConte is in the upper 50's. Lows are forecast in the mid to upper 30's, so not too bad with the cold (Interestingly enough, Mount LeConte has never recorded a temperature warmer than 80 degrees F due to it's high elevation). An almost full moon is scheduled to greet us in the night, so with almost no clouds, a spectacular sunset looks like it will play out for us tonight! At 9:18 a.m. we head out, with Brett, my camping buddy and friend leading the way with his wife. This will be his 5th trip up, and he knows this place well. Ask him and he will tell you 5 x50 is how many more times he will go and stay at this place. He loves it. I know now that if Brett loves it, I am sure I will too. Steve and I have talked about this place for years. It just never seemed possible to actually get a reservation. We start out stopping at a sign not too far down the trail that says "Mount LeConte Lodge-5.0 miles". We snap pictures here to start out the epic journey (in our own little worlds). The normal rate for most folks to ascend to the top is 3-4 hours. It is never a race for anyone, at least you would think. I soon found out that it is for some. In our party, we had all skill levels of hikers, so Brett had told us that we can take our time. We have all day to get to the top. It is a good thing we did have all day, because that is about what it took. One of the members in our party had recently been diagnosed with only 60 percent of his lungs were working up to full and some others in the party had not had much hiking experience. For the first hour, we marched along at a fairly brisk pace, partly because we were refreshed and ready to go and second because the terrain was not that bad. After about an hour into the hike, it quickly became apparent that this will be a "mind game" to overcome the uphill forces of nature and gravity! I had warned my wife beforehand that hiking in this kind of terrain involves a lot of mind games. Your mind goes through waves of "I am not sure I can make this" to "Just a little bit further, I think I will make it just fine". People that do not hike very much and take on this trip don't know how to cope with this. I had some good hiking friends early on warn me about this. If you hike/walk/backpack long distances, your "mental drive" is just as important as your "physical drive". If you allow your mind to tell you for 3 hours that you cannot make this trip then guess what, you probably won't make this trip because you quit. "Mind over body". Ever hear this expression? That is everything in hiking in remote wilderness areas. As we walk and walk and walk, making our way up the mountain, the beauty gets better and better. If you take your thoughts off the pains in your legs and focus on the beauty, it becomes a much better trip. The crowd of 3 couples and one individual on this trip (we will come back down with another couple that arrived a few days before us) starts to spread out as the hours go by. As you pause to catch your breath, you are stunned by the beauty around you. With the elevation, most all of the leaves are gone off of the trees, and so this yields to spectacular views looking across the mountains. Around lunchtime, we stop at near the halfway point. It is Alum Cave. The smell of sulfur is clear in the air here. This was a key ingredient in the making of gun powder, and so I am sure this place has some historical stories to tell. It is a large bluff type shelter with the pungent odor of sulfur. We sit down, catch our breath, and grab some lunch. With such a steep angle of terrain, it makes for some really weird pictures (see attached of crew with packs and hiking staffs-Photo courtesy of Dewanna Jones). Around 2 p.m., the mental anguish kicks in with everyone except Brett and his wife, who have made this journey so many times. Brett informs us that we are about to encounter the worst part of the hike. It is the last mile and a half. We later named it the "torture mile". It is a very steep incline that just keeps going up and up and up with little to no flat areas. At times, the trail gets very narrow with cables secured into the rock to help you hang on and keep from slipping down the extremely steep ridges the trails are built on (see picture of trail area like this). The edge drops off hundreds of feet in places. If you are afraid of heights, just don't look off the edge and look straight up the trail and you will be fine. Many of the trail parts have solid rock which at times were slippery with ice left from the snow that had melted and refroze. We were told the lodge had remnants of snow from a few days before and this explained the ice. I have to say, this is the toughest part of the trail. It is a good thing that it is in the last mile or so. It it were halfway, many folks would simply turn around and go back. As we made our journey up, I had forgotten to zero the trip odometer on my GPS, and so all we had to go on was the elevation. Knowing the top of the mountain was 6,593 feet, just about everyone in the party was asking me what our current elevation was. I had a watch on me with an altimeter, and so I just kept calling the elevation out and informed everyone of our progress by shouting out elevation levels at various times. We also asked folks coming down the mountain from the lodge "how much further". Both of this methods has pros and cons. How much further might depend on how much in shape they were. Elevation levels being called out may also discourage you as well. You are are 5,400 feet, your legs are shot, and you know you have another 1,000 feet to go! Not good on the mental state! The average time to get to this neat place is about 3-4 hours you may recall. On this day with all the parties, it took us 6 hours! As we get near the top, the elevation finally leveled out. After 15 more minutes, we arrived! Mount LeConte Lodge, elevation 6,593 feet. The flat hiking trail was EXTREMELY slick from the packed down snow that had become ice from so much foot traffic. We had brought along foot traction to add to our shoes. It was such a short stretch to the lodge that we decided to just take our time and not fool with putting them on our boots. Final arrival time was 3:05 p.m. EST.

ARRIVAL AT MOUNT LeCONTE LODGE

Arriving at the lodge offers a unique view that you might not expect. Extremely old cabins, wooden roofs, and a about as rustic as you can go in appearance. No modern day brilliant colored signs, but rather simple wooden signs that pointed the way- Dining Hall, Cabins, and Lodge Office all with arrows. The now famous signs that are hanging above the dining hall show today's date, something that is changed out manually every day. The main focus areas of the lodge are the dining hall, the office/lounge, where you can purchase shirts, mail a letter from the lodge (transported down by lamas), the rest rooms in which are housed in two buildings. One building is the older "latrine" style (rarely used now), and the newer flush toilets (heavily used and appreciated). The remaining buildings are used for storage, employee cabins, or for guests. They vary in size and accommodations. Depending on how large of a party you have may determine what type/size of cabin you are given. Upon arrival, we are greeted with hot chocolate or coffee. I must say, that was the best hot chocolate I have had in a long time! The first view many people get after being greeted with a warm cup of chocolate is the view out the dining room deck. It is spectacular! You look down from over 6,000 feet into the valley where you can see the cities of Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, and at the base of the mountain, Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Right out in front of the deck down below is the cabins of the employees as well as a bear trap, weather station, and propane tanks lined up with a fence around them. Why would you mention this detail you might ask? Because they all have their own stories. First, the propane tanks: Since the 1920's, the cabins have all been heated by kerosene. The lamps at night use them as well. About 3-4 years ago, it was decided to switch all cabins over to propane gas. From talking to others that stayed in the past, this was very much welcome. The cabins have black walls and black pictures hanging on the walls from the soot from using kerosene heat and lamps. The lamps alone, put out a lot of soot. The tanks are switched out from time to time using a large helicopter that carries one off and sets another refilled one down. I would love to see this task done up here! The Bear trap: Well, not much explanation here, other than the fact that from time to time they have a bear problem up here. There were bear warnings out by the Park Service on this trip as a matter of fact. With Mount LeConte shelter with backpackers and food being brought up and cooked outdoors not far down the trail from the lodge, bears that are really hungry will stray in the area, mainly at night. If they become too bad, they set the bear trap up at the lodge. Interestingly enough, all of the cabins up here have strong wire like cage material over the windows. This is to keep some bear from wanting to crash the party I suppose. The lodge encourages everyone to not even leave food they brought up with them in the cabins. Not so much from the standpoint of bears, but mice. They are and have been a horrible problem until this action was taken. Now, residents are asked to bring ANY of the food they brought up and are asked to put in a metal can in the lounge area for the night.

Last the weather station: It is interesting to point out that in the hottest of ever recorded summers, Mount LeConte has never been above 80 degrees F. This is the place to be in the summer heat! The flip side of that is cold. Man do they see so bitter cold up here unprotected. Snow is quite frequent for the south up at this altitude. It basically has it's own weather system this high up in the mountains. It reminds me of Alaska. No weather forecast is 100 percent accurate. The mountains have their own patterns of weather that can be unpredictable.

After some warm drink and rest, we head over into our cabin and get it ready before darkness and suppertime. The cabin we are in will sleep about 5-6 couples. Again, it was the first lodge there. Other cabins around sleep less than that. They are all extremely old. There is an old table with a kerosene lantern by our bed. It also has a bucket to fill warm water available from the kitchen and wash up in your cabin. Soap, empty hot chocolate/coffee mugs and matches are all on the table for use. Full bathing is not possible at the lodge, but small washings or "bird baths" as my mother used to call them are for everyone. That is the reason for the bucket. Looking at the age of this cabin does two things to people. They either fall in love immediately and are ready to stay, or for some, it looks to old and creepy to be happy. It was no problem for any of us. When you are this tired after walking 5.3 miles, anything looks good! Before we settle in, there is still plenty to do, so lets get going!

PREPARING FOR OUTDOOR CHURCH SERVICE

Well, they may have gotten your attention. It might as well be called that. The standard thing you do at Mount LeConte is to hike just under a mile on up to the real top of the mountain (LeConte Lodge is really not at the TOP of the mountain) to see the sunset. THAT is a "must do" if you have the slightest bit of strength left in you to do. On this day, about 40 people hiked up the continuing incline making it's way to the top. Couple with that, ice that was stepped on, glazed over, and you have some really bad conditions. Most all of the ones in our team went except two. They stayed back at the cabin in the warmth. The rest of us braved the elements and headed to the top. Reaching the top of Mount LeConte is absolutely stunning! No words ever written here can describe the breeze, the smell, the panoramic view, the sun of God's beauty shining down on all the mountains around and underneath you. Sitting down, we all wait with anticipation for the sun's moment to remember. As we glance around, Steve points out the small tower at the top of the mountain across from us. He or someone around us points out this is Clingman's Dome, the highest point. The trouble is, you feel like you are even with it, so you don't feel like it is taller than you. As everyone sits around, talks, laughs, and carry on and waiting for the moment, many cameras on tripods, binoculars, and video cameras are all posed for the moment. Finally, God's light show kicks in gear wide open as the sun starts setting, setting the stage for colors changing, patterns, sun dogs (sun hitting high cirrus ice clouds) and light rays being cast and shown. It is truly a spiritual experience. One that I will never forget. How could watching the sun go down be such a big deal you ask? Well, you have to be there and you will know exactly what I am talking about! It provokes a mental stimulus that is hard to beat. It is similar to those sunsets people describe on the ocean. As the sun disappears over the horizon, some claps and some "wows" are heard among the crowd. Unreal!

LET'S EAT!

After a breathtaking sunset with little clouds and miles and miles of visibility, we make our way down, slowly! The ice has just further froze and so getting down the rocks coming down in elevation proved to be a lot more than some bargained for! At times, it was downright treacherous! We finally made it down the mountain back to the lodge, and about the time we did, we hear the familiar sound of a triangle announcing dinner time! Time to eat! When you think of how many years they have made this familiar sound at the lodge announcing dinner, it truly is amazing to be here. Supper yields some very hungry people! After making such a long hike, anything, and I mean just about anything is mouth watering. First up, they bring out a half of a peach, potato soup and cornbread. After everyone indulges and partakes that, they bring round two. It is roast beef, cream potatoes, green beans, gravy if you want it. Top the meal off with a large thick chocolate chip cookie that is sliced like a brownie. If you want seconds and thirds, they are more than happy to feed it to you. It was one amazing meal after a long 5 mile day. The sunset and the meal just topped it off! Now, time to walk over to the lounge area and sit in old time rocking chairs around the stove. That was awesome as well. We talked for about an hour, resting with the meals settling in our stomachs. This is times you don't forget about. It is a time where you don't want it to end. It did though. Some rather wild and loud card playing folks at the table behind us suddenly started drowning out the conversations, and so we moved over to the old living room of our cabin. We talked for about another hour and then all decided to head to bed. The original plan was for some of us to get up early enough to watch the sun come up the next morning on the other side of the mountain. As the evening moves on, that ideal is becoming harder and harder to full fill. With every muscle aching in our bodies, most everyone decides, "I think I will pass". With warm and toasty propane gas heaters in every room, the night saw little need of much blankets, except for my wife. She shook and shivered all night long from cold. I don't really know why. I stayed very comfortable. One of the long time friends of Brett, whose name is Pat who had been many times with his wife Jennie, commented that the normal is if you sleep on the top bunk, the heaters will run you out and you lay half naked on top of the bunk bed burning up. If you sleep on the bottom of the bunk beds (they are regular sized bunk beds), you will freeze all night. They explained it all! Just before we went to bed, the moon, almost at full was shining brightly down on us. It yielded a spectacular view of the mountains and the valley at night. The sun was so bright, we were fascinated to see that the solar panels that have "auto trackers" to follow the sun during the day, were following the moon that night because it was so bright!

BILLIONS OF STARS

At about 5 in the morning, my wife and I had about all of the bladder being full that we could stand. It is one those times laying in bed when your body says "nope, I am NOT allowing you to go back to sleep until you address this bladder problem." We both decided to get up and make the short hike over to the rest rooms to settle this. When I went out, I let her go on and I stayed out for a little bit. Words here cannot come close to describing the nighttime sky. There were billions of stars out that could be seen since the moon had gone down. I cannot remember how long it has been since I saw this many stars out. With such a high altitude, you forget how clear the air is up here! I could have stayed out for hours, but after my wife returns to me from the rest room and I address my bladder problem, we head back for a couple of more hours of sleep.

A BLESSING AND A CURSE

Monday morning, November 7, 2011-Morning yields a blue sky, beautiful sunlight, and warmer temperatures. The low was only in the upper 30's. Pretty good considering this is November. I begin the cursed task of packing things up slowly, getting fresh water from the well, and then waiting for the breakfast bell sounding to come and eat. Several people were up just before 8 a.m. standing outside for the cue that breakfast was ready. The rest rooms were full, so you knew most everyone was up and ready to dive in for round two of a great meal. As we sit down to eat, I ran over and shoot some video with my iPhone. This moment has to be captured to share! Breakfast starts with pancakes. Later, grits (a southern thing), eggs and ham are brought out. It was amazing. I was told later that most of the supper was just canned goods, but hey, I will take it any day in my book. It was awesome! Breakfast was extremely good. The glass at another table taps with a loud noise like someone is making an announcement. The crowd quiets down and one of the employees at the lodge says "I would like to welcome everyone to Mount LeConte Lodge. We hope you enjoyed your stay with us and we hope you have a safe journey back down the mountain. We invite you back anytime you can come and stay with us. Be safe and remember to pack out all of the trash you brought up here. Thanks and have a great day". The noise and the eating resumes. Wow, what a unique and amazing breakfast, and to think that all of this has to be brought up here to the mountain!

THE DESCENT BACK TO REALITY

About 9:25 a.m., we all head out back down the mountain. There is something interesting this time going DOWN the mountain. Everyone is screaming in speed down the mountain. There are very few stops for rest this time. It's only gravity pushing you and the calves of your legs reminding you of muscles you have not used in a long time. Coming down, we scream in at 12:30 a.m. Some of the crew even makes it in at 12 noon. What a contrast! I stop some with my buddy Brett and we admire some of the scenery. We both snap pictures and discuss the trip. My wife is just ahead of me and stops some, but is mainly headed for that car and to get those boots off! Steve, Dewanna, and Don, must have zoomed down the mountain. They beat everyone. Pat and Jennie stay back with us as well and we all have conversations down the mountain that really top a trip off and make it wonderful as well. It's the fellowship and the nature that ties anything amazing like this together. As we get to the car, in a rather tired and ill tone, my wife says she needs to get the car open so she can get these boots off-NOW! She made it fine as did everyone else. 5.3 miles show up on my GPS since I reset it to zero at the cabin. We pause for a group picture (taken by a total stranger) at the trail head parking, shake hands, and vow we will be back to this amazing place. Brett doesn't bat an eye. Even with this being his 5th trip, he is ready to book next year, immediately!

TWO "OLE GOATS"

I must close with some humor for everyone. With my wife and I (both in our early 50's) on our drive back home, we sat in the car for about 5 hours on the drive home before we decide to get out and eat supper. As we get out, it is all we can do to move. I consider myself in shape at this stuff, but for some reason, 10 miles of trail hit me! We both poked across the restaurant parking lot at .4 miles per hour. Traffic in the drive though had to wait what seemed like minutes until we crossed in front of them and finally got out of the way at a tortoise pace. Man, I have not been this "stiff" ever! After 5 minutes of walking around, I returned somewhat to normal. My wife still recalls that and laughs at how we looked. We looked and felt like grandma and grandpa.

If you ever have the opportunity to do this amazing journey, please take the time now to do something similar while you still have your health. If you cannot make this journey, then it is my wish that you enjoyed going along with us on this trip. I hope that the writings I have here have portrayed the images I witnessed with this incredible beauty. It's all out there folks. The beauty of nature and God's creations are all for the taking. All you have to do is push your body sometimes to get to these places and open your eyes. I guarantee you it will cleanse your mind and body from this crazy world we live and deal with on a daily basis. It puts the meaning of life back in check with your mind by clearing the "stuff" out we deal with daily.

See you on the next adventure! Thanks for going with us!

The Big Tree-Sipsey Wilderness Area-Bankhead National Forest-Preferred Hiking Route

2011-08-29T21:52:00.020-05:00

Of all the E-mails and facebook requests I get concerning this Blog site, the majority seem to all ask the same question "What is the best route to get to the Big Tree?". I decided it was time to help some folks out with this blog. I cannot answer all the E-mails and facebook requests, but maybe I can answer most of them here with this short article.

First, of ALL the reports of people getting lost in the Sipsey Wilderness, most all of them center around people either going or coming from the Big Tree. The majority of people know and respect the woods, but even the most skilled woodsmen have been turned around getting to this giant icon for the south. Being respectful of mother nature and her elements are the key to taking off on this trip. A pair of sneakers and a bag of M&M's will probably get you there and back, but if anything goes wrong, you might just find yourself spending the night on the ground, or hovering by a fire wishing you had told someone where you were going while search parties are planted thoughout Bankhead looking for you.

If you decide to take a hike to the Big Tree whether to camp or to just take a day hike, PLAN AHEAD! Pick a FULL day to go do this. Don't hit the woods at 2:15 p.m. and expect to dash in and come out. Don't take small children that will tire out fast, otherwise, plan on sore shoulders and a very ill child by the end of the day. There is NO RELIABLE CELL PHONE coverage in the Sispey Wilderness Area. If you are an amateur radio operator, there is a repeater in the forest you can reach. It is the 146.960 Moulton repeater. There is also the 442.425 repeater but does not cover the wilderness area as good. Both are sponsored by the Bankhead Amateur Radio Club. They are open for all amateur radio operators to use. KNOW the area or get familiar with the area to some extent. I am a member of some clubs that hike and kayak, and I am totally amazed that some people have NO ideal of where they are, how to get out, or even where to start. They simply just "go with the crowd". Most of the time, that is fine. At one point in your life, it won't work, and YOU have to take care of yourself. On this trip, take lots of water, some food, a coat, jacket, and/or rain jacket, and a good pair of boots, not tennis shoes. Be prepared to get sweaty, dirty, and use every muscle in your body. This is a moderate to extreme hike for most people, so if you only hike in the city parks or on flat ground, you are in for a surprise! The reward however if you go and make it (and you will), will give you the honorable title of working for a goal and saying "I've been there!".

Nothing pleases me more than taking people to go see the Big Tree. Many groan, complain, and fuss the entire way at me and everyone else. Within one month after the trip, they are so glad they went, and will proclaim "it was worth every mile". I lost count at 14 times going there, so this place is old hat to me. Do I carry a GPS and map with me after this many times? YOU BETCHA, and I ALWAYS WILL!

There are about 4 ways to get to the Big Tree, but to cut down confusion, I am going to cover 3 of the most popular routes. The third, is my preferred and the shortest. The MAIN route that most folks take is by sticking to the trail. They either park at Cranal Road and Take Trail 201 or 202 and make their way down to 204 and camp along the way. Locals call this the "city slicker route" with all due respect. This is the route that would seem the most "logical" to follow given you don't know the area and you follow the U.S. Forest trail system. This is the killer hike route and most folks that do this, do it to camp. A few wandering soles take this route for a day hike, and come back calling it "the day hike from hades". Another route is to park at Thompson Creek Trailhead, and follow Forest Service Trail along Thompson Creek taking FS206 and hit 209, and it will take you to the Big Tree. This appears to be the most popular route. This carries you through the Kings Cove area and a popular landmark called Ship Rock. Many camp here because it is basically a hugh rock that looks like the bow of a ship. There is also the Eye of the Needle in this area. It is a hole in the rocks near Ship Rock that allow you to cut through the cliff area and shorten your long route around Ship Rock down by Thompson Creek. On this popular route, you will meet your friends, neighbors, your brother, your cousin, your cousin's mother, etc. I am just kidding, but you get it now. This is the major highway route that many take to the Big Tree and camp along the way. Another blog is written about this route, so read it if you are interested in this "major highway route" that most folks take. It is 5.5 miles one way and is relatively flat. If you like this route, then use it. If you want shortest time and least distance, then read on further!

For this blog, we will focus on my favorite route introduced to me back in 2002. It is off any "official" U. S. Forest Service Trail, and cuts time and distance in exactly half. It is a mere 2 miles in or a 1.5-2 hour walk in, and the once barely visible footpath, is a "pig trail" of high foot traffic that many are taking now. The first thing to do is get you a Sipsey Wilderness Map available at most any local store around the forest. Read this blog and then study the map. I have uploaded some pictures of my GPS tracks on here but they may not show up good enough for many. Look on your map and find Thompson Creek Trailhead. FS 206 and FS 208 start here. It is at the end of the Northwest Road. Park your vehicle here and tell your friends at home this is where you are parking. Take FS Trail 206. Follow on this trail with Thompson Creek on your right side. Soon you come to a stream crossing that feeds into Thompson Creek. This stream is in White Oak Hollow. Cross the stream, pick the trail back up for about 200 feet, and the trail continues on beside Thompson Creek and has a sign pointing to the right telling you that 206 is to the right. This is where you "part your ways" with the FS trails. You will notice a Y in the road at this point. You will bear to your left and start going up White Oak Hollow. You are leaving the U.S. Forest Service Trail 206, but no worries. Your hiker friends have beat this trail to a pulp so you can easily see the trail. Follow the trail going up into White Oak Hollow. It follows beside this tributary stream and to the right of it. Soon, you will see that the trail is starting to go up the hill and to the right side of White Oak Hollow. You will see that it starts going straight up and is heading to the southeast of White Oak Hollow. It is here on this incline, that your stamina will be tested! The incline gets steeper and steeper as you are proceeding up and out of White Oak Hollow to the southeast. You can stop along the way (and you will out of breath), and notice the pretty rock out croppings to your right. A stream you start joining and winding back and forth across leads you and directs in in the right direction as you are making your way out of White Oak Hollow. When you get to the top of the hill and look back down on White Oak, you will notice you are standing on an old logging road at the top of the canyon. It leads you to some awesome hideout camps, but sorry, not to be talked about in this blog! After you sit down and take a short break with water, you then head on southeast and cross the logging road. You are headed back down into another canyon. Follow closely the trail and stay on it. If you are not familiar with the area, it is from here on that people get their "doubts", but have no fear, a solid trail is in front of you if you pay attention. Lets head on....

The trail that goes down into the canyon used to be nice and straight. With hurricanes in the past pushing trees down, it has turned this part of the trip into a zig-zag cross country course. As of this writing (August of 2011) it is still in this shape. It is kind of aggravating having to zig-zag back and forth but will change with time as the downed trees start to rot away. When you descend down, you will go from open forest land and slowly start getting into my most favorite part of the Bankhead National Forest, the hemlocks! The trail will start to take you down into a steep part of the canyon, and this is where it can get dangerous, depending on your skill and hiking level. The is the only area where I preach a sermon to those with me to take your time and be careful. The trail takes you down into a small waterfall and very slippery part. You have to negotiate down into the stream bed area and then follow the rocks of the stream bed for about 100 feet. Take your time here! People have left behind ropes to help you get down, and they may or may not be there. When you walk on the rocks, be very careful. I know a lady that went with us on one hike and slipped and fell on her bottom here. She felt pains from it for a year. After you have successfully negotiated this area, you are home free now as far as difficulty levels. This area when you come back up will go much faster than coming down. It is harder to come down a slick slope and rocks than it is to climb up one. After you reach the bottom of the canyon, take the time to walk slowly and admire the tall and beautiful bluff walls of the canyon to your left. The stream you came down will be on your right. This area is a good place to just stop and absorb some of the hemlocks and cliffs. As you walk on down the trail, you will come to a stream you will have to cross. It feeds into the stream to your right and they merge together here. This is WEST Bee Branch and this is the area where many folks get turned around and shortly after become lost . Cross this stream and DO NOT TURN LEFT. Many people do this. You will want to cross the stream and continue on downstream with the stream remaining on your right. If you were to turn left and march up West Bee Branch, you are going the wrong way! They do it so much that there is a trail beat down going on the right side of West Bee Branch! Wrong way folks! Many people do this and get into really rough country with the dense foliage, turn around and get confused. Most simply give up and return back to the truck or car. Where they went wrong is turning left at the first stream (West Bee Branch) and they should be going on down further to turn left on East Bee Branch. Continuing on our hike, as you walk the heavily beaten trail with Bee Branch on your right, you will come down to a flat area on the other side of the creek. Before you get to this flat area though, you will notice lots of trees down through this area as well. A "microburst" from a storm sent many trees down beside the stream and across the trail. It too, zig-zags back and forth. There is going to be a small little 8 foot wide hole in the middle of the trail (about 4 foot deep) you will have to climb down in and back up along this trail. Again, take your time throgh this. As you come down to the flat area off to your right on the other side of Bee Branch, this is going to be the intersection of East Bee Branch and Bee Branch. The trail runs right into East Bee Branch and Bee Branch will be on your right. After you cross East Bee Branch, turn left NOW, and walk UP East Bee Branch. The trail is on the right side of East Bee Branch and makes it's way up the canyon, slowly gaining elevation up above East Bee Branch. The trail is about a half of a mile long and leads you right to the Big Tree. Looking back on where we have come from: The most important thing I can stress here is when you come down from the slick rocks and canyon with ropes I talked about, do not take the first stream you cross to the left, but cross it and go on down to the second stream and THEN turn left heading up into the canyon. Do this and you will not get lost as so many do.

While you are at the Big Tree, but sure and check out the two massive waterfalls that are nearby that add "icing to the cake" rewarding you for your long walk. Take the time to eat your lunch there, taking in the scenery and the sounds of the waterfalls. Notice the orange iron ore seeping out from the canyon walls, an element used in making steel by the old timers of long ago. Also notice a rather large "ball like" hole in the side of the canyon beneath the largest waterfall. Strange? If you are adventurous, work your way up the canyon to the top where you can look down at the Big Tree and the canyon. This is better to do in the wintertime where you can see further.

Plan your trip, take water, plan on leaving Thompson Creek Trailhead about 9-10 a.m. to start your journey, and plan on getting out about 4-5 p.m. This is for day hikers. If you are overnight backpacking, well, I could write 6 blogs on things to do and more places to go on that, so I will save that for another day. I hope you enjoy your trip should you decide to go. If it helps you any, I have taken some elderly men in their 70's on this hike. They were in good shape and they all made it fine. Just prepare yourself for sore muscles the next day. This shorter route is far more strenuous than the relatively flat 5.5 mile route, but will take half the time! I hope this blog has been helpful to you. If so, set a date on the calendar and get going! I prefer winter months to do this myself. There is far more to see with the leaves gone and no ticks, chiggers, snakes, and mosquitos. Everyone has their own special times they want to go so any time will do. I hope you get to see this "giant icon" that attracts everyone in the South. If you do, then you can say "I have been there!" the next time someone mentions "The Big Tree".

On the maps above: The first map shows Thompson Creek parking. You can see "tracks" or also called "snails trail" left by previous trips with my GPS. It basically marks wherever you walk. You can see on the top map the area where instead of crossing the first stream and turning right on FS Trail 206, you will turn to the left and proceed up White Oak Hollow for a short piece. The second map shows where when you descend down into the canyon, you will cross West Bee Branch, go on down to the next stream (East Bee Branch), and then head up to the Big Tree. Almost everyone else that does not take this short route will be joining you on the trail going up East Bee Branch.

Politically Correct Statement: The writer of this blog assumes no responsibility for the safety of persons reading this blog and taking this hike. It is the hikers responsibility to know the area and to assume their own responsibility for the correct clothing, gear, weather, emergency plans, and skills needed to perform this hike. This article is for informational purposes only.

UPDATE! 8/30/2011-Since I have posted this and ran it on facebook, one of my good hiking friends who went there in June has informed me that due to recent storms, tornadoes, and high wind events, Thompson Creek Trail and Northwest Road have been closed. In addition, the wonderful route that I have described above has been "decimated" as well with trees down. Since this is not an official U.S. Forest Trail as I explained above, don't look for this route to be cleared, ever. I will try and post more information as I get it from hiking friends.

Alaska-The Great Land-By RV

2011-07-22T15:30:00.064-05:00

Well, as promised. The days planned for some 5 months have come and gone, and only the memories remain. Hopefully, they will be preserved in this blog and shared with you to excite your senses to travel to this amazing place called Alaska. First, this will be a different blog then what you are used to reading from me in the past. I typically have always gone all out in camping or adventure, meaning, I go in the most primitive conditions and accept them. Most of you that read my blogs have gathered this. On this trip, I had to change that. I am carrying my family on this trip that does not except too kindly to primitive conditions as much as I do. Let me start by saying this. If you read this article, I hope you start now to go to Alaska. I encourage you to get a map down of Alaska and look at it as you read this blog. It will help you better appreciate this amazing area.

I have been blessed to be able to go to Alaska 14 times since 1986. Since that time on every trip, I have earned "air miles" with each and every trip that I flew on a plane. Those air miles got "cashed in" recently to bring my family to this place that has melted a special place in my heart. Since my eyes first set on Alaska in 1986, I fell in love with the state. I have talked to others that have been or go, and they all say the same. It gets in your blood. You can't get rid of it. There is a part of it that goes back home with you every trip. That's the only way I can describe it. I consider and will consider it my second home until the day I die. It is the only place where I feel at home there. I have traveled to Germany and all over the United States, including Colorado, that is many ways a mini Alaska, and nowhere does anything compare!

This blog will focus on places, things to do, and sites to see in Alaska, and not so much on kayaking, camping, or hiking as in previous blogs. It is still adventure, just in a different form. When I cashed in the free tickets to take the family to this place, I had no ideal what I would do and where I would take my daughter and wife. After discussions with my daughter, she said "why don't you just rent an RV and let's take off!" I thought, what a fantastic ideal! About every other vehicle on the road in the summertime up there is an RV, so why not! As you read this blog, we will focus on locations, where to go, what to see, and events that happened to us. I hope you will enjoy following along with us. Let's go!

Thursday morning-July 7th: We drive into the airport, and embark on a 12-17 hour ordeal JUST to get to this amazing place. There is no easy way to get to Alaska, and 97% of most all flights go to Anchorage, and depending on what airline, you will fly from Minneapolis/St. Paul, Salt Lake, or Seattle, Washington. Those are the main hubs that feed Alaska. For us flying from northern Alabama, it is always a 12-17 hour ordeal. You either sit in airports or you sit on a place the entire time. It is very taxing on your body. Going is easier, because you are psyched and ready for the trip. Coming back, your brain is saying, "Get me off this friggin plane, I am sick of flying!". On this trip, our route was Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and then Anchorage. We arrive around 6:00 p.m. Alaska time that afternoon. If you go by our Alabama time, it's 9 p.m., so a 12 hour ordeal. This is a good trip with only 12 hours. Coming home will prove to be a different story as you will see. As we arrive, we gather up all 796 pounds of clothes the family has packed into a suitcase and my North Face duffel (just kidding on the weight). We carried towels, a few bowels and pots for the RV in my The North Face duffel bag. Of course Delta Airlines loves this. They already charge you $25.00 for each one bag checked in per person, and with another at $30.00, they were more than happy to accommodate us and allow us to bring clothes on the flight for an extra $101.00. This could be soap box time, but I will move on.

Arriving at the airport in Anchorage, I call the hotel shuttle to come pick us up. It helps that I have been in this town many, many, times, and so I felt like the "guide" on this trip as well as the family member. We are greeted with a cool fall like breeze and a nice 61 degrees as we walk outside to wait on the shuttle. At 6pm in the afternoon, it looks like 3 pm back home. Most lower 48 folks don't know that because of the tilt of the earth for summer, this tilt gives Alaska at times, a full 24 hours of daylight! In June/July, it never gets dark! We will talk more about that later on. As we are picked up by a hotel shuttle, we head to Microtel just outside the airport. Why Microtel you ask and not Hampton Inn? Because the Hampton Inn and the Fairfield Marriott in the winter time are a modest $100.00 per night. In the summertime, that rate soars to $225.00 per night. Even the Microtel sticks you, but not nearly as bad-about $150.00 per night with taxes. We get to the hotel, order Sicily's pizza to be delivered to us, and crash for the night. But wait, we can't go to sleep, it's still light outside! This became a big issue as the trip goes on. I will explain as you go along with us.

Friday-July 8th: Time to get up and get going! We go down to the lobby and enjoy that mouth watering fine cuisine that only Microtel can offer for breakfast.... a cold bagel, cereal, or some fruit. It really got me excited for the day after I ate this (I am kidding of course). At 9 a.m., I call a taxi to come and pick me up. The destination is over to the RV place. When I arrive there, a 7 minute $25.00 ride, I am greeted with a very nice looking 24 foot RV with my name on a sign hanging on the mirror on the front- "FREE 7/8/2011". Cool, reservations do pay off sometimes! After an outside inspection of the RV with the people and a training course on how to use everything in the RV, we are set to go! My daughter had suggested I watch the Robin Williams movie on vacationing in an RV to get some tips, but I decided to just get it from the RV rental place. All right, 24 foot RV in my steering wheel and headed down the streets of Anchorage, Alaska. Freedom in Alaska begins today! Having driven before many times in Anchorage, I easily head back over to the hotel to show off our ride. Anchorage is a bear to drive in. It reminds me of driving in any large city. Everyone has the same attitude while they are driving- "I am on my way going to this place and YOU are in my way". I pull into the Microtel where the family is waiting. First words from daughter.....Cool! We load our 3 large suitcases and duffel bag in the RV. Next stop, your friendly local Fred Meyer store for groceries and supplies. We decide to visit Fred Meyer instead of the local China Mart (Wal-mart) that camps out at every city in the U.S. We shop and gather supplies and spend some time in Anchorage. I take them to Moose's Tooth Pizza and have lunch. This is the most incredible pizza I have ever had. The locals swarm all over this place, and it is always packed out. Some of the best pizza you will ever eat. If you go to Anchorage, Alaska, go by Moose's Tooth Pizza. My wife and daughter agree!

On this trip, I have planned a route both north and south of Anchorage, Alaska in the RV. First, we will travel north and go up near Palmer, to a small little "hole in the wall" RV park-Mountain View RV park outside of Palmer. The RV park requires traveling up the Glenn Highway (Highway 1), turn right onto the Old Glenn Highway and follow it several miles. As we pull into the lot, my family was somewhat shocked to see this site. I am used to it being up there so much but folks tend to forget that Alaska has not been "corporationized" as much. People from the lower 48 and come up expecting to see $10,000 signs out by the road, glitzy lights, and all the advertising we are used to in the lower 48 or in even in Anchorage. In the real world of Alaska, it has not been "corporationized" yet, and so many of the services are owned and operated by folks like you and me. People who have lived there all their life. A business might be part of their home, next to their home, or across the road from home. Such was the case here. The upstairs of the RV park office was their home. As I pull in and go into the office, there is nobody around. Dead quite. A sign over by the counter says "ring bell for service", and so I do. After some noise up above me upstairs, a young lady comes down the stairs into the office and says "Hello, can I help you?". She takes care of my site and says just pick one. I look and there are tons of sites left and few people here. I myself am beginning to wonder if I picked the right RV park. I mean this is peak tourist season. As we set up the RV for the first time, it's about 7 p.m. and not a sole in site. I see RV's around, but there are no sounds! The place is absolutely dead quite. Another interesting point my daughter pointed out, was that there were no bird sounds even. For whatever reason, this place is dead quite, I mean dead quite. The first night in the RV was uneventful, other than the fact this was wife and daughter's time to witness constant light. This time of year, with the earth's axis at a tilt to bring up our summer, it messes with the state of Alaska. Because of the axis tilt of the earth, in June through August, there are extremely long days of light. At certain times, there is no darkness, only a dusky dark, meaning the sky stays light, and there is a dusky dark in the neighborhoods. In dense foliage, it might be enough to call dark. My wife was intrigued by this the entire trip. Not having darkness does different things to different people. For some, they just roll the blinds down and go to bed. For others, there is this sort of mental drive that says "there is light outside, I need to be doing something, it's not time for bed!".

The next morning, we packed up early after breakfast. Time to hit the road! Destination, A reindeer farm that my daughter had picked out. I didn't know it fully , but turns out she had been watching Sarah Palin's Alaska, a Discovery Channel special that aired some time back. In this special, they visited a reindeer farm. OK, let's try it out. I did not expect much nor am I a hugh fan of these type places, but hey, this is a family vacation. Pulling in, we were arriving a few minutes early before they opened at 10 a.m. As we got out, paid our entrance fee into this reindeer farm, which by all accounts look like a farm anywhere in the U.S. The house the owners live in is next door. If it were not for a sign, you would feel like you just drove up to someone's house and the farm next to their house! This is typical Alaska. The RV park you may remember, was nothing more than someones house with an RV park in the back yard! As we started talking to the owners, we learned to appreciate reindeer. Reindeer is a term for domesticated caribou. They owned a large number of them! They also had bison, elk, musk ox, and two moose that were raised from the early life. As we talked to the people running the place, it became more and more fascinating. Coming from the lower 48 states, you quickly learn things new. As these caribou or reindeer walk around, there is a noticeable "clicking" or "popping sound" similar to what it sounds like when someone pops their knuckles. Turns out, this is a special tendon that allows them to walk and spread their feet wider for walking over snow. It is a rare opportunity to stand up close with elk, moose, and other animals they have at the farm. The moose was the most captivating to our family. Having traveled many times to Alaska, these creatures amaze me in the fact that it can be minus 30 degrees outside, and they are casually walking along the tundra eating limbs off of scrub brush. You have to wonder, how in the heck does something this tall, this big, live out in extreme temperatures eating only sticks! After about 2 hours of relaxing time talking to these wonderful folks at the farm, we say goodbye and head out of the Palmer area and go north.

Next Stop-Hatcher Pass and an old historic mine-Independence Mine, designated as a museum by the State of Alaska. My good friend Joe, who lives in Anchorage, suggested I go there. It is located up north of Palmer, Alaska. I highly recommend you put this place on your "to do" lists in life. The fact that we made it to this place was luck. We were supposed to link up with Joe's family and stay in a very remote cabin that his dad owns from Friday until Monday. Timing is everything, and as it turned out, Joe left his job and had started a new job. Starting a new job yields no extra days to take off, and so our chance to stay in the cabin was lost. We decided to make the best of these 4 days that we lost, and Hatcher Pass was on the list to do for Saturday. As we wind our way up the road above Palmer, Alaska, we can tell we are starting to get into the high country. Alaska can be summed up in one word-BIG! Words, pictures, and even vivid descriptions cannot yield to you the immensity of this place. Mountains that "look" like just down the road, might easily be 20-30 miles away! As we slowly gain elevation starting to ease up into the mountains, it is here that the family starts to really absorb true Alaska! Up until this point, it was boring details of groceries, gas, staying in an RV, and the hassles of getting it from point A to point B. As we come around a curve, we come upon a pull over and cars parked by a creek. I decide to pull over for a minute and let's absorb some of this beauty we have been seeing as we go up in elevation. I am glad we did. The view from the bridge we crossed in such a hurry, looking up the creek back towards the mountains, was absolutely stunning! Picture time, picture time. I snap off tons of pictures. The view I see is the view you see on this blog. The very first picture. You know what is coming next and you are right in your own thinking. Pictures do no do justice to the real thing. Seeing it's vibrant colors only the eye can stimulate you with, smelling the clear stream and fresh clean air, and feeling the cool 58 degree low humidity air are all missing! OK, we need to move on. You get the point. I wish you were here to see it! Moving on up the winding road and occasional switchbacks, we are starting to gain considerable altitude and the tree line is leaving us. Next is just scrub brush. Pulling off the road for a moment to absorb more of this, we see an incredible change of colors with various gradients going up the mountains from the vegetation. As the mountain goes on up, it turns to tundra, and then to just pure gray rock. The top of mountains this tall support little to no vegetation. The only thing that visits them is bears and mountain goats. A short time longer down the road and we arrive and an amazing place in Hatcher's Pass. it is called Independence Mine. A view of the entire mine museum and Hatcher Pass is shown on this blog. The story behind Independence Mine is simple. The gold rush spurred the site of this mine and a 24/7 operation in the 20's, 30's, and until the 40's. With the onset of World War II, the war board declared the site a recreational site and not an asset to the war, and so it was ordered to be shut down. Shut down it was and it never returned. In later years, the state of Alaska Parks took it over as a museum. It stands today, many of the rooms untouched from the 1950's. Really an amazing place. We quickly found out we could easily spend 2-3 days at this place. There is so much to see, so much to do, and so much beauty to absorb. It was tough leaving! With lunch in the RV on the way up to Hatcher Pass, it is late in the afternoon now, and we decide to head on out to stay in Wasilla Saturday night.

As we leave Hatcher Pass, Hatcher Pass leaves something with us. You cannot describe it, but we talked about it the entire trip while we were up there and after we returned home. Alaska does this to you. It leaves you with a craving for more. You want to come back and see it again, and again. It is hard to describe, and if you have never been there, you will think I am on dope. I can assure you I am not. It is just that Alaska grabs you like no other place. As we depart, we are saddened knowing we may not get to this special place for a while. Notice I said a while, because we will be back! Saturday afternoon finds us bypassing Palmer somewhat and heading on over to Wasilla. There is simply no time.

Arriving in Wasilla, we decide to check this town out! I have been here once or twice since 2007, but I notice immediately that it has grown! The promotion of Sarah Palin and the media's constant exploitation of this lady has apparently doing well with the town. This is her home town. She was mayor here for a short time and continues to live here. It had grown since I saw it in 2007. We arrive at our destination-Big Bear RV Park. This allows us time to upload the pictures to facebook, sent E-mails, and a chance to take in all that beauty we saw today. As 10:30 p.m. approaches, it looks like 5 p.m. on the eastern side of the U.S. The sun is about at the 3 o'clock position. My daughter and I shut the curtains on the RV and crash. My wife, still captivated by this constant light, stays up a while longer, looking out the RV as if something "magical" is about to happen with all of this light outside. It is hard to get used to. The fact that you could work an 8 hour day this time of year, and still have another 12 hours of light to do other activities, such as yard work or anything outdoors. Everybody up here uses daylight to the max this time of year. We heard children up playing at 11:30 at night! So strange to witness.

Sunday morning-July 1oth, 2011-We wake up in Big Bear RV Park in Wasilla, eat a small breakfast, and head out about mid-morning in the RV. We know how to use everything on this camper now, and it is working out great! This time, we are headed back south towards Anchorage. We had considered going on up north to Talkeetna on the Glenn Highway (Highway 3), gateway to Denali National Park as they all say. Talkeetna is unique in that you drives for miles and miles headed to Talkeetna with nothing but flat forest land on each side of you. By the time you get to Talkeetna, you are starting to see the mountains of Denali National Park. On a clear day, a spectacular view of Mount McKinley can be seen. This makes Talkeenta a good target to head far. The problem is, time and distance. My good friend Darrell in Fairbanks even ask me to go on to Denali and meet he and his wife for the weekend. With the distance and time involved, we humbly declined. It is just too far up to drive. I hate not seeing Darrell and showing my and daughter Denali, but there is only so much you can fit in time with Alaska. Alaska is BIG.

We take the Glenn Highway (Highway 1) Sunday morning headed south back to Anchorage. I forgot to mention this earlier, but a local friend in Alaska informs me that the mountain chain that you drive right next to going out to Knik Arm bay area, is the end of the Rocky Mountain chain! The Rocky Mountain chain that starts in the United States, proceeds up into Canada, then Alaska, and stops next to Knik Arm inlet. A useless, but interesting factoid! You read it here first! As we move down the road, I decide to try something. My wife and I turn on UStream and broadcast live to the world using my iPhone. What better place than the Glenn Highway, with its spectacular scenery. Our destination was Eagle River State Park about half-way between Anchorage and Palmer. With the remote cabin planned originally over the weekend, the family was making this up as we went along to fill in this time slot. I had been checking out parks, both federal and state, and this name came up. I noticed it had no hookups for an RV. That was fine though, since we had all we needed in the RV. We knew we really didn't even have to use the generator since it never got completely dark. Upon arrival, we were surprised at just how small it was. We were surprised and happy to find an open spot, so we took it! As we started to get settled with the RV, we decided to walk around the park. The was the best ideal we ever decided to do. We quickly found the ragging Eagle River running beside the campground. Water, raging with class 2, 3, and 4, rapids went right beside the camping area. The river and the scenery we fell in love with immediately. The only thing I forgot to mention was this. When we came into the campground, there were signs everywhere that read "HIGH Bear Alert Area! Bear are very active in this area and everyone please maintain all food storage practices! With that being said, that added a little a suspense to the stay! What type of bear we wondered? Brown Bear, Black Bear? As we soon found out, Black Bear only. We knew most of the time if we just had Black Bear, they can be bluffed or will not be as aggressive as a brown bear or grizzly. Walking up the creek and exploring on a trail, we found lots of flat rocky shores along the way. The interesting thing to point out here is that rivers are raging this time of year, partly because of glacier and snow melt runoff from the massive tall mountains. Also, because of such a strong current, the churning water is a dark to light gray color, and you cannot see anything in the water. The strong current keeps sediment stirred up similar to the way mud is stirred up during a flood in the lower 48. After about an hour or so there, my wife and I walk down to the Glenn Highway bridge where Eagle River flows underneath Highway 1 or the Glenn Highway. We sit down on a rock, listening to the roar of the river and the noise of traffic flowing above us. Within 10 minutes, a hugh bald Eagle flies down the creek, and parks on a tree right near us (see picture on this article). I ease out the camera and fire several pictures off. After 15 minutes, the Eagle flies on. I shot a couple of pictures. One is featured on this blog. The are is an amazing are to go to. It is a small campground, not a lot of people, and a great place to just "chill" and absorb the beauty. As the evening goes on, you want to just stay outside, since there is still so much light. At 9:30 p.m., we decide to head back to the camper. Another amazing place to see. Too much to see and too little time.

The next morning on a Monday the 11th, we reluctantly head out of the campground and move on down south on Highway 1 back towards Anchorage. This is the least pleasant time of our trip, Anchorage. The RV Park there is about the only one in town, it is large, right smack in the middle of town, and kind of has a "trailer park" atmosphere that I am not fond of. What I mean by that is, your camper is less than 10 feet away from the next one! If your windows are down as most are with the cool nights, your neighbor hears everything you say. My family was not happy with this situation, but knew that is was necessary. We had to wash clothes, empty the RV toilet tank, fill the water tank up with fresh water, and get ready for our next phase of the trip, south bound to Seward. Before we did that though, we were going to have to spend another full day in Anchorage, partly because our cabin fell through with my good friend Joe. The original plan was to spend Friday the 8th until Monday the 11th in a remote cabin several hundred miles from Anchorage. I had already reserved a spot for Monday night in the RV park when we planned the cabin stay months earlier, so we decided to just make the best of Anchorage all day Monday, and then head south. Monday morning, we went to the Anchorage

Zoo at the request of my daughter. Zoos can be zoos to me (yawn) but Anchorage did have a fairly nice zoo. A couple of the highlights were the polar bears, the grizzly bears, gray wolves, doll sheep, moose, and a coyote. The coyote entertained us. Every single time a trumpeter swain would cut loose with a "bugle" sound, the coyote would immediately respond with a yelp or howl. We got an amusement out of that. I actually recorded the sounds of it on my iPhone. Late that afternoon, another $160.o0 worth of groceries and supplies at Fred Mayer and we were ready to head out Monday morning. The rest of Anchorage is mainly a large busy city, with intense traffic, crime, and because of the harsh winters, generally a dirty appearance. We did manage to go by Kincaid Park, an extremely large park I read about all the time in the Anchorage newspapers that I subscribe to. There are constantly moose hanging out in this amazing park. The park has extremely nice trails that serve as bike trails in the summer, cross country skiing in the winter, and numerous other trails for various activities. This day that we went hoping to see moose, only yielded tons of cars and traffic from some sort of regional soccer tournament. Big disappointment but at least we said we saw Kincaid park.

Tuesday-July 12th. We eat breakfast at the Peanut Factory over on Old Seward Highway and set out for a place that I read about, that locals go to, but thousands of tourists that pass by it each year pass up. It is Potters Marsh. Potters Marsh is a refuge formed by the making of the Alaska Railroad track and the Seward Highway. It was sort of an accident that it came about. By the construction of these two things next to Cook Inlet, it made an incredible marsh that has attracted all types of wildlife. Within 10 minutes of arriving, we spotted an Eagle sitting in a tree, ducks and geese, as well as Sockeye salmon (reddish pink color) running in the stream through the marsh. The wind got up that day, became overcast with a light rain. We stayed about an hour there but vowed to come back. It is a neat place, and if you ever travel to Anchorage, make it a stop on your way south to Girdwood, Portage, or Seward. Next on the list, is Whittier, a small port town, but first, we have to take in a little site seeing along the way. The Seward Highway, is unquestionably the most scenic highway talked about in Alaska. This long stretch of road that follows Turnigan Arm of Cook Inlet, yields the ocean bay, massive mountains that stretch through the sky on some days, bold brilliant color variations on the mountainside this time of year, along with vehicles on the road that give the since of just how small you are in this world. As we travel on down the road, I pull off the road at Beluga Point, a popular pull off spot for tourists. Here you can take on the ocean bay breeze, hear the roar on the sides of the mountains of the hundreds of waterfalls coming off the mountains from snow and glacier water run off, as well as see the harsh rock outcroppings going out into the bay. My wife and daughter really enjoyed this place. We could have stayed a lot longer, but had to move on. We move on down the highway and pass the turnoff to Girdwood, a small town that hosts Aleska Ski Resort. You will hear more about this neat place later on in the trip. Coming on down the Seward Highway (still Highway 1), we turn left on Portage Glacier road, and head for the Begich Boggs Visitor Center at Portage Valley, Alaska. One neat thing to point out here. As you come down Highway 1, you will see buildings that appear to be sunk into the ground and very old. There is interesting history here. In 1964, this area suffered a massive earthquake. It tore what buildings were standing down, and the sea water flooded this town. It killed the trees in the low lands, and the remains of the buildings and the trees are still standing in many areas. Alaska, because of it's harsh winters, does not heal back very fast from disasters or damages sustained. So when you drive out into this area, you see dead trees still standing out of the 1960's and buildings somewhat preserved from that time period. Alaska does not have all the microorganisms to break stuff down as we do in the continental U.S., thus items are preserved better up there.

Stopping at the Portage Glacier Visitor Center or Begich Boggs Visitor Center (named after the mountain tops surrounding them), we go in and see exhibits on display and a interesting film on glaciers. The center, ran by the U.S. Forest Service, has some interesting history to talk about. Several years ago, the U.S. Forest Service built this multimillion dollar complex, and spared no expense. At that time, it was looking at the beautiful and massive Portage Glacier. The center was designed with a large window that is at the head of an auditorium. When curtains are pulled back and massive motion picture screen is raised up, it yielded a spectacular view of the glacier right in front of you. The normal routine right after it was built was to shuffle everyone in this large auditorium, show them a film on glaciers, pull the screen up and raise the curtains back and there was a massive Portage glacier in front of you to captivate you. Something bad happened over the years though. For whatever reason, global warming, climate changes, climate shifts, the glacier melted and moved back around the corner BEHIND the mountain OUT OF CLEAR VIEW. Now days, the view of the glacier is gone, and all you see is a glacier lake when the curtain is pulled back now! If you want to really see the glacier, you have to take a road over back closer to the glacier, and board a boat. We did later, and we will get to that later on.

Finishing up here, I take them to another path I have been several times, the Whittier Tunnel and the town of Whittier, Alaska. Whittier is another town of fascination to me. Look at Whittier on Google Earth now. It connects Passage Canal (The Gulf of Alaska) with Turnigan Arm (Cook Inlet) and you can see that this is a vital shipping or port town. In recent years, it is a popular stop for cruise ships. For years, people had to travel over Portage Pass, a relatively low area between two mountains that allowed passage over to Whittier. In World War II, it was decided a 2.5 mile railroad tunnel needed to be constructed through Maynard Mountain and a 1 mile tunnel before you get to that. To date, it is the longest railroad tunnel in North America. The neat part is that it is shared with Alaska Railroad, has only one lane, and so traffic is alternated in both directions at set times.

Pulling up to the tunnel, we pay the $12.00 round trip fee, move up and wait in line with about 4lanes of traffic. The lanes are numbered and they have traffic lights that tell you when that lane is clear to proceed. There is one major crawling text for everyone that reads "The next traffic through is 1:00 p.m." The tunnel is dark, wet, and long. My family was not too fond of this, but I wanted them to experience this. This will be my 3rd time to come down and go in this way. When you emerge from the tunnel, aside from the always stunning scenery around you of the mountains and glaciers, Whittier, is a big bubble pop. There is very little to the town, it is small, cramped, and dirty. It is a port town keep in mind, not so much a tourist town. They only have 200 full time residents! We spend about 2 hours here, and move on. My wife and daughter were not very impressed. I did not expect them to be. It is just one of those unique "been there and did that" places. I am sure there are lots of people that would like to visit "Dutch Harbor", a little "hole in the wall" port town made famous by the Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch television program. It is mid-afternoon now, time to move back through the tunnel and head on down to Bear Creek just before Seward, another port town.

Around 7 p.m., we reach the address of Bear Creek RV Park. Now this one knocked my family to the floor. Being used to corporate lower 48 America, they expected a $15,000 sign out front, large billboards advertising the campground. WRONG! We just about literally pulled into the back yard of someone's house. The campground, as so many of campgrounds in Alaska, are ran by local Americans like you and I . It would be not much different then setting up an RV park in your back yard back at home in the lower 48. I pull in, and a kid, and I do mean kid (around 10-12 years old) checks me in. Even myself, having come to this area before, was taken back by this. The check in room doubled as a bar, an eating area, and a lounge area. The cash register he checked me in on doubled as the cash register for the bar. He picked up his radio microphone attached to his shirt and said "Joey, I need you to come around here and show some people where to park!" After about 2 minutes, another 10-12 year old boy came in and said "you are in lot 9. I will show you. Just follow me". So I followed him outside and he helped me back my RV into a slot. Now that was odd! Never have I had a 10-12 year old boy hand me back my credit card and I sign a receipt. Alaska is always full of surprises and this too, was added to the list.

Wednesday morning, July 13th-Time to head to Seward for our next adventure. Having traveled here several times with business trips, I decided to book a whale tour for a half day. In 2007, my nephew Eric and I booked a trip with some outfitters to kayak and camp among glaciers in the Kenai Fjords National Park. That was a trip I will never forget. On this day, we hope to see all kinds of wildlife. Before we have to meet at the dock and check in, we decide to have some unusual fun. There is a web camera located on the dock that overlooks the Seward Harbor. I have done this before with friends and co-workers. We called home some 3,000 miles away and spoke with some family members. They went to this web site and we gave them a wave on camera. Hey, you gotta do some crazy things every now and then. It was fun using technology again.

At 12:00 noon the boat departs out of Seward harbor. On this day, there was hardly a cloud in the sky! For Alaska, that is truly a unique day. There are very few days where you can see total blue sky. The Mountains in Alaska are so high and so big, they create their own climates at times. As a result, there is almost always clouds in the sky. It is rare to get several days with absolutely nothing. Departing out into Resurrection Bay is always an amazing deal. It's here that you see just how small you are, how small the Town of Seward, Alaska is, and just what an amazing and massive land Alaska truly is. It is hard to describe Alaska in print. It's hard to really grasp Alaska in pictures. Once you go to Alaska, a part of Alaska stays with you. This makes my 14th trip to this amazing place. I crave it while I am home in Alabama, I dream about the next trip coming, and I seize every second when I go. At work, whenever a possible trip comes up for Alaska, they know me. They know I am begging for this trip and they don't even have to ask me to go. Now, for the first time in my wonderful years of marriage, both my daughter and my wife now feel the same as I do. They don't want to go home!

As we run along the shores of Resurrection Bay, we are absolutely captivated by the size of the mountains along the way. We see Sea Lions out, Doll Sheep are pointed out to us on the cliffs above, some 200 feet above us, looking down from a jagged rock outcrop. I only wish that this blog spot allowed more room for pictures. I have tons of them to share, but no way to do it in this form, so far now, you have to visualize a lot of this along with me. As we make our way on out to the main channel of the ocean, we are stunned to see what we actually paid to come and see, whales! We look out and observe about 5 humpback whales playing. There is one that is breaching or clearing the water up into the air at times. Every time one of the whales breaches out of the water, the boat sounds like a machine gun with the cameras snapping away. It is an amazing site. I have spent a week off the coast of Main in 2004 video taping whales for the Navy, but it is always a neat time when you get to observe these magnificent and large mammals. OK, now for the humor side of things. Before we departed on the ship, my entire family, including myself, had outfitted ourselves with arm bands to cut down on the chance of sea sickness. I had a mild queasy stomach after we started watching the whales. Since we were more out on the open ocean, the waves were beginning to pitch the boat pretty good. Concentrating on the whales for 30 minutes seemed to have taken its toll on the folks on board. My wife and daughter started becoming sea sick, very fast. So did others on the boat. The captain seemed to have gotten the hint and started wrapping up the visit with the Humpback whales and we start moving on back into the protected bay. It was too late for my crew. That wild beaming smile I saw when we were departing, changed to a serious, I have been shot in the stomach look. For the next 2 hours of the cruise, it was a somber wife and daughter. Others on the boat took the same shape. As we passed by the stunning and massive Bear glacier in resurrection bay, it was only a blur in their heads by now. I shot a rather funny picture of the two of them on the boat. Not the same crew about 3 hours earlier. I too, Mr. Adventure guy that I want to be, always becomes weak when it comes to the sea. I fought this for a week in 2004 in Maine, and my stomach was queasy now. Their solution on the boat!-Ginseng candy. Guess what? It works! I ate several pieces of this disgusting tasting candy, and soon, I was totally normal. Write that down and put it in your purse or wallet. Ginseng candy will solve your queasy stomach problems for motion sickness. After 5 hours of absolutely stunning beauty in Resurrection Bay, we return back to port. a wonderful cruise (well at least part of it was for my family) and a great way to wrap up another day in the Great Land. As we leave the port and head 6 miles back up the road to our RV Park (located in someones back yard), I wanted to take them up to Exit Glacier up above Seward. If you ever go to Seward, make sure you take the drive up there. It is a chance to get up close and personal with a massive glacier. My family was so stressed from the sea sickness, and the fact that it was about 20 miles out of the way before we got back to the RV Park, we decided not to go.

Thursday-July 14th-Next on the schedule, head back up towards Portage. We wake up to another beautiful day with the snow capped mountains around us at Bear Creek. We head out going back up the Seward Highway from where we came a few days ago. We are headed to another famous tourist stop-The Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. This center rehabilitates animals that have been hit by cars, abandoned by their mothers, etc. They have a number of types of animals ranging from brown bear, black bear, elk, caribou, buffalo, and musk ox. We enjoyed this place. It has fenced in areas that allow you to get up close to these amazing animals. If you have never been 15 feet away from a massive grizzly bear, this place is for you. It allows you to see, sometimes a little closer than you want to see, these massive animals. We spent about 2 hours at this place. As we are looking at the animals, we notice a few buildings or barn looking structures that have collapsed over the years in several places around this facility. We also notice a number of trees, both white and black spruce trees that are dead. Finally, we read a sign that says it all. These buildings are what is left of what was Portage, Alaska. The great earthquake of 1964 in Alaska leveled every building in this small town. As I mentioned earlier as we passed this area going on down to Seward, the ocean from the bay area-Turnnigan Pike flooded the area with sea water and killed all the trees. What was fascinating to me was that the structures were still in tack and the trees still around dead from 1964! I suppose with the winters and few fungus and "critters" to feed on these wooden structures and trees, they are slow to deteriorate. How many places in the states can you stand and look at a run down house or dead tree that became that state in 1964. Most trees would be long gone and deteriorated. Portage, as we learned, was a thriving town at one time. The earthquake pretty much decimated the town and took several lives with it. It is no longer what it used to be, at all. Another story worth telling while there was this. As we got out of the camper and starting to approach an observation building where you could view the moose at the conservation center, a sharp, pungent, and gasping type smell overcame me. It was the most intense smell of body odor I had smelled in a while. It would almost make you gag if you focused on the smell. Having travelled out of the country, my first thought was, OK, some foreigners are up ahead of us and the wind is just right. As we approached the building, I saw people coming out of the observation post and I said to myself, yep, those are the culprits! Geeze I wished they would get a bath! As we approached closer, a small 10x 12 pen was at the entrance. In this pin was a massive porcupine. As soon as we approached it, the smell just about knocked me to the ground. OOOOOK! It was not those people who forgot the right guard that morning. That intense body odor smell was that of a porcupine!!!! I get it know! After reading and talking to some care takers at the place, a porcupine is a member of the skunk family, and so yes, they too have that perfume smell similar to "Peppy La Pue" from the Loony Tunes cartoons. It's just that they prefer the intense human body odor smell.

Leaving the Alaska Conservation Center, we head down the Portage Glacier Road for our campground for the night. It is Willa Walla, a U.S. Forest Service Campground. Elliott glacier up above this campground and adds to the already and ever present stunning beauty that you just bathe in every day in this place. As we pull into the campground, we see a camp host present at the entrance. This is pretty much a primitive type campground, but that's O.K. We have the RV loaded with fresh water, shower, etc. As we drive in and see the camp host, I ask him if he has any spots for the night. He says yes there are plenty, just go pick one. As we talk more, I see a grin come over his face. He says"Where are you from?" I said Alabama. He said grabs my wives arm and says "Montgomery Alabama for me. Its good to talk to a neighbor". In the course of our conversations, he says he is a retired UPS worker. He said he and his wife took a month and drove up to serve as a campground host. We both talked about and shared the beauty of this place. He too, has it in his blood. We talked about so many people "say" they are going to Alaska but never do it. We both agreed that indeed many of us have so much in our lives that there is no time. He said something I will never forget. "You know the ole saying-If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time!". He is so right. If you never PLAN to do something, you will NEVER get it done.

Once again as you have heard 10 thousand times of this reading, absolutely stunning views surround us. I mean you are in the middle of Portage Glacier Valley. Massive Mountains surround you. Elliott glacier, a valley type glacier looks down on the campground. The sun changes the light every so many minutes and changes the colors, the contrast, the texture, and on and on I could describe. YOU have BE THERE to appreciate anything I write down here. We find a great spot to park, and start exploring. "Hey, lets hike up to that glacier!" And so we take off down a trail. As we follow the trail, it goes more and more into dense foliage, I mean DENSE foliage! At times, the foliage gets so thick, you can only see a few feet in front of you. I had borrowed a can of Bear Pepper Spray from my buddy Joe who lives in Anchorage before making this second leg of the journey, and so I had it, tucked nicely and tightly away deep INSIDE my day pack I was carrying on my back. After a few minutes on our journey, I realized this was NOT the greatest ideal. OK, here we are: My wife is leading the way with no defense from bears or moose. My daughter is in the middle, and I am taking up the back in with my bear pepper spray, tucked tightly away so I cannot get to it quick. It is so thick we cannot see each other. As we walk and walk and walk, I suddenly realize something we southern folks forget about. That glacier "close by", might easily be another 3 hour walk just to get to. We have no food, no water, no GPS, no maps, and the trail is becoming more faint. In addition, moose pellets, or moose droppings, are everywhere! Fortunately, I don't see any bear scat or bear poop, but hey, you never know. A young lady at the Conservation Center told me that we should not have to worry about brown bears and that only black bears were the major factor at Willa Walla. As these thoughts are running in my head as we walk, it hits my wife as well without her saying a word. She too, realizes she is leading us with no defense from moose or bear, and the trail has gotten fairly weak by now. My daughter is starting to not like this situation and so she does what I taught her to do while hiking in Alaska. Talk LOUDLY as to alert any moose or bear that we are COMING! After about 20 minutes of walking in this dense mess, we all stop and compare notes. The resounding opinion was to head back! As we turn around and start heading back, I become captivated seeing so much moose poop everywhere. I am rolling the video camera and narrating this and my daughter is becoming by the second, more and more ill at me for coming on. My daughter is reminding me to COME ON!!!! It' funny how the "tone" in someones voice can depict exactly how they feel. My duaghter's tone of "COME ONNNNNN DAD!"means she is getting highly ticked, and highly much ready to get out of this place! After about 20 minutes, we arrive back out on the main trail. We laugh about it and move on. My daughter is not exactly happy of this situation. I reflect back on this. No harm is done. Just a simple trail, BUT, we are in Alaska. This is and can be the real deal. Not the movies or the TV shows. Preparation is the key to everything. This is not the Great Smokey Mountains National Park where 99.8% of everything you encounter, is more afraid of you than you are it. My good friends in Alaska, Joe, Darrell, Floyd, and Mike, have always stressed that prevention is the receipt to prevent disaster and surprises in Alaska. I should have had a gun or pepper spray attached and ready. Even Black Bear behavior in Alaska is different from the Smokeys.

As we return to camp, my crew is exhausted, and so they crash in the camper for a nap. Me, I cannot do that kind of stuff. I sit outside the camper just absorbing all of this beauty. As I sat there on the picnic table with the wind blowing. Suddenly, the smell of Peppy La Pue's cousin started invading the area. Wow, I recognize that smell! A porcupine must be making his way through camp! Hey, I learned something "Alaska wise" today! Another thing worth mentioning here is that with Elliott glacier up above camp, there is a massive and constant "roar" of the waterfalls coming down the mountain from the melting snow. That roar, coupled with binoculars to look at the incredible and long waterfalls shooting down the mountains, cannot be properly described in print. You can look up at the waterfalls with or without binoculars, and see these ragging waterfalls and shooting streams gushing with water, hundreds of feet in length. A spiritual experience is all I can say.

After some ground beef cooked on an open fire beside the RV around 8 p.m. (still lots of daylight), we decide to walk around some more. The trails in this campground are incredible, with elaborate boardwalks in marshy areas, and well kept trails with small rock beds. As we walk along, I decide to try a wild stunt. Walk out across the creek in the bone chilling glacier fed stream. My wife wants to document this for fun. I instruct her on how to use the camera, empty my pockets and head out. WHY am I doing this? Fun I guess. I have always prided myself on being tough with the cold. I have shot video in minus 50 degree weather in Alaska, went swimming and taken a bath in The Great Smokey Mountain National Park in the dead of winter, and so I thought I would "play" in the glacier fed streams of Alaska. Easy enough to just walk out into the stream. It was probably in the low 40's in temperature. What I did NOT know was that contrary to the deep south. Alaska does not have any of those smooth rocks and pebbles in streams. I was bare footed doing all of this. BIG mistake! It was like taking your shoes and socks off, and lightly walking across a thorn patch. It could also be compared to spreading thumb tacks across a wooden floor and lightly walking across them. MAN did this hurt! Never mind the cold water. Get me out of these thumb tacks! Needless to say, a short excursion. Alaska rocks are pretty much this way everywhere. They do have some colorful round granite rock-white with black specks, but the remaining rocks are jagged, rough, and sharp! After returning to camp and resting some more, we decide to take another walk down a different trail. Needless to say, since our exercise earlier in the day into dense foliage, I now carried the bear pepper spay can on my side where ever we go now. Our 10:00 p.m. to midnight excursion turned out to be one of the most memorable hikes I will always remember. Pictures from that hike are posted here on this blog. The clouds and sunset picture was taken about 11:30 p.m. that night. As the sun was low, there was still plenty of daylight to get around in the woods. It just made the place magical with the light. The glacier I described, the waterfalls, the mountains with different shades of foliage, took on different colors and shades as the sun set lower in the horizon. I could have stayed out all night! Soon around 11:30 p.m., my body told me it was time for bed. I polled my family and they were not ready to go to bed. There is daylight we are wasting! After a little bit of thought about this, I told my wife to take the bear pepper spray and her and the daughter could walk on more if they wanted to. They said they wanted to go down and see if any moose came out to graze in a marsh near the campground. I told them to just be careful and go on, but to STAY on the trails. They agreed and so I crashed for the night. Most folks would say yes, he is crazy for allowing his 24 year old daughter and wife to march off down the trails without him, but I had this feeling that it would fine. There were no bear warnings whatsoever at this campground, and besides, she did have a hugh can of bear pepper spray. Going to sleep that night was not a problem. That cool upper 50's temperature making it's way into the camper, the roar of the waterfalls up on the mountains, and a gentle breeze, made it a "knock me out" time of sleeping. I barely remember my crew returning from the moose walk. They said they got in around 1 a.m. but saw no moose. Another blissful day ends at my second home and paradise.

Friday-July 15th- This we knew, was going to be sort of a bummer day. It was going to be a day to slowly head back to Anchorage and start preparing to turn the camper in on Saturday morning. I pull out hoping to say good bye to my new Alabama friend, the camp host. No sign of him. Everything locked up and vehicle gone. Oh well. Maybe I will see him another day up here. Before we turn in the keys so to speak on the beautiful place, we decide to go take the boat that carries you out to Portage Glacier. It is only about 4 miles down the road from the campground, so why not! As I mentioned earlier and above, Portage Glacier is one of many that is attached to the Harding Ice Field. The Harding Ice field goes for several hundred miles in the mountains. Glaciers are like information from another planet for folks in the lower 48. They are a science of their own. Glaciers move up to one foot a day taking and ripping anything in their path. Mountains are carved out and reshaped by glaciers. As we board the boat to take us out into Portage Glacier Lake, the real facts they tell you start to sink in, and they are very interesting. Portage Glacier Lake, because of its altitude and being glacier fed, is totally void of ANYTHING living, other than ice worms. The ice you see from the glacier can be as old as 75 years old. This lake is hugh! It is probably 3-4 miles across and 1-2 miles wide! There is nothing living here. Also, a Park Ranger onboard the vessel tells us this area receives 40 feet or more of snow each winter. They have to dig the boat out of the snow, shovel and dig out the buildings we boarded the boat at and the visitor center we talked about earlier in this blog. 40 feet of snow! Can you imagine the task of digging this place out every year preparing it for the tourist season. After this wonderful and breathtaking ride, it's time to head back in and take back the road in the RV. Well worth the trip, visiting a living glacier in front of you is very rewarding!

As we leave Portage Glacier Valley, we head back up the Seward Highway. As we pass the Kenai Welcome center on the right, I look out and see crews from the Alaska railroad working. Looking closely, I see my buddy Joe! Pretty cool and what are the odds. Joe, you may recall, was my good friend that was going to put us up after we arrived in his dad's remote cabin on the lake near Anchorage. This all fell through when he took the job with the Alaska railroad. It was interesting to pull out in the middle of no where and see him working on the tracks! As we truck on down the road, I decide to make a tour of Girdwood. Girdwood is a Alaska Ski resort town about 40 minutes out of Anchorage. We take a tour of this small town. Not very much to speak of. It is "rough looking" as most towns are in Alaska, because of the harsh winters they have. By rough I mean they have dirty grit sand in all the parking lots, curbs, and everywhere. Due to the messy roads they have about 9 months out of the year with snow, it is just hard to really see a super clean parking lot or road as you would in the states. We drive on up to the Aleskya Ski Resort Lodge at the base of the mountain and notice a large tram going up to the top of the mountain. We had called about this earlier and decided this might be a good place to play on Saturday.The lodge looked super nice and super expensive. The ski Resort area did in no way match the town of Girdwood in terms of neatness. It was like apples and oranges. After we explored the town, we drove back out to the Seward Highway intersection and had pizza. I got to hand it to Alaska. They sure know how to make some good pizza, but boy do they eat pizza! These are everywhere! My wife and daughter did not care too much for what we had, but I enjoyed it. We all decided definitely we need to come back on Saturday to the resort, go up the mountain on the tram and check out the views. The weather has been super fantastic the last couple of days with tons of visibility.

Arriving in Anchorage, it is all "mundane" details from here. Pull into the RV "trailer park" in downtown Anchorage, wash clothes, and start the tedious task of cleaning up the RV before turning it in Saturday morning. Friday night was spent uploading my pictures of the day to friends on facebook, washing clothes, and general RV cleanup. Laying down in bed that night, all 3 of us had the sinking feeling. The horrible thought that this play world we have bathed in for some 9 days was about to start winding down. What a horrible thought to have but a necessary evil in life. We decide we have got to get up early Saturday morning to get going. There was lots to do and short time to do it in. The plan was to go out to the airport in the a.m., pick up our rented SUV, turn the RV in over across town, and then head on back down to Girdwood and the Alyeska Ski Resort in our new rental SUV.

6 a.m. hit hard and early, with so much daylight the night before pushing us to going to bed around 11:30 p.m. We bolt up out of our beds, well at least my wife and I do. My daughter takes a little longer. I remember those early years in my life. It took me forever to get out of bed. We head over for a large breakfast at the Peanut Shack, a popular spot in the evening for locals and tourists. Breakfast though, obviously is not there most favorite place in town because there was only 1 table with customers eating breakfast. There were only about 14 other tables left open. We order a massive Alaska breakfast, pay our $45.00 for breakfast for 3, and head out.

After turning in the RV, getting a clean bill of health from them, we are off! We race back down the Seward Highway to get to Aleyski Ski Resort. Before I take you through the days activities at this neat place, lets talk about prices and Alaska. For all the good I have said about Alaska, there is one thing that is bad. That is the summer pricing. You have probably heard the stories about Alaska, Hawaii, and other tourist places in the United States. I can testify that yes, Alaska is VERY expensive IF you go in the summertime as 90% percent of all tourists do. How expensive? Well, let's take Anchorage. I have been there many times in the winter and in the summer. The Fairfield-Marriott, for example in Anchorage goes for $99.00 per night during the off season. Hey, this is great! You pay that in Nashville, Tennessee, or Portland, Maine. NOW, lets take that some place and try and stay there in mid-June. The rate is suddenly $225.00 per night. Wow! Is this tourist gouging or what? Needless to say, if you stay in a hotel for 2 weeks straight, do the math. That's a large chunk of change to eat, sleep, and be merry in a 16 by 12 room. Rental cars? You are looking at around $350.00-$400.00 for a weekend. I have paid that in the states for a weeks rental. So with all of that being said, consider the cost of food to be doubled as in the lower 48, the cost of lodging to be doubled in the summer months, and rental cars higher as well. At $179.00 per day rental on the RV, it seemed to average out better than hotels, especially since you have total freedom to go wherever you want to and not be restricted to "driving back to the hotel" after a full days activities. Our coming and going days we stayed at Microtel, a chain I rarely would ever stay in while in the lower 48. Their rooms are small, cramped and breakfast is weak, but hey, for $150.00 per night, I will take it. The one in Anchorage is pretty clean and well managed. They only thing we laughed about and I forgot to mention earlier, was that a 1 hour walk near the hotel the night we arrived, yielded a nice red tent set up in a wooded area right smack in the middle of a major highway and road interchange! It was just a few feet off the walking paved path, one of many they have in Anchorage. Two hours arriving with my family into this large city that Thursday evening and we see our first homeless shelter. According to locals, Anchorage has hundreds of homeless people. The city hosts the most homeless shelters in the nation. It has been and continues to be a major problem in Anchorage.

Upon our arrival at Aleyski Ski Resort, we park and head for the tram. WHY are seemingly so excited to go up a tram to a Ski Resort in the middle of the summer? Good question. The answer is because of little clouds, there is absolutely stunning views of the valley and surrounding mountains. Locals in shops talked about it while we were running around. It looked like a great way to wrap up the trip. As we started up the tram, the young girl running it starting spitting out all the "useless factoids" to most folks. But for me, my audio recorder was running in my head on every word she said. As the tram went up the mountain, things got better, and better, and better with the view! Riding a tram in a place like this is like taking a helicopter up. It not only underlines the sense of size of the area, but shows you what a "spec" you were down the Seward Highway just 15 minutes earlier. Aleyski Ski Resort is the states main ski resort. Practically anyone that skies on slopes in Anchorage will make the drive down. At the top of the tram is a fairly large building that houses shops, a restaurant, a overlook, a gift shop, and several other facilities. When we are getting off the tram, a lady tells my wife, "There is a black bear just on the other side of the ridge". My wife passed that on to me as we exited the tram. End of story. We check out the building to see what is going on, and decide it's time to hike up the mountain. Since it is in the middle of summer there is no snow to ski on. What everyone seems to be doing is hiking and exploring the area. As we came up on the tram, the young lady pointed out that many people are hiking "The North Face" trail. She pointed down below us and we noticed a very pronounced trail that has hundreds of "switchbacks". It winds it's way up the mountain. As you see from the pictures attached, the mountains pretty much all have a slope going all the way to the top. We saw lots of people making the climb up, some even running as if training for a upcoming marathon. We start hiking up the mountain above the tram and resort headquarters at the top of the end of the tram. I am snapping pictures and shooting video of this amazing place with absolutely stunning views. One of those views is posted on this Blog. It is a view of my wife and daughter down below me and it looks out to Turnigan Arm and down at Girdwood. We decide to climb on up to the snow line and shoot some pictures in the snow. As I turn back and look down at some of the other people near the lodge, to my left and just on the other side of the ridge top, out pops a black bear. In a matter of seconds we have a bear out in full view up at the resort. With my news blood still in me from working at a TV station in the early 80's, I pull out my video camera and start shooting video. I see people starting to see him and some start freaking out! They run over and snatch up their young childern. Some pick up rocks and start tapping them together. Some stand still in disbelief! It looks like about a one year old Black Bear. Not quite enough to classify it as a "cub" but very young. After a few seconds of a standoff with the crowd, it became apparent that this club wanted to go through the cloud, over the hill and advance on down to the city of Girdwood to get into mischief. The interesting thing is that the "sound" that drove him into a mad dash run to get out of everyone's way was not their voices. It was a single middle aged lady who bent down and picked up rocks. She was hitting them agains each other. That sound sent the bear running over he hill and down right under where the sky resort is located. Wow! Bears do appear when you least expect it! I got it all on video to. That was cool and interesting to watch.

As we head on up higher, we stop occasionally to sit down and take a breath of air, absorb the scenery, and take pictures. I suddenly catch myself taking one, two, three, 10, 11, and 12 pictures. Every direction I turn yields some of the most unique pictures. I pull out my iPhone, snap a picture, and immediately post it to facebook. That topped it off. Being able to share it live and real time practically back with my fb friends. I got a lot of joy out of sharing this trip as it evolved with my fb friends. I think that is a really neat thing to be able to do now days. After some time of walking, we decide that we should go all the way up to the snow line. we saw others doing it, so why not. As we get up to the snow line, my daughter tries to do the old tail slide down the mountain in the snow. It looked fun! I did not try it, but shot video of her doing it. My wife pointed out that she was not the least bit tired from all of the hiking! I told her thats because you don't have to breath 80% humidity like you do at home, thus you do not perspire as much. My wife and daughter were intrigued by that fact. We start back down the mountain and walk back into the main building where the tram arrives and departs. As we walk in, I look down and see a large pack on the floor. I look at the shop in front of this pack. It is a company that advertises paragliding lessons. I may have to check that out again in a minute! We go in and order lunch. Wow, I was shocked! Not only was it high priced, as it always is, but was good! We rest, relax taking on the views of the valley in the restaurant with it's large windows. We decide to get up and head outside to the observation decks. Out by the observation decks is a gift shop. All around this shop are decks to walk around in a 360 and take on the views. As we walk around to the far side looking down at Girdwood, we spot a full Paraglider spread ont eh ground on the top of the hill with an instructor. He is going over all the safety stuff with him. Both are standing up and the chute lays on the ground below them. We soon realize that the man in front is a "rookie", and the man standing behind him will be piloting the paraglider. We soon find out that for $195.00, this company will send you off the mountain, with an instructor riding behind you. You soar like a bird all over the valley and come down lightly on a field down below. My family starts encouraging me to do this. I start encouraging myself to do this. I am thinking yes! Let's do this. But then more of the reality sets in. Well, I am thinking, this will put us real late back to the hotel. We have to fly out 1 a.m. on Sunday morning. You had better pass it up this time I am thinking. My wife and daughter counter that with "do this! You may not get another chance in life to do this!" After about 20minutes of mulling this over in my head, I decide to go talk to them and see how long it would be and what it would take. They inform me about 45 minutes to over an hour wait time. OK, that did it. I guess we will just go. I knew at that time, as I know now, that decision will haunt me the rest of my life. I should have done this! It looked so peaceful. The instructor basically pilots it but hands the controls over to you from time to time. The Pilot also wore a reserve parachute. If you have the time and are curious about Paragliding, go to Wikipedia and read the definition between Paragliding, Parasailing, and hang gliding. It will open your eyes to a new and wonderful sport that is done apparently all over Alaska. We saw this same thing at Hatcher Pass, mentioned at the first of this blog. Folks have been known to catch "thermals" and stay up over an hour or so, just coasting like the eagle or buzzard does in those thermal wind currents in the air! After an awesome day on Aleyski, its time for the dreaded word, head home.

Arriving in Anchorage that afternoon, we decide to do a full out feast at the Sourdough Mining Company. This is a very popular local place to eat some great food. I order Prawns, something I have not had in a long time. I snap a few pictures of the inside of this place. Old and rustic, it is the perfect place to end a wonderful trip. We return to the hotel where I have us a room booked, although we will not be spending the night here. Our flight, called the "red eye" flight out of Anchorage, leaves at 12:45 Sunday morning. As we chill out in the hotel, we sweat about the shirts and all the tourist "stuff" we bought. Why are we sweating about it? Because of the weight! Baggage cannot be over 50 pounds each, and coming up, we were close to that! Around 10 p.m., we head on over to the airport, a ten minute drive. We turn in the car, check in and watch the scales. My wife-44 pounds, my daughter-48 pounds, me-51 pounds! Dooaaaah! The lady smiles and says "don't sweat it", picks up the bag and plops it on the conveyor belt behind her. Man, I was happy for that! If she said no, then we all three would have had to embarrassingly open all 4 baggages and redistribute the weight. Not really a problem, but not a good thing with about 25 people in line standing behind you very ill! After that is out of the way, we are "thinning ourselves down" by only having our carry on baggage. As we go through security, it really hit me. All of this red tape and all of this hassle, because some crazy idiots from another country crashed some planes into our buildings. They are dead and we are suffering the consequences many years later. I know, I know. A necessary evil for the further protection of our citizens from harm. As we successfully get passed through this checkpoint, we head to the gate. Sitting around and waiting, we notice that nothing was happening and we were about 20 minutes from take off time. Finally, that dreaded message ( if you fly a lot) comes on..... "Ladies and gentleman, those of you departing Anchorage on XXX service to Salt Lake City..the pilot has made a walk through on the outside of the plane, and discovered a large section of oil on the pavement underneath one of the engines. We have called for a mechanic to check it out. Please stand by and we will keep you updated". Oh boy, here we go! I knew from that point, we were totally hosed on all connecting flights, and I was absolutely right. The flight was delayed and we did take off, but an hour behind schedule! That immediately put us on other flights and routed us to Atlanta. Was started out on the way up with a 12 hour ordeal to get to Alaska, ended up with a 17 hour ordeal getting home. To add insult to injury, if you count from the time we got out of bed Saturday morning in Anchorage until we laid down in bed in our home town, was 30 hours straight! I managed to grab about 4 hours sleep on the plane. My wife and my daughter cannot sleep on planes, and so their time to rest was only about 2 hours of sleep. It always takes me a day or two to adjust to the time change (Alaska is 3 hours behind Central time) and for my body to get back in sync on what time it is to sleep, to eat, to get up, and to function. My family did not know how to handle "total darkness" after the return. We had not seen full darkness nighttime in 9 days!

So this wraps up one of those once in a lifetime type trips. Although I vow that this will not be THE trip. It will be one of many more if the Lord is willing. As I always have said since 1986 and will continue to say today: "I will be back!" This time, I was blessed to have my wife and my daughter both say: "WE will be back! Mission was successful. Successful in that I was able after 20 something years to convince my wife and daughter to travel with me to Alaska. Successful in that 20 years of collecting air miles on my business trips brought them here, and thus my prayers back in the 1980s came true. Both my wife and daughter were "floating" on a high from the trip, for almost a week and a half later. My daughter commented "It just all seems like a dream, a place too good to be true now. I wish I were back there". My wife made the same comments. So we all made a pack to come back to this amazing place. I have friends that I have come close to there, scenery that only God can create, and the only thing left is the stuff we dread dealing with: Making a living there? If the family could survive a winter there (My wife openly admits no, she cannot do it, but would love to spend every summer up there). The last issue is oh yeah, the money. It always seems to come back to the money. Wonder why that is? DAH!..But as my new found camp host stated so well...."If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time". So with that said, the planning and saving money for the next journey to THE GREAT LAND (aka..God's Country!) is already underway.

More Adventures In The Planning-Alaska and The Smokey Mountains National Park

2011-04-01T21:07:00.010-05:00

Winter 2010-2011 in Review and Adventures Ahead

What an amazing winter with backpacking trips in the Bankhead National Forest with my camping buddies. The snakes, ticks, chiggers, and mosquitoes are all on their way out with the warmer weather, so it is time to put down the backpack in Alabama and head for higher ground and travel north! If the Lord is willing for me to do this, and I can stay employed in this dropping economy in the United States, I have two adventure trips ahead that I am exicted to share with you. In May of 2011, I hope you will ride along with me as we head back to the old familiar place on this blog-kayak camping on Fontana Lake in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park! This will make about my 12th year going to this amazing place. I hope to take members of the Huntsville Canoe Club along with me as well as some of my close backpacking friends that like to kayak and camp. I hope you will check back and join us on that trip around the first of May.

Let's Head North This Summer-About 4,000 Miles!

Final plans are being layed out for a summer journey to my favorite place in the world! Airline tickets have just gotten booked, the gear is being layed out, and the mind is getting focused on returning to some of my favorite spots once again. In late July, you will be travelling in this blog to Anchorage, Alaska with me and the family. We plan to take you to Seward, Whittier, Homer, Wasilla, and a surprise stay at an extremely remote place on Lake Louise. A close friend of mine in Anchorage that I have come to know over the years has extended an invitation for my family (and you along with us in the blog) to come spend about 2-3 nights in a very remote cabin on Lake Louise. It is only accesible by boat, has all the wild elements of Alaska, and yes, the shotgun must be carried everywhere to protect you from any moose or grizzly bears that might want to take you on. This is something I have dreamed about all my life! Spending the night in a remote cabin, deep in the wilds of Alaska. Lord willing, I hope to have my family right beside me. As much as I have traveled all of the United States and overseas with work, I have not had an opportunity to take my family much at all with me. I decided before I get too far past 50 years old and I still have a job (as of this writing), I had better do it soon! This trip is going to be focused on wildlife. My family has requested this so look for hopefully pictures of grizzly bear, the salmon runs (peak during this time), and with a little luck, whales and dolphins on an excursion planned near Seward where my nephew Eric and I kayak camped in 2007. There will be more to add to this post on this subject, so stand by for updates! If they don't tax me death with hidden fees on airlines, RV rentals, gear rentals, shipping, and anything else "tax and fees" wise they can hide and add, I pray to share another adventure on this in late July with everyone following the blogs.

Last, THANK YOU ALL for the kind words that many of you have shared with me on these blogs so far over the years. Those comments keep me writing and sharing adventures with you. I have a passion for adventure in life and I love to share it. Obviously, many of you following this have a passion and go on perhaps your own adventures as well. If you can, get outdoors and enjoy some adventure this summer! If you cannot because of various reasons, just sit tight and I hope to take you along with me and we can share the fun together!

Whiskey Still Haven in Winston County, Alabama with 8 Beautiful Waterfalls and Cascades

2011-02-02T13:32:00.017-06:00

Seldom do you take off on an adventure trip, and 15 minutes into the trip, you are running with excitement like a 12 year old at Christmas. Normally, you have to travel to get somewhere to have the fun. Seldom does the fun hit you in the face while traveling to your destination! Such was the case one warm winter weekend in January of 2011. Yep, that's right, you guessed it...... ANOTHER weekend out there in that Bankhead National Forest or northern Alabama. With the economy in this country continuing at a crawl, jobs going away to overseas, most folks don't have overwhelming travel budgets. With my line of work, that used to be the normal to travel to adventurous areas of the country and allow me to share my travels with you on this blog. Since the economy has tanked, I haven't been more than 300 miles from my home in the last year....so we all will have to settle for some fun around my home area- Bankhead National Forest.

Our next adventure trip starts out at the familiar site to this blog, McDonalds in Moulton on Alabama Highway 157. The date is Saturday, January 28, 2011. My new close friend and camping partner with us, Brett Page, drove up from Blount county to join Thomas Graham, another close camping buddy and friend. Thomas and I go back many years. We met each other in the Boy Scouts with his dad being the local scout master. Thomas lived down the road from me and so we played some together as well. It is from these roots that we both developed a passionate love for Bankhead. The older we got and traveled around, we realize just how unique this place is. I have been blessed to travel to Alaska 12 times, and traveled all over it. I have been to Washington State and Mount Rainer, Yosemite in California, and the list goes on. NOTHING even comes close to the unique environment the Bankhead offers. My camping friend Sam says that Kentucky has some areas like Bankhead, and that is the first person I have heard to say that.

As the 3 of us embark on our journey, Thomas has it all mapped out of where we want to go. He does a fantastic job of studying Bankhead maps, plotting where bluff shelters, waterfalls, cascades, or even historical things may be. Thomas does something that only a handful of other people do such as those associated with the Wild South organization. Thomas goes and talks to old timers that know the Bankhead. He earns their trust and they know he won't exploit key areas in the Bankhead that the average public would steal or destroy in time. On this trip, he is loaded with ammo (knowledge) for exploring Capsey Creek, one of my favorite canyons to explore in the Bankhead. For those of you outside of this area, this state, or the U.S., Capsey creek is at the southern most end of Bankhead National Forest. It is located due south of the well known Brushy Lake Recreation Area on maps. Very few people explore this area of the forest, even hunters, because the terrain is very rough, steep (by Alabama mountain standards), and thick with undergrowth. It takes a lot of work and determination to explore this part of the country. But the rewards, whoa, well, unreal!

We park our vehicles along a forest road and head out down the canyon that Thomas has planned out for us ahead of time. On this trip for the first 2-3 hours of our long journey, Thomas's aunt Pam, an adventurer and Bankhead lover as well has joined up with us. She is walking in a short distance with us and then returning out. No more than 10 minutes out of the truck, we come upon an old whiskey still site beside this stream we are following down into the canyon that intersects at Capsey. After you have seen so many abandoned whiskey stills, you notice that they all are built pretty much alike. They all have the round vat pattern dug out beside a stream. As we stop and talk, take pictures, record video, and make way-points on our hand held GPS units, we decide to move on. As we travel another 100 yards down, yet another whiskey still site is spotted. It is another sunken hole in the ground, which is all that remains but is is a tell tale sign. The parts are long gone, but the tell-tale sign is left for history to record. We do a repeat of documenting all of this and then move on down the canyon following this small stream that is little more than 3 feet wide. As we move on down, a big smile comes on my face. I see hemlocks starting to take the woods over. Hemlocks are my favorite tree in the Bankhead. Why you ask? Well, for one thing, they remain green year round. Second, they grow down in deep, wet canyons that have waterfalls, ferns, moss and everything beautiful associated with a forest. The site of them means beauty is just about guaranteed ahead. Such was the case in this trip as well. As we started seeing the hemlocks, the mud bottom stream suddenly went on to nothing but rock, carving and weaving a path on top of rocks and and making small cascades. I noticed the current in the stream was picking up as well, indicating we are starting the descent into the deep canyon of Capsey. We stop along the rocky cascades, snap a few photos, and then move on down, walking slowly with our backpacks loaded down. As we start descending into the rocky terrain under hemlocks, we are quickly rewarded. WOW! What an awesome waterfall with a blue pool underneath it. Moving on down, we see the remains of a rather large whiskey still that has been blown up by the revenuers some time back. Descending on down, we see two natural bridges of rock! This was most impressive. They suspend like arches up and over, making two natural bridges. The whiskey still is pretty much in tact and made of aluminum. The site under the natural bridges are a different story. Someone has come in and dug the entire area up underneath the shelter looking for Indian artifacts. In fact, it looked pretty sad. There were wooden sifter nets left up underneath the natural bridge (for sifting dirt through to find pottery and Indian arrowheads, 3-4 foot holes and trenches dug, with plastic buckets laying around everywhere. Someone was having themselves a field day in the Bankhead. Of course you should know or guessed by now, that this practice is very illegal to do on public forest land. Evidently, someone had no fear of getting caught. As we are " oohing and ahhing" the waterfall, whiskey still, and natural bridges by them, we hear a whistle from someone. We look around to see where it is coming from. We notice that Thomas's Aunt Pam is nowhere to be found. We soon realize it is her whistling for us to come up out of the spring and natural bridge area some 200 feet up. When we arrive, we smile as she is smiling and see cans laying everywhere on the ground. These cans are rusty and were once a green color 5 gallon oil type cans. To 95% of the folks that would pass through and see this, they would blow it off as trash. Upon closer inspection, we quickly find that these rusty ole "cans", are the leftovers of a major whiskey still "bust" by revenuers. It is totally amazing to me. As the majority of the public that has passed through here, they have not disturbed some rusty ole cans laying in the forest. What they don't realize is that they are preserving the past! These cans are laying pretty much JUST like they did when the entire whiskey making operation was busted up. Upon further inspection, Brett is smart enough (I had no clue of this) to know that most all metal cans have a manufacturers date on the bottom of them. Most all of the cans have 1961 or 1963 on the bottom. Logic and pure guesswork would say this whiskey still was busted up in the mid 1960's. Further inspections of the cans shows axe holes. Ah ha!, yes, these cans were a part of the bust from down below. Thomas says that most of the revenuers would do one of two things, or both. They would throw one stick of dynamite in the still and/or chop the side walls and cans using an axe. Axe holes were all in these old cans. If I were a betting man, I would bet much money that most of the cans have not been moved from the bust on that day in the 1960's. From talking to old timers, including an elderly man that served time in prison in his younger years for making whiskey, most stills are gauged by output in terms of the term "sacker". A "5 sacker" still would be determined that because they used approximately 5 sacks of sugar to produce the vat full of whiskey. Typical large stills went from 10-20 sacker stills. This one we encountered today was probably a 10 sacker still was his guess from listening to the old timers.

After spending some time documenting all of this on video and stills, way-pointing all the information on our hand held GPS units to download to a map later, we pack up and move on. By this time, Pam has decided she needs to head back. She bids us farewell, and we move on down deeper into the canyon. About another 1/2 mile, we come upon one awesome waterfall! Located just down from the waterfall is an extremely flat place to set up a tent. We all decide that THIS is the place to camp, no doubt. The waterfall to put us to sleep like babies, a flat place for my tent and lots of trees for Thomas and Brent to tie up there hammocks. We pitch camp and setup our "base camp" as we call it. We sit down, relax and eat some lunch, and then head out on a long journey. It's only 12:30 p.m., but we have lots of ground to cover! We carry flashlights, maps, and some food to tie us over if we get in past dark. I always carry my survival kit, flashlight, emergency water filter, and ham radio with me on these excursions. You never know what can happen. The only thing we lacked in camp was getting in firewood.

As we move on down the canyon, we see a another canyon feeding into this tributary. It looks impressive with tall bluff walls, and so we turn east and start walking up it. At the end of it, our mouths drop to the ground with such beauty. Right at the end of this canyon, of which the stream goes on back up in the forest a long way but the canyon starts here, is one of the deepest blue holes I have ever seen! What is a blue hole you might ask? Well, in the Bankhead, the water is so clear that with blue skies and deep water, the pools of water at the base of these waterfalls take on a turquoise or bluish color. With the blue skies and clear weather we had that day, they all seemed to take on a blue glow. This waterfall had a long 100 foot rock chute where water came down and emptied into the deep pool below. Whenever we come up on these un-named waterfalls and blue holes, we try and name them ourselves. Thomas decided "Slip-N-Slide" was most appropriate for this waterfall for a name, so off it goes into our GPS units.

Moving on back down the main tributary into Capsey, we found a large flat area to camp beside the creek and notice another waterfall called "Broken Waterfalls". It is about 3 levels or tiers of water falling down, until it reaches the last one, a 15 foot high drop. This was really pretty, but after seeing so much better waterfalls, we simply marked it on GPS, snapped a few pictures, and moved on. We encounter numerous old whiskey still sites that are not mentioned here, but many of them are just sunken holes in the ground, hence the title of this article, 8 whiskey stills. Just a few hundred yards past this waterfall, we find another flat beautiful area to camp at. This one has some streams nearby with iron ore seeping out of them. Some were so bad that the stream was a solid orange color. We mark it on our GPS units as "iron ore camp".

About 3/4 to 1 mile on down the canyon, we come up on something I have never seen in all the years of walking Bankhead. Just shortly before the intersection of Capsey Creek, I am just about speechless when we walk up on this area. It is one of the largest blue holes I have ever seen in the Bankhead. It is out in the middle of nowhere, totally off the beaten path, and has two absolutely stunning cascades of crystal clear water emptying into them. A picture of it is on this blog. I cannot get enough of this place. I take picture after picture, video after video, and the guys actually walk off and leave me trying to absorb this place. It is so clear, colorful and peaceful, that you want to drop the clothes and dive in for a swim. What an amazing and beautiful place to go swimming. Suddenly, you slap your face and realize, it's 60 degrees, you will freeze to death if you were stupid enough to jump in. Also, in the summertime, you would have to contend with ticks, chiggers, mosquitoes, and a host of snakes that would claim the place. Still, we all 3 agreed this place would well be worth the time to come in around June and take a dip in the pool. If we do come, I am bringing swim trunks of course, my snorkel and my mask to explore further. Speaking of this, my good friend and outdoors-man Charlie told me of some awesome fun in the Smokies that he and his buddies would do. The average John Q public looked on them like "dorks", but they would dawn jeans and tee-shirts, put a mask and snorkel on, and just float down some of the streams in the Smokies. I did this with two friends after hearing this from Charlie. We went up to the Jacks River in northern Georgia in the Cohutta Wilderness one summer, camped and all we did was snorkel the stream in front of our tent. Folks, this is a blast!!! When you come within 3 feet of trout, bass, and a host of other fish that don't seem the slightest bit afraid of you, then you come back with some awesome memories. This is an "untapped" sport in my opinion. It is a view of nature that we have rarely even thought about. Charlie was right. THIS IS another way to have fun in the outdoors.

At the mouth of the Capsey creek, it would seem like our journey had come to an end. We pose for a picture together (camera set up on a timer perched on a hiking staff), and head back up. Before we do, Thomas comes walking up grinning . He is holding the front end hood ornament from a very old Ford truck. It looks like maybe out of the 1940's. I told him there is a full body truck laying on it's side in the creek upstream and it may have come from it. We take a few pictures, and Thomas puts it back down for someone else to find 3-5 years from now, once again preserving history in the Bankhead.

Going back upstream from where we came, we take a side stream to the left that we had not been up while coming down. We finally dead end into a rather boring looking 1o foot high waterfall. Thomas says "Let's cut across the ridge and go back over to our main stream rather than taking the stream. Looking up at the woods, it doesn't look like that is a very exciting route to take back, but seeing how it is getting dark, we decide we do need to head out this way. By Thomas making that suggestion, it turned out to be one of the most exciting ideals he has ever come up with. As we move along climbing up the ridge, pushing ourselves along up the long slow steep incline to get back over on the other side, Brett calls out "what's that?". As we look, we see what appears to be airplane wreckage. We start moving on up the hill and a faster pace now. We are throwing out suggestions to each other as we walk up. Our imaginations run wild as we pick up the pace. We start seeing barrels and cans. OK you think to yourself, this is not a plane wreck on the side of the hill, maybe it is just a garbage dump from long ago. When we get close enough, we all three erupt into laughter! It's another large whiskey still busted up by the revenuers!! With this one being so far off the beaten path, you can tell that almost nobody has touched this one! There are cans spread out everywhere. 5 gallon cans, barrels, and all of them have the classic axe holes in them. The vat, made of aluminum and almost identical to the ones we saw earlier in the day, show that the same fellow ran a series of these stills. What a find! We were like little kids, snapping pictures, video, collecting way-points to log this one, and fascinated at how off the beaten path it is. Once again, one look yields a small spring coming up from the ground just 10 feet away from it, the source of all whiskey stills from a time long gone by. We decided that this whole area we explored was once an exciting place to be, or a very dangerous one!!! It depends on which side of the law you are on!

Near dusk, we make it back to camp, round up some firewood and enjoy some more wonderful fellowship around the campfire. As we contemplate the day's activities, we realize that never has so much been found, in such a short distance, in all the years we have explored the Bankhead. What a day! Little did we know, but the next day would knock us to our feet again with treasures!

Sunday-February 29, 2011

We break camp early because we found out we had more time to explore on this trip. Our wives were away and would not be home until Monday, giving us "boys" a little more time to explore rather than run home fast to the family. I only wanted to get back in time for church that night, but other than that, I was open to a full day of God's creation. Brett and Thomas agreed, and so we decided to explore the south side of Capsey. We looked on a topo map, studied the terrain, and decided a good route to go in on the south side of Capsey. On our way out Sunday morning to the vehicles with our packs on, Thomas's aunt Pam left us a present she found in the mud. It was a gear from an old grist mill! Wow, what a find! We marvel at it, take pictures of it, and place it up on a limb away from the stream for hopefully others to admire history here and enjoy another 50 years. I only hope someone will not steal it for keeps at there house. It belongs here in the museum of the Bankhead that belongs to the people. After marching our way out, which seemed like it did not take long since I had all 40 pounds of my food I brought in (just kidding of course). We moved around on the south side of Capsey, slowly creeping along in our vehicle while Thomas studied his GPS. Finally, Thomas says "right here. Park right here." We get out, load and gather some day packs, food, water, cameras, gps units, etc, and head out. Just 10 minutes down the canyon, we come upon a beech tree carved to death with all kinds of markings. At the top of it about 5 feet high, it had the letters in bold KKK. Underneath it, it had the names of about 3 or 4 guys. There were two rebel flags carved on the tree and the dates of 1976 or in the 70's, I cannot remember without looking at pictures. Very faintly on the tree was something that I still wonder about. You could barely make it out but it said "November 15, 1860. Is it real? Who knows? Maybe this date is the date the KKK was formed by Nathan Bedford Forrest and others, I need to research and see. Or, could it be that this really is a real date carved back during that time. We will never know for sure. We marvel, take pictures, and move on down the canyon. We hike all the way down, over 1 mile to Capsey, and see nothing. We are tired and a little frustrated now. We sit down, grab some lunch on Capsey. I shoot some pictures. Capsey is ALWAYS beautiful, and so I snap pictures left and right. After lunch, we decide to take a different route back. Instead of backtracking, Thomas and Brett wanted to go back up the steep hill and go over one ridge into the next canyon. It didn't matter to me, because I was a little tired, was not really looking forward to the 45 degree incline all the way to the top, but I too did not want to backtrack. As we arrive at a plateau up on this ridge, but not totally to the top, Brett notices some rock outcroppings and some small bluff holes. He says to Thomas, "I wonder if there is anything up there?" Thomas, who cannot turn down investigating one single bluff shelter that he loves hiking to, says, "let's go see". About this time, out in the middle of nowhere, my iPhone starts ringing! Geeze, we are not supposed to have cell phone coverage out here! I look at the caller, my wife, better answer that one! We chat about our trip and when I hang up, I here Brett and Thomas hollering to "come on over here". As I move up to the bluff shelter up higher, they yell "Do you have your flashlight!!!" I yelled back "NO!"....I hear a reply in unison.......ahhhhhh. When I arrive, it's a 3 room type shelter up in the rocks. Awesome!!!!!! Not deep enough to call "a cave", but what an awesome shelter! We snap a thousand pictures, walk in it using the light off my iPhone and explore the insides of it. Brett calls out to come "check this out!" We exit out, look up on a beech tree parked right beside one of the three entrances. It has the dates 1935, 1938, and some initials of some people on it. Wow! What a cool find. Imagine what they were doing back then when they carved this over 60 years ago! We gasp, laugh, shoot pictures, admire, and wonder the story on this place. What all went on here many years ago? The most interesting thing....This place is in the most least suspecting area you could imagine! It is not even really close to any tall bluffs!

Walking out to the road, riding high on our find, Thomas notices something right off the road. It is a deep long vat made of of concrete walls with steps going down into it. He says "hey, a government dipping vat!" I had not the foggiest ideal of what he was talking about, and neither did Brett. Thomas explained that in the early days, the government built concrete vats and filled them with chemicals. They then invented the public to bring their livestock and run them through the vats to kill off insects, etc. on the cattle. I laughed and said, "they probably had them filled with DDT" (a very toxic cancer causing chemical- banned years ago). Brett and Thomas laughed and said I was probably right. We shoot pictures, take way-points, and head out, this time, for home.

As we walk out on the main road to get to our vehicles, celebrating our trip and planning the next one, rain starts to sprinkle on our windshield just as we are leaving. Man ole man ole man, what an awesome trip. They just never stop with excitement in the Bankhead.

Much more trips to come so stay tuned. For more detailed and personal pictures of the trip, for a limited time you can go here and view them on my facebook. Thanks for going along with us on the trip. I hope you enjoyed it! Rex

VIDEO OF "BLUE CASCADES" WE DISCOVERED IS BELOW.

A LINK TO MORE PICTURES IS FOUND HERE:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2076327&id=1139567480&l=49928e4514

Indian Tomb Hollow-Bankhead NF-A Treasurer Trove of History

2011-01-17T09:38:00.021-06:00

Welcome back to another trip of adventure. Backpacking season is at the halfway point and we are in full swing. Planning any trip sometimes can be as hard as pulling a tooth. After 4 failed previous attempts, we had to once again, cancel the Cohutta Wilderness (northern Georgia) trip. After a 5-8 inch snowfall blanketed north Alabama and North Georgia January 9th and 10th, ALL roads leading to the Cohutta Wilderness Area were closed. Fearing that many would not be open by the Martin Luther King Holiday weekend, we were once again, forced to cancel. With our "team" of 7-9 guys planning to go, several of us were determined to go somewhere MLKJ weekend. A poll of the guys seemed to draw a logical conclusion. We could probably access roads in Bankhead National Forest better than anywhere else. Mount Cheaha was discussed, but like the Cohuttas, elevation gave no promising results of being able to access the mountains with the very slow thaw of snow. With people backing out not able to go, came different folks that were able to go. Brett brought both of his sons. By Saturday morning, we wound up with 6 guys headed out. Destination this time: one that all the locals know all too well about-Indian Tomb Hollow, at the edge of Bankhead on the north side. I had been to this site years ago documenting with video, the massive clear cutting of the area by the National Forest Service. This massive clear cutting of the area prompted native American Indians as well local residents to pour out in outrage to the U.S. Forest Service. The massive historical value of the area is overwhelming if you visit this place. Not only was it the site of an Indian war between two different Indian tribes with the graves of over 40 Indians, it has a lasting legacy of history as well of many family settlers in this hollow, mainly the Gillespie families. A large plantation house up on the top of Indian Tomb Hollow, still called High House Hill even today on maps, was a 16 room house with 9 exterior doors. This plantation was the Alexanders who had slaves that helped them take care of the their property. This trip left me with an even greater appreciation of the historical importance of this area. As you read on, you will see.

Saturday morning, we leave our typical high cholesterol breakfast of McDonalds in Moulton and head out. This time, we have Thomas Graham, Steve Jones, Brett Page, a camping friend that we love to go with from Blount county, as well as his two sons, Jason and Zack. A couple of others had to cancel at the last minute because of personal details to take care of at home. As we head out and approach the forest, we are surprised to see massive amounts of snow still on the ground. This is not normal for Alabama! A 8-9 inch snowfall that has stuck around some 6 days later! Thomas had warned us several times in E-mails that we need to really coat our boots down well from the snow and wet. We quickly understood why. Gators, rarely worn by any Alabama Hiker (except the two geeks-Thomas and Rex) were a must on this trip. Thomas and I usually always wear gators even without snow, just to keep sticks, mud leaves, etc., from falling into your boots. Steve never wears them, but decided to carry them on this trip. With 4-8 inches of snow still on the ground, they were a true blessing! Not to leave anyone behind reading this, gators are protective material you put around your boots and legs. They vary in height from just above the ankles to all the way up to your knees. In snow, they keep all snow at bay and out of your boots and keep your pants from getting soaked from the wet snow. On this trip, they were awesome!

As we travel up the road that now has a gate blocking it from traffic, we quickly find out that walking with a pack, in very wet snow can be very hazardous and treacherous! I have been in dry powdery snow in Alaska and Colorado many times, but wet Alabama snow is almost like walking on ice! The road we are walking up, is quite sad in a way. For many, many years, even after the Forest Service purchased all of this property, it was a local hangout, for good and bad purposes. During my lifetime of the 60's,70's, and 80's, families and teenagers were always there on weekends. It was almost like Sipsey Recreation area is today. It was just the place to go and get away. One of the things that I gained out of this trip, is just HOW MUCH this area was visited! We lost count and got tired of counting/marking with our GPS, the number of tree carvings of peoples names. More on that later. Moving up the road leading to Indian Tomb Hollow from County Road 86 (dirt road) from where we parked the vehicles, we encounter something I am a little ashamed to write about since I live in this county. As we are laughing, walking, and carrying on our journey, we hear rifle shots up ahead. O.K., I suppose someone is hunting. As we march on further down the trail, we hear a very pronounced, taooow, taooow, taoow, taooow, taooow, of a rifle. Being "guys" that we are, we started trying to decide if it was a 22 long rifle, 22 short, 38 caliber....(type of gun) etc.

As we come on up the trail, we see two very young early teens with 22 rifles, staring at us coming up the trail approaching them. 98.8% of the time, every encounter with anyone out in a remote area is a welcome and enjoyable experience, even if the conversation is only a smile, a nod, or a "how are you folks today" type conversation. This one left all 6 of us getting a little nervous. Certainly when you approach the teenagers, they looked a little nervous that we are coming at them. As we approach them, I notice something that really grips me. I spent most all of my life growing up around guns and hunting with my father. My father always taught me when other people come up, you point your weapon up in the air and rest it on your shoulder. This is just safety and respect, telling the strangers you come up to that you are being safe with the weapon. As we approached the teens, I was very unnerved to see their weapons pointing down at our knees! As we got closer, we spoke to them, one of the teens smiled, and it was hard to stop from chuckling. It could have been a scene from the classic movie Deliverance. As one of the the teens smiled wearing camo coveralls, he had no front teeth! Geeeze...That being said, I will only ever mention this but one time, but starting this year, for the first in my life, I got registered to carry a pistol with me at all times in the woods. Between feral hogs on the increase, and the ever increasing crazy people out there, I decided to do this. Two years ago it was made legal to do in an National Forest in Alabama. So we were not totally helpless out there, but that doesn't help you much when you are approaching someone with a rifle pointed down at you. As we came close to them, they told us they were "turned around" and wanted to know the way to the car. That is odd? There is only ONE road in, and they are on it! Out of safety concerns for all of us, I moved on down behind them while the other guys spoke with them. They smiled, talked a little bit about seeing some peanut jars that someone had put out baiting deer (highly illegal to do in the Bankhead). After a simple conversation with them, we moved on. I was ready to move on anyway as the other guys. Something just did not add up right on them. As we walked along the trail past them, we saw where they had walked and occasionally stuck the gun barrel in the snow. Boy my dad would have chewed me out for such non-sense. Not only is it not safe, but plug the barrel of your gun with dirt, and you will ruin the weapon! Some discussion went on about these two boys and wondering the safety of our vehicles from being broke in to as we depart further away from the vehicles. Soon, the topic was dropped and we moved on down the trail. After a short time, we came upon the "peanut butter jars" they spoke of. Since I don't hunt anymore, I was not aware of this new practice of baiting game. They basically buy a jar of peanut butter, cut the bottom out from underneath it. Take the cap off and nail it to a tree. After you screw the jar on to the lid nailed to the tree, your "bait" is ready to go for deer and a host of other critters. They will eventually lick the entire jar clean as can be. Interesting but again, highly illegal to do in a National Forest. This is called "baiting game".

Moving up and getting off the trail, we come to our first landmark. The famous Indian Marker Tree. These types of trees fascinate me! From my understanding, the Indians started a tree from it's early growth by splitting it in half and tying the tree down with rope of some type (Steve Jones passed this on to us at the site-I had no ideal how they did this). Somehow, if this is done during it's early growth, it will later grow in a split pattern such as a L shape or a goal post pattern. Most all of the L shaped ones point almost exactly north! I have verified this with a compass more than once. Totally amazing to me! There are numerous trees in the Bankhead that are tagged with this and are cataloged on a national website.....http://www.mountainstewards.org if you are interested. This famous Indian Marker Tree is well know throughout the south from books published by Butch Walker and Lamar Marshall-Warrior Mountains Folklore and Indian Trails of the Warrior Mountains. A footnote quickly here on this subject. More interesting information on Indian Marker Trees can be found here if interested. My good friend Tony in Florida sent this to me after seeing my video on facebook. If Indian Marker trees interest you and the background behind them, go to this link

http://ilsteward.nres.uiuc.edu/issues/2006/Summer/mysteries_2.htm

http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Alt/alt.gathering.rainbow/2006-08/msg00100.html

After snapping a group picture here, we move on up to the famous Indian burial site and Gillespie cemetery. Here is a grave marker of one of Thomas Grahams relatives.....James Gillespie, a veteran of the war of 1812 and born before the United States was a country! The Indian markers and those of long past residents of this hollow, are all just stones sticking up out of the ground. With 4-6 inches of snow still on the ground, there was not much we were able to investigate, so we move on. Since all of this hollow was Thomas Graham's kinfolk, he is loaded us with all the history of the hollow. He points out a spring just up the road on the right from the cemetery where the Gillespie home once was. On up from there is the Whiskey Still Shelter that we did not make it to. Yes, there is a reason it was called Whiskey Still Shelter. We travel up Gillespie Creek and start plunging through the snow looking for a camping spot. Thomas had planned for us to camp in a bluff shelter to escape the melting snow, so we marched and marched and marched. As we moved ever so slowly along navigating with packs among us ranging from 25 pounds to 62 pounds (dummy me on that one), we found this was wearing us down MUCH faster than we thought. Walking through this depth of snow in wet snow, is like walking a sandy beach with heavy shoes. It can wear you out fast. One of the most captivating elements of this trip, is to see countless beech trees going up the creek with names carved all over them. It's funny you know.....When you see a tree carving saying 1998 or 2001, you get mad at someone defacing a tree. When you see the same thing done that says 1947, it captivates you. Along this creek and exploring all the canyons for two days, here is a small sample of some of the carvings...

-Cleo, Jake, Linnie Parker- No date

-????? (name of someone) March ?? (unreadable), 1932

-B. Yeager- No date

-??? ???? 1887

-1949

-1963

-1977

-Roy McVay

-Tom McVay

-Esther 1922

-Pinhook Alabama

-Picture of a house with smoke coming out of the chimney (we assume High House Plantation House)

-Jeff B 1973

-T.D. 1953

-JWB 1973

-AMB

-TW Bankr

-??? ???? 1932

-DS 1965

-CN 1959

Of all of those mentioned above, only a handful are known as "famous" carvings in the unique place. It is the Small Snake Tree, and the Big Rattlesnake Tree (On cover of this article). They are believed to have been done by Indians. The Big Rattlesnake Tree was debated among us for some 10 minutes as to if it is real or a natural formed figure of a snake. It also has a bird and a beavers tail above it. After about 10 minutes of debating if it could really have been done by Indians, we moved on. I personally think it was. What is interesting to note here is that the "bird" above the snake figure, and the beavers tail, is about 20 feet above the ground. The snake figure alone is some 10 feet long. One might easily question the big rattlesnake as being natural and just looking like a snake, but the bird figure (on cover of this article) being some 15 high up on the tree, does make one wonder that indeed this might have been done by Indians. Bear in mind that carvings on beech trees can stay on there for 100 years, if deep enough and wide enough. Also, a good friend pointed out that carving on a tree DOES NOT make the carving move up higher on the tree as it grows. It stays at the same level it was carved. The tree grows up and the carving stays the same height. Knowing this, makes one more aware that yes, this could have easily been carved by Indians.....or....someone in the late 1030's had a wooden ladder and lots of time....lol.....who knows?

With such a labor intensive efforts getting around in and through the slick snow with backpacks, it took us way longer than we intended to, finding a nice dry place to camp. We finally wound up in the back part of the Indian Tomb Hollow. We found a fantastic large and tall bluff shelter to set up tents under. Brett had his two sons set up beside me in one tent. It was actually just right. Two tents was about all the room we had. The modern day "hammock guys" with their high dollar expedition hammocks set up on around the bend of the bluff shelter down in the woods. I have talked about in previous forums about these modern day high tech hammocks. Due to such a wide and diverse audience reading these forums, I will spare everyone talking about them. They are very nice, lightweight, and extremely comfortable to camp in. With so many tents at the house, I have not made this "black hole" plunge yet, as most all hobbies can become.

Nice dry wood was found all up under these bluffs that extend around the canyon, so within about 30 minutes, we had a ton of good quality dry wood to burn and keep us warm for the night. Most people do not realize that is one of the sweetest things about Bankhead. With so many bluff shelters, you can find a nice dry place to camp out of the elements, and you feel like you are "cheating" while camping sometimes. One can see how easily it was for Indians to live out in the Bankhead or similar areas with so many bluffs to protect them. They can block wind and rain so well, that you wonder why you even need a tent or hammock. Just sleep up in these shelters! As for me, I like my walls of privacy and "mental" wall barrier to keep folks and critters out. After getting set up and getting firewood in, with water filtered for everyone, we set out to explore more. By the way, several of you have asked me "how we get our water" while camping. It is so simple now days, you feel guilty. There are a number of companies making water filters. They come in the form of pump water filters or gravity water filters. I usually bring my "group" gravity type water filter and the whole bunch uses it for their drinking and cooking water. You simple fill up a bag that has a filter in it. As gravity pushes on the water, it is forced to come down through the filter and into your container. Getting a drink could not be any easier now, thanks to modern day marvels.

After setting up camp, we decide to move on up Indian Tomb Hollow towards the back east side of the Hollow (for those of you interested on following us on a map). We move back to the very back of the canyon, and are instantly rewarded with one large and tall beautiful waterfall. It is about 40 feet tall with icicles that extend down around 20 feet. We snap pictures left and right. As we move around to the south, we come across two waterfalls that are beautiful as well. All of the waterfalls in Indian Tomb Hollow are small in height and water flow, compared to others in the Bankhead, but they are beautiful in their own right. What Thomas and I quickly learn, is that each of these waterfalls and bluff lines, are packed FULL of old tree carvings, with dates all over the spectrum. Up until the 1980's, one could easily pull your car up into the hollow, park near the Indian Marker Tree, walk up any of the canyons with a picnic lunch, and enjoy the scenery. Such must have been the case hear for many, many, years after the U.S. Forest Service purchased it. There is so much irony in this place that I don't have time to tell you about. One of the many ironies was this. For so many years, this was a popular well know public place to come and show the family. Back in the late 1980's, lumber greed and greed among the managers of the Bankhead National Forest, they came in and "clear cut" the mess out of this historical place, with seemingly NO regard for it's historical significance to the public and the nation. Locals became outraged! Native American Indians from all over the south rose up, banded together, and made a very pronounced and "media touted" stance against the U.S. Forest Service. This was bad Karma for the forest service. Shortly after this, the controversial Forest Service ranger "retired", and a new since of "sensitivity" arose out of this incident. This was the "tip of the iceberg" compared to the raping of the land being done all over the forest, but this one incident that put the U.S. Forest Service in "hot boiling water" with much of the local public. As is so typical of any government agency operation and just one of the jokes sometimes of our government. The U. S. Forest Service apologized for clear cutting this hollow without proper archeological studies, barred the gate where none of the average "John Q public" could access this site (with the seemingly need to "protect it" now) anymore without extensive walking.

The irony of this is that the U.S. Forest Service forever blocked many of the public from accessing (which they had done for years and years) a part of what they (the U.S. Forest Service) had destroyed! LOL. Oh well, enough of politics. Moving on....

We move on around the canyon and check out more bluff shelters. It's getting dark now, so over half the crew splits up and goes on back to camp, while Thomas and myself continue on exploring. Just before we all split up, we discovered twin waterfalls that were beautiful with icicles. Just about dusk, Thomas called me over and said, "hey look. YEAGER is on this tree". As we further inspected, it was the name of a guy whom we both knew very well in high school. He was close to our age, and died of cancer a few years ago. Wow! It hits you. His name does live on, for another 50 years or so in this beech tree!

The campfire that night was totally awesome! Here we all sat up under a very dry bluff shelter, the moon out full, lighting the snowfall up like it was daylight. Man, I wish I could share a picture with you of that. It was so peaceful. To top it off, on time as they most always do, the howl of coyotes down in the hollow just added another cap to a wonderful evening.

Now, time for some humor folks! I can't believe I am writing this to share with the world, but hey, if we can't laugh at ourselves, who can we laugh at? About 9:30 p.m., I told the guys I had a "nature call" to make, and departed for the woods. As I was searching for a place to relieve myself, out of laziness, I decided to park on the side of a hill. I dug a deposit hole with my feet, squatted down to the ground and relieved myself. As I was enjoying the peaceful and absolutely cloudless night with all the stars, the moon, and the snow making it ten times brighter, I leaned over to get my toilet tissue in a freezer bag (to keep it dry). I leaned over pretty far while remaining in the squat position and my fingers bumped the freezer bag with my toilet tissue in it. I suddenly in disbelief, see this bag take off like a sled down the hill, racing at what seemed like 50 miles per hour, like a pinball machine, bouncing off of sticks and trees as it made it's way to the bottom of the hill!!!!!!DANG! Just my luck!!

Man! What do I do NOW! As I sat there in the squatting position in disbelief, I sat thinking about my options. Wet cold snow?, no way! Wet leaves under the snow?, NO WAY. Well mess, I guess there is no option but to hobble down the hill with my britches down. Like an 80 year old man, I hobbled down the side of the hill with my britches down, slowly inching little by little on the snow slick hillside. A panic suddenly came over me....if I slip, how is this going to work out? Face first? After what seemed like 30 minutes, I hobble down the hill to my precious paper holding my pants up and as low as I can. Let me tell you folks, there are some sharp briars out there in Bankhead! Never in my life, has Charmin paper been so important to me. Man, I don't wish this on anyone! Done deal, lets go back to camp and not breath a word about this to the "guys". They will haunt you for years over this story.

That night yielded a peaceful quiet one with the gentle sounds of water dripping from the bluffs above. The next morning, a beautiful sunrise greeted us with still signs of snow around. It got down to 27 degrees. Not bad cold for camping weather. A breakfast with this sunrise view is hard to beat, and double hard to forget!

Sunday morning, we headed out. We were supposed to stay until Monday, but with such treacherous conditions and a 90% chance of rain Monday morning, we decided to pull out early. As we do, we come across one of the neatest elevated bluff shelters I have ever seen in the Bankhead. The guys ahead of me discovered this room type bluff shelter, elevated up some 50 feet and even with a beautiful waterfall. It overlooks the hollow. What an incredible view, protected and out of the elements for the most part. I hope to have it posted to this blog. If not, you should be able to see it on my facebook links below if not now, very soon. An incredible place.

About 12:30 p.m., with full packs on and heavy weights making it flat dangerous to wall up steep hills, we decide to head to the truck. We arrive at the vehicles (windshields in tack), unload our gear, shake hands and all depart from another amazing trip in life. We all decide to continue this journey in another 2 weeks. We discuss about coming back to Indian Tomb Hollow, because we missed seeing so many more of the sites. The famous 1992 State Champion Cucumber Tree, the Whiskey Bluff Shelter, and a host of other neat things to explore still await us here for the next time. As Brett and his sons, Zack and Jason head back home south, Thomas, Steve and I head for a steak meal before going home to our families. A good meal with good camping friends is hard to beat, next to your family. Until the next time....we return to the routine of work and making a living. Stand by with your gear, we are headed out again soon!

Thanks for going along with us. Until our next adventure!

For more pictures from this trip....visit the link below:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2074902&id=1139567480&l=14156705ce

Sometimes The Best Kept Secrets Remain a Secret

2010-12-27T20:41:00.025-06:00

If you travel or live around North Alabama, you will hear many times about the natural bridges of Winston county, Alabama. Most people have no ideal of anything else around this area that has a natural bridge. By natural bridge, I mean a large rock that branches out and forms a bridge. There are at least two or more to gaze at in Winston county, Alabama. They are all over tourist brochures and talked about all the time as destinations for tourists. Sometimes though, the best kept secrets of an area, remain just that, a secret. My buddy Thomas called me one night and said "Let's go check out a natural bridge with Indian rock carvings over in Franklin county. A camping friend of mine shared a GPS waypoint of the area." I told him to consider it a plan! He came over to the house one night, we programmed the GPS position he had been given in to my topographic software on my computer. We pinpointed and mapped out the roads to get to this place we had heard about.

With the holidays in full swing, and both of us off from work, we tore out on December 27th. We headed out the old two lane highway once called "Highway 24". It parallels a new four lane Highway now that is the official Alabama Highway 24. We proceeded west towards Russellville, Alabama. At county road 81 at Newburg, we turned left and headed south. Fresh snow from the weekend still dotted the country landscape, creating an awesome scene as the crystal clear blue skies and sun blanketed the area. About 3-4 inches of snow fell on the area on Christmas day. An event that has not been duplicated with this much snow since 1963! Heading south on county road 81, we come up to the intersection of county road 81 and county road 38, just north of Oak Grove. At this intersection is one of the strangest things I have seen in years. Right in the middle of the road of county road 38, where it intersects into 81, is a fifteen foot high monument. It is decorated in flowers and is surrounded by 2 foot high walls. Upon stopping and closer inspection, we find it is a World War II monument, built around 1949, and dedicated to a sailor who died while the vessel he was on sunk off the coast of Cuba. How bizarre for such a monument out in the middle of no where! All I can guess is that the family must have lived around this area. It might have been a private road at the time and so the family paid for this elaborate monument to be built to honor there son! Several pictures are attached of this monument and more can be found on my facebook. The link is provided at the end of this article. As we proceed on, we turn onto Highway 81 and continue down to Highway 243. There, we park the truck and head out. Using our GPS units with the waypoint loaded into it, we walk up to the area where this natural bridge is supposed to be. When we come up to it, our jaws hit the ground! Unreal! What a site! An extremely large, perfectly arched rock is before us! Below, a massive shelter! As we snap pictures approaching this, we can see right away that as far as the locals go, it is WELL known. There are signs of fires, the dirt wore down all around the shelter, and graffiti everywhere! Some in the form of spray paint, some in the form of carvings on the rocks, and others from just about any form you can think of to write with.

Upon closer inspection of this amazing place, we realize just how massive it really is. We also find what we were told about. Near the north end of this shelter, we find a massive rock with tons and tons of graffiti. Upon close inspection of some of these, you realize that not ALL of this is graffiti. It is the intricate carvings done by Indians deep into the rocks! How do you know this Rex? Well, for one thing, there about 8 carvings of circles (pictures attached to this blog) that would take hours to carve into the rock. Why would someone take this kind of time to do this? Well, it can be debated that this is "pure de old" graffiti and has nothing to do with Indians. That may well be the case, but what supports this theory is that nearby under the shelter, are two very large Indian Mortar Rocks, or deep holes carved into the rocks that are the classic signs of Indians living here. Also, Thomas, my camping/hiking buddy noticed that a few of the carvings in the rock are very similar to the ones that are in rocks at the Indian Shelter in Bankhead National Forest. A plus pattern, and some other carvings are the same ones found and known to be Indian rock carvings in Bankhead National Forest. Upon further inspection, we find what appears to be an Indian Marker Tree, or a tree very similar to the ones seen in Bankhead. The place has some "intense fascination" to anyone that visits this area. Now, we have no ideal if this is National Forest Property, Tennessee Valley Authority government property, or private property. We took a chance on this and just went! What truly amazes me though on this two findings is this. I have lived in this part of north Alabama for 50 years, and Thomas and I had no ideal of the natural bridge secret pearl. I had no ideal of the World War II monument as well!

Winston county can pride itself on natural bridges for tourists, but Franklin county holds the "gem pearl" when it comes to natural bridges and Indian artifacts. This strange World War II monument still standing just added to and topped the day off!

After all that we found, what could finish out the day? We chose to head to Bankhead National Forest and explore Payne Creek. An incredible canyon of hemlocks, bluffs, old beech trees, and beauty I once again, had no ideal about! We only had a couple of hours to explore Payne creek before getting out before dark (this was a day trip only), but we will be back!

Below is a link to view more pictures of the monument and shelter, and be sure and check out the video at the bottom of this post that gives you a tour of the natural bridge. I hope you enjoy it! Until next time in the outdoors! You will be there!

To view pictures of the World War II monument and the natural bridge, click here or copy and paste this address in your web browser:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2072365&id=1139567480&l=80fa77c9f3

To view a video tour of the natural bridge shelter, click here or copy and paste this address in your web browser:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1560133520147

A Trail of History and Exciting Moonshine Times Gone By

2010-12-22T12:56:00.015-06:00

Well, I had high hopes of telling you about our fun and excitement in the Cohutta Wilderness this time, but unfortunately life is not always going the way you had hoped for. With scheduled deer hunts and everyones schedules, the trip did not happen. We hope to make it up there in mid-January if all goes well.

With that being said, it's time to go back to my backyard playground for another wonderful trip in the Bankhead. As I have told many of you in the past, this blog is intended for any adventures I go on, even though most of these have all been camping trips. Winter is my favorite time of the year for camping and hiking, since most of the bad critters such as ticks, snakes, and mosquitoes are all gone this time of the year. In the wintertime, you can walk, go, and do just about anything you want to do, without fear of snakes or other hazards. You can go where you want to and when you want to............O.K., enough rambling, let's get going on another trip!

After an exciting trip finding a lost horse in the Bankhead, it is hard to top it. We managed to pull off another great trip though by exploring more of the hidden history in the Bankhead. Most people don't realize that the "treasurers" in any forest are off the beaten path. They are away from the trails that take folks from point A to point B. Thomas and Steve, two of my long time friends and camping buddies, link up with another mutual friend, Brett, or "Skippy" as he is called by us, for an unforgettable weekend of history walking in the Bankhead.

Saturday morning, the 18th of December, we start our day by the usual meet at McDonalds for breakfast. After a great breakfast and fellowship talking, we head out for the Bankhead. This time the destination is for a well known creek. What creek you might ask Rex? Well, sometimes, it is safer to keep your sources to yourself. There are so many neat and precious artifacts that we came across, that if I told you the creek, then someone would get the ideal to go and fetch the artifacts out of the area, along with some precious copper that is one of the hottest commodities to steal and sell now days. I hope you understand and respect that, so just enjoy the adventure with us. These unique items are all on display quietly out in the Bankhead to see and enjoy. Our trip leader on this trip is Thomas. Thomas has mapped out some sites on his map from previous trips, and we all have hopes of new surprises!

As we mount our backpacks at the truck, we start off down the canyon. I am the brunt of everyones laugh on each trip. My friends pack very light, and they are always trying to pack lighter. Me, I just cannot do it. I love my "trinkets" and electronic toys too much to leave behind, thus my pack always seems to hit the 50-60 pound mark. The other guys run from 25-40 pounds on every trip. As we head off down the into the canyon that is the beginning of a major creek, we are rewarded right away. We come upon an interesting tree carving. It had "HD Cunningham" carved around the outside diameter of the tree, with an interesting mans face with a hat on it. Date?, who knows?. It could be 10 years old or 70 years old. The face is pretty interesting though. We snap some pictures, take some video, and we head on down into the canyon. It's fun on some of these trips to start at the very beginning of what later becomes a major creek. When you start at the beginning, it is little more than a stream or underground stream that occasionally comes up out of the ground for a while, and then disappears back under ground. Quillen Creek is something like this as well. It appears for a short time as a gentle two foot wide stream and then disappears underground for a while. As we make our way on down the stream, Thomas points out out our first stop. He calls it "Buggy Bluff Shelter". There is a reason for that name. Quietly nestled underneath the bluff is the remnants of a horse carriage. Nobody knows how old this is. His father-in-law who is up in his 80's, says he remembers when two full wagon wheels and a full carriage seat were up under the bluff shelter. Now, some 60 years later, all that remains are the springs, the axle, and some other hub parts of the wheel. Thomas's father-in-law had always heard there used to be a blacksmith shop out in the forest up under a bluff shelter. This may well have been that place. We snap pictures and video of this unique place, quietly hid out in the middle of the wilderness area. We marvel at the relics, talk about the possible past of where they came from, and head on out. As they are all leaving, something tells me to glance down and take one last look. As I do, a large piece of pottery glows in the sunlight beside the waterfall under the bluff. I just about fall and bust my tail to get over the rocks and get to it. Steve comes over and helps me pinpoint my find to get to it. I call the guys back, and we marvel at a large chunk of pottery found less than 20 feet from the horse carriage remains. We take pictures, and we do what we always do....put the piece of history on the pile of other relics and leave them for others to look at, and for time to reveal to someone else.

As we march on down in the canyon, we realize that we need to start setting up camp pretty soon. This will allow us precious time to explore a host of other items Thomas has laid out for us. After about a mile or two of walking, we decide to set up camp. The time now is 11 a.m. The three guys start setting up their modern day expedition hammocks to stay in, while I set up my old standard tent. After about an hour of setup and lunch, we load up our daypacks and leave camp to explore much more surprises ahead.

Along the way, all 4 of us take time to check out just about every Birch tree we run in to. This pays off immensely, as we soon discover more and more old tree carvings. We document each unique one we come across by taking a "waypoint" of the tree with our GPS units, and by taking pictures and video. The carvings start to add up, such as WR.PEAPO-1892, SA. Hooker-1916, WPR-1893 carved on rock near a waterfall, and so on. We find one tree after another like this. One waterfall that Thomas carried us to, has an entire family and several generations of the family line carved into a rock. Apparently the entire family went up out to this site and carved the outline of their feet into the rock. Some of the carvings are pretty fresh, as in 2004, so apparently a family wanted to continue the tradition of some of the early members of the family did some 80-90 years ago, by carving the outline of their footprint into the rock.

After a snack to eat and some rest at this 70 foot waterfall, we head back down to catch the remains of an old Whiskey Still. The interesting part about this still is that it is totally covered up under a bluff shelter. You can see the outline of stones from the pit, and a very unique and now quiet expense piece of metal is left behind. A very large chunk of "green" material is rolled up and bent up in the old fire pit. It is a sizable chunk of copper! Copper turns green from tarnish, and so it does not take you long to realize this is a sizable chunk of copper! For some modern day scrap metal folks, it would be a treasure. But for this day, it was a piece of history preserved in time in the Bankhead. We snap pictures and video, take some waypoints, and move on. Thomas carries us no more than a football fields length down the canyon, and we come upon yet another old whiskey still. This one is a site to behold! The large vat that they made the moonshine in is still somewhat in tact. Pictures and a movie of it are attached to this article. The still has an old barrel and some of the old containers still in tact of where they hauled the moonshine. This fascinated me since the old containers were the classic containers you saw in movies of people "moonshining". They were the metal type with small mouths on the jugs. Can you imagine this area when it was all running "hot" making the moonshine. Probably not a safe place to come up on, as it was probably protected by folks with guns. An underground cave spring that fed this old still was about 50 feet away. Thomas, Skippy, and I looked inside the cave spring. It looked like it goes about 30 feet back up into the mountain and was about 7 feet tall. We could not go inside the cave because of current laws in the National Forest that forbid anyone from going into caves because of a protected bat that lives in them. So we just marveled at what might be up in this old cave. There might even be some remnants of the old still hidden up inside it. Who knows! Once again, we take waypoints of the find on our GPS, shoot pictures and video, and move on. The sun is going down and winding up another day of adventure in the Bankhead.

We head back to camp, gather firewood, eat supper, and listen to owls call out in the canyon back and forth to each other. The air is dead still and no wind, and the moon was almost as bright as the sun when your eyes adjusted to the darkness. As was typical on most any moonlit night in the Bankhead, the familiar call of the coyotes could be heard, curling the hairs on your back with their calls, and breaking the silence of the woods. With calm winds and no stream to sing us to sleep, the night was very quiet. Too quiet for me, so I reached into my pack and pull out the ole iPhone and go to sleep with the modern sounds of music. What a peaceful night of sleep. The low temperature of 26 degrees kept us all snug in our sleeping bags most of the night. Notice I said "most" of the night. It never fails with me camping. I usually sleep very soundly until about 4 a.m. in the morning. My body always says "Nope, I ain't going back to sleep until you get out of this warm sleeping bag and relieve yourself of water". I lay there every single time, fighting it, dreading it! I mean- who wants to crawl out of your wonderful warm sleeping bag in your undees in 20 degree weather to rid yourself of water? This is insane! It kills me every time to do this, and every time I do, I crawl back in the bag- shivering from head to toe until the sleeping bag warmth catches back up. Once it does though, it is off to blissful sleep again. Such as the case this time. A glow of sun in the tent and a watch saying 7:30 a.m. tells me it is time to crawl out and get going. We eat breakfast around a warm fire, I sip some wonderful french vanilla coffee, and then start packing up everything to head out. Good friends who love the outdoors make any trip special, and such was the case with Brett, Thomas, and Steve. It's trips like this you will talk about for many years. It's always amazing to me on these trips. Two very simple days of fellowship together in the woods, yields tons of memories of it that you talk about for years to come! Such as it is with adventure in the outdoors! It's God's country and his making. No wonder it is special! Keep your outdoor gear together. We are headed out again real soon. The season is just getting started! Thanks for going along with us!

Adventure and a Story of Thanksgiving in the Most Remote Area of the Sispey Wilderness-Bankhead NF

2010-11-28T16:07:00.034-06:00

This is one of the easiest stories to write and share with you because it comes straight from the heart. It is a story with a happy ending we all read about in books and movies, but this time, it WAS the real deal. It is a story of adventure and an incredible journey of people uniting in the most remote area of the Sipsey Wilderness in Bankhead National Forest. Not often in our lives of craziness, are we reminded truly of blessings that life can bring you. It is ironic to me that these lessons happen on a Thanksgiving weekend! What started out as a "normal" adventure into the Bankhead, erupted into one of those stories you watch and read about elsewhere. It left me something to tell about the rest of my living years on earth. With such a powerful story to tell ahead, I will be brief in my explanation of the scenery we encountered on this trip.

This story starts on Black Friday, November 26th, 2010. Thomas Graham and Steve Jones, two of my backpacking buddies and true friends, met with me at McDonalds in Moulton around 8 a.m. to start our journey. The weather was cloudy and it had rained all night. We headed out to Bankhead National Forest in North Alabama around 9 a.m. Our target camping site was along Clifty Creek or Braziel Creek. Our goal was to find a number of tree carvings and explore the seemingly unlimited bluff shelters that Bankhead hides. Thomas knew of an Indian carved on a tree that he had marked on his map (copied from another source), and we knew there was a large rattlesnake carved on tree in the area as well. Those are all the tools of information we needed to hit one of the most remote areas of the Sipsey Wilderness Area. For the benefit of those reading this around the world and not familiar with this area. The Sispey Wilderness is an area carved out of the Bankhead National Forest of North Alabama that is set aside for absolutely no interruption to it's ecosystem. It contains over 95,000 acres of land. No logging, use of roads, or any activity is allowed in this area of the forest. It is an area where very little (except foot and limited horse traffic) occurs.

We park at Borden Creek bridge and head out. The weather is cold, windy, and very wet from the previous night's rains. The forecast called for no more rain with clearing and cold tonight. On our way down, we pass the famous "bird tree". I have pictures of it here on previous blogs. It is a very unique a quite intricate carving of a bird right beside the trail. We explored an entire area along a bluff line that geologists would be excited to see. The entire bluff line is filled with "holes" from petrified wood logs that were pressed into the rock many years ago. This was an amazing find in that you could actually see tree bark in many of these holes where the wood had become petrified. We take pictures and marvel at these finds, and then head out to our campsite and planned destination, Clifty or Braziel Creek to camp. Thomas, Steve, and myself decide we want to go up Clifty Creek a short piece and camp. We thought from there, we could explore either creek. Late afternoon yielded us setting up camp, gathering firewood, filtering water, and getting ready for a cold night. The plan on Saturday was to set out and go Braziel Creek. After a long evening (it gets dark around 5 p.m.) with supper, sitting around the fire telling stories and listening to a very cold north wind bringing in cooler temperatures and clear skies, we decide to call it a night at 10 p.m. Sleeping was going to be very easy. With the RIGHT gear, these trips are easy. Good gear means a warm night, a tent you can really depend on if it rains, and an experience you will tell the rest of your life. Since we camped beside a running stream, natures "sleep engine" was beside us. I had two choices as I lay down in my down sleeping bag. Listen to the modern world with my iPod, or listen to mother nature and the stream flowing beside me. Tonight, I chose the iPod and crashed. There was a couple of things different from me with Steve and Thomas that is worth noting. Thomas and Steve have moved on to the newest craze and change in backpacking. They sleep in very sophisticated hammocks above the ground that just came about around 5 years ago. They have down quilt linings that hold heat underneath them. They are the best nights sleep anyone could ever ask for since you can sleep in total comfort. You can even sleep straight. Steve and Thomas have been camping this way for about 2 years now. Me, I have invested way too much money in the traditional "tents" that setup on the ground. I am ashamed to state how many tents I have collected over the years, so I will just leave it at that. Both types of sleeping have their advantages and disadvantages.

THE DAY THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING "NORMAL"

Saturday morning at 7 a.m., yielded a cold 24 degrees. After a warm fire and a hot breakfast, we head out to explore Braziel Creek. we go back down Clifty to Braziel creek. We move about 1/2 mile upstream of Braziel Creek, following the bluff lines that yield endless protected shelters to explore. As we move along, we come upon a site that we encounter a lot. A crumpled piece of tin from a roof, laying on the ground out in the middle of nowhere. This has been a classic sign of a tornado that has carried debris for miles and dropped it here in the middle of nowhere. As I am taking video and pictures of this, I hear Steve holler at me to "come up here". Thomas is already up ahead of Steve and I. As I approach Steve going up a long steep hill holding my still camera set on video mode, I see something that totally blows me away. Standing on the top of the hill, a full sized white horse is perched at the top, looking down on us. Steve and Thomas point out the saddle tangling below it and almost touching the ground. As we approach the horse, it becomes very nervous and prances around in a 50 foot circle, coming back to one spot. We notice blood under the front left leg. We notice several other important things also. The ground is absolutely tore up from it staying in this same area. There are pieces and parts of the saddle everywhere! This horse has been struggling with this saddle for days. The blanket is soak and wet with the saddle and this saddle will clearly be the death of the horse if it stayed on for many more days. Thomas, walks up to the horse and it slowly comes up to him after he entices it with grapes from his lunch. The gash up under the left left is very deep, from the saddle falling down and riding upside down. There is no telling how many miles this horse has been struggling with, nor how many days this horse has been tortured by this saddle riding upside down. This is extremely rough territory to navigate with so much brush, and so this brush had to be pulling and snagging on the horse every painful mile it moved. That may be why the horse decided to find a spot and stay there. The bridle and assembly is broken up and in pieces on the ground. The mouth of the horse was bloody slightly from apparently struggles with this part of the bridle harness hanging on as well for at least a while. Thomas pulled out a handful of grapes he had in his pack and begin to gain even more ground getting closer to the horse. After several attempts, Thomas finally got the saddle off the horse. He was free from the torture of this saddle hanging down! We felt really good at this point. We had relieved this object that apparently caused days of pain and visible deep cuts into her from the saddle being turned upside down and almost dragging the ground. Several thoughts raced through our minds during this time after the happiness of the saddle is off. Is there a person nearby hurt that was riding this horse? Are they possibly dead? Has anyone been reported missing? We decided to spread out and inspect the area. After no other signs of anyone around, we decided we needed to get the horse reported to authorities. But how do you report something like this in the middle of the wilderness in a forest that has NO cell phone coverage? I usually always carry my amateur radio with me, but I left it at the camp, which was a half a mile away. Steve pulled out his cell phone. As luck would have it (or someone above looking out for us), we somehow got weak cell phone coverage (2 bars). Steve stood perfectly still and called his wife DeWanna and we relayed the GPS position of the horse. She was going to take the coordinates and call the Sheriff's department and report the horse. After relaying most of the most important facts, Steve hung up the phone. We then decided to gather up all the saddle parts that the horse had ripped off in his painful ordeal with the saddle hanging below. We 3 decided we had done all we could do for now, and decided to go on exploring the bluffs and canyons further. We left the horse, still standing in his little area that he apparently had been for some time. We explored more bluffs, found lots more interesting petrified wood in rocks. We documented them with video and pictures. With this story going, you don't care to hear much about "rocks" and "petrified wood", so we will leave the details of those things and move on.

Amateur Radio to the Rescue

Returning back to the horse about 1:30 p.m. (we discovered her around 11 a.m.), Thomas decides on one last attempt to bring this horse back to camp with us. This begged the question to all three of us. O.K., lets say he DOES decide to go to camp with us. What then? What if he charges off in the process into the wilderness and here we go again! The horse (we now know as Joe) slowly started easing off the hill with Thomas. Thomas had managed to make a fairly nice little rope out of some vines and got it around her neck. He paced slowly down the hill with us. Thomas in front, Steve behind them, and me with my video camera capturing this thinking, what are we going to do with a "big pet" at camp? As we get almost to the bottom of the hill, the horse stops, starts to "rethink" this situation, turns around, and starts slowly, and then suddenly into a dead run back up to the top of the hill where we got him. I hate to say it, but there was a sense of relief in me. At least we know he will stay put in place. Sure enough, he did. He returned promptly to the top of the hill, turned around and looked down defiantly down at us as if "no, I am not going anywhere!" We then left and headed back to camp. Around dusky dark, we heard a pack of coyotes down the canyon where the horse was camped above. A lump came in my throat with thoughts. To myself- "You don't think a pack of coyotes could take down a horse, could they....................no surely not......he would have the upper hand with kicks on them". It was a sad feeling to hear them and think of the horrible "is it possible they could kill him" go through your head.

Around 7 p.m., while sitting around the campfire, the amateur portable hand held radio that I carry everywhere with me, came alive with my buddy Sonny Blankenship's voice. The Bankhead Amateur Radio Club has a radio repeater in Bankhead National Forest. When you are in the forest, if is about the ONLY means of communication with the outside world. The repeater, located in the forest, allows amateur radio operators to communicate to other "hams" within 60 miles of it's location. It even has a "phone patch" to allow a person in the forest (or anywhere in the 60 mile radius) to make phone calls. A privilege that no one with a cell phone is allowed to do, since there is no service for cell phones in Bankhead. Only licensed amateur radio operators can use this repeater. The phone patch has not been working lately, and so I was forced to "wait" on someone to come on the repeater. Once Sonny came on, I ran over and grabbed the radio.He normally tries to "monitor" the radio from his house whenever we are out in the woods. I explained to him what had happened that day. I told him there were many "details" that needed to be relayed such as the saddle was left up under a bluff shelter, the horse appears to stay in one place, etc. Sonny copied all the information Steve, Thomas, and I could think of, including where we were camped if they needed any help. A radio contact earlier in the afternoon with my good amateur radio friend Wes McKay, driving on his way to Florence and making phone contact with Steve's wife, relayed that the owners were notified of the missing horse and were coming out after it. So we at least knew that help was on it's way for this poor horse stuck in the wilderness.

Sonny got on the phone with a uncle to the owners of the horse and he spoke with them on the phone, picked up the ham radio and would ask questions. We would answer them on the radio and he would relay that back via phone. Most all of the information needed as to the best place in, where we were camped if they needed our help, the status of the horse's health, equipment needed to get the horse out, and several logistics questions were worked out. Amateur radio, truly a blessing in time of need! Like a hunter without a gun, or a fisherman without his rod and reel, I never leave home for the outdoors without my amateur radio. In the Bankhead, it can mean the difference in life or death in certain situations.

That night before going to bed at 10 p.m., we tossed ideals around on the fate of this mission to get the horse out. We hoped the owners cared enough to bring out the best. We even wondered if the owners would even care enough to get the horse out. Wow, we were about to experience a shock on that thought! We talked about that a horse, like a human, being used to the comforts of a barn would surely be "petrified" at night all by themselves, especially with the sounds of coyotes in packs at night. Just before we went to bed, we glanced up at the absolutely crystal clear skies above. There were millions of stars to see with no city lights. Just about the time we all looked up commenting on the sky, a massive meteorite streaked across the sky right in front of our eyes. An unbelievable long tail and a long descent across the sky. Wow! It doesn't get any better than this!

The next morning yielded a cold 25 degrees. We got up, started a fire, cooked breakfast and slowly started the day. We had absolutely no ideal what was about to happen that day. As far as we were concerned, unless someone ask us to, our horse story had ended with all we could do. We had told Sonny the night before that if they needed our help, tell them where we will be staying. As we packed up and was just about to head out, a team of horses and folks appeared in camp. They asked if we were the ones that reported the horse. We said yes. After some exchanges between all of us, we were dawning our packs and headed out with them to show them where the horse is or was! Just before we left out, one of the guys in the party wanted to see some pictures that I offered to show. The second he saw the horse, he yelled out to the party-"It's him, It's him!!....Lets go!!! I knew then that we had some people that loved and really cared that this story had a happy ending.

When we arrived to the hill, there he was!!! Praise be! He was holding down his "perch" over the valley. As the party began to show up around the horse that they successfully put a bridle on, a young women came charging up the hill that I had not seen so far in this large party assembled to find the horse. I asked "is that your horse?" A very emotional answer came back as she charged on "yes it is!" With her husband holding the horse, she charged up and starting crying and hugging the horse. I was told by a party member that this was the husband and wife and the owners of the horse, called Joe. I have never seen such an emotional look in the man's eyes. He said very little except to thank us many times, but facial expressions said it all. I could tell an immense relief in his face. The wife, stayed in tears rubbing and hugging the horse. Man, words written here cannot in no way express joys of happiness felt among everyone. It is the "highest of highs" I have been in years. My video instinct in me (since that is what I do for a living), rolled video of the event, with an occasional snap of a still picture every now and then. What an incredible high, with total strangers in many regards, united in the middle of Sipsey Wilderness, miles from anything, to celebrate the life saving of this incredible horse. There is no doubt in my mind. The same rule that applies to humans lost, applied to this horse. If you can, staying put in one place will help you get rescued faster than by wondering everywhere. The fact that this horse chose to stay put, literally saved it's life!

And Now the Facts

This wonderful couple that lost this wonderful horse. When you hear the facts, it stabs you even more in the heart. OVER 3 weeks ago they were riding in the Bankhead with others with their horses. This horse was a prize winning horse the wife nurtured and cared for. It was her horse. Her husband was riding it this day over 3 weeks ago in the Bankhead with others. They said that the horse got one foot in a hole, and began slowly to fall over. In order to protect himself and the horse, the husband jumped off the horse, and slapped it to get it up and going and to keep it from falling on backwards into this hole. After he slapped the horse, it tore out wide open and disappeared. For three grueling weeks, the husband and wife tormented over the loss of this horse. They put up posters everywhere, turned the information to the sheriff's department if anyone called (very smart move since that was our key linking up with them), drove the roads at night in the Bankhead, and told everyone they could think of. To add to the emotional roller coaster this poor couple went through. A report from a guy that he found "parts" of a horse in an area of the forest, lowered any hope of this horse being alive. They even went down to meet the man that claimed he found body parts in the Bankhead, only to sit for 2 and half hours and he never showed up. Our report to the Sheriff's department put a ray of hope. Amateur radio reports to them that night proved to the owners, Pam and Dewayne, that miracles DO HAPPEN.

As we all met at the trailhead about to depart, Pam hugged us all three and Dewayne thanked us many times over. They had asked us earlier where we were going to eat lunch that day. We told them the local Western Sirloin Steak House in Moulton. They said that our lunch was on them today. We laughed and never thought much about it. Later, as Steve, Thomas and I were enjoying steaks for lunch at the restaurant, Dewayne (the owner of the horse) came around the corner and asked where our waitress was, lunch was on him. We thanked him, he linked up with the waitress, and then left the restaurant. Wow, wow, wow......What an amazing day for everyone. After linking up with the couple on facebook and with another member of the party, Kari, whom I have known for a long time growing up in Lawrence county, it just topped the evening. Friends on facebook, sharing an incredible story we will all be telling for a long time. We plan to share pictures and movies of this miraculous event. An event I enjoyed sharing every minute of with you. Hang on, we are just getting started into camping season. Next stop, the Lord willing, will be the Cohutta Wilderness in northern Georgia. We will see you again in the woods!

Bankhead NF-Ship Rock, A Civil War Era Saltpeter Cave/Furnace & The Big Tree

2010-11-17T10:54:00.017-06:00

Well, It has been a long hot summer. Time to kick in gear and go camping! I made a few short kayak trips during the summer, but just did not have the time to include them on the blog here. I apologize for that. Both of them were a lot of fun. We start the 2010-2011 camping season off right this time. We head to Bankhead National Forest's icon in North Alabama. The so called "Big Tree". Thomas, one of my long time camping buddies, told me that Sam (another good camping friend) had two guys that wanted to drive down 9 hours from North Carolina and see "The Big Tree". The Big Tree, for those of you wondering, is Alabama's largest White Poplar tree (a.k.a. tulip). It has a circumference of 25 feet and stands about 150 feet tall. It is where EVERYONE that comes from out of town seems to go. Most veteran Bankhead NF campers, avoid this area. We seek out the little known areas most of the time, but with guests coming, we thought this would be a good time to revisit this landmark. Thomas, my good camping friend, knows and loves Bankhead. He suggested a route that I had not done before. He suggested we take the standard "long route" that everyone takes to visit the Big Tree. It is a route that follows U.S. Forest Trails 206 and 209 along Thompson Creek and Sipsey River.

Our plans were to follow this long route (5.5 miles) and visit "Ship Rock", along with numerous Indian Mortar Rocks and a Civil War Era Saltpeter Cave along the way. That is the beauty of living close to this area and hanging around with Thomas. He and many of us know of the hidden treasures that the Bankhead holds, that most people have no clue about. This comes from years of hiking, studying, and talking to others about the treasures of Bankhead. So, the plan was to hike the long route to the Big Tree, camp over night close to the Big Tree, and then come out Sunday morning using the unofficial trail "short route" coming out (about 2 miles and an hour and a half of walking) so the North Carolina guys could get on their way back with their long 9 hour drive ahead back home in the Winston-Salem area.

Saturday morning, November 6th-Six of us headed out on a long days journey before setting up camp that afternoon. We park at the Thompson Creek Trailhead and then move along Forest Service Trail 206. The parking lot was FULL of cars, telling us that everyone, their brother, their sister, their cousin, and every Boy Scout troop within 60 miles of the Bankhead was there. I am being sarcastic, but you get my point. A crowded forest we thought. About 2.5 miles ahead, just before Ship Rock, we detour off the trail to a special spot, marked by GPS waypoints by Thomas. It is a little known and a very large Indian Mortar Rock with flint chips laying around everywhere underneath a small bluff shelter. If you are reading this, you might be wondering what in the world an Indian Mortar Rock is? Going only from what I have been told, an Indian Mortar Rock is a hole in a rock that has been carved out after years and years of grinding corn, or other food down for meal. They used the holes for grinding really just about anything down. The deeper the hole in the rock, the more it was used. These rocks that Thomas showed us were very large, deep holes, along with one rock that had many small holes. They were also protected from overhead by a small bluff shelter.

After taking pictures of this amazing and well kept secret, we head back down the trail for another well known landmark in the Bankhead, "Ship Rock". Ship Rock is on all of the U.S. Forest trail maps, and so it attracts hundreds and hundreds of people each year to come and camp by it. What is it? Well, it is a massive rock that is almost perfectly in the shape of the bow (front) of a ship. In the wintertime, with the leaves off the trees, it is pretty impressive! It juts out and stands proud. Many people camp at the base of this rock. After showing our visitors the rock, Thomas then led everyone through the back part of Ship Rock, through the famous "Eye of The Needle" that shows up on all the U.S. Forest Maps. The "Eye of the Needle" is a pretty neat passage. Back towards the end of the Ship Rock, is a unique hole in the rock. If you climb through this hole in the rock, you come out on the other side of a large bluff rock. By doing so, it cuts about 1/4 a mile hike out of the way. You would normally follow Thompson Creek all the way down to the intersection of FS 206/209 trails at Sipsey, but by going through the "Eye of The Needle", you have shaved off some time and distance to keep from having to go the long way around these large rocks and bluffs . The movie attached to this Blog shows some of us coming out of the Eye of the Needle.

After we complete our adventure coming through the Eye of The Needle, Thomas points out numerous Indian Mortar Rocks all around the back side of Ship Rock. As many times as I have been to Ship Rock, I never had the slightest clue it hid Indian Mortar Rocks up against it. There is also a very strange looking rock over on the back side of Ship Rock. It looks like pancakes stacked up, or some have even referred to it as favoring a man's outer parts. We won't go there. At any rate, it is a strange looking rock. Moving on down the trail, Thomas as our guide, checks his GPS (handheld global positioning system) waypoints (points marked and recorded in the GPS from previous trips) for another treasure in the Bankhead very few people, even locals know about. It is the remnants of a civil war era salt peter furnace and nearby cave. It took about another mile or two of walking, but we arrived at the site. Little known to most folks, is a treasure of history preserved in the Bankhead. During and near the civil war, saltpeter was mined heavily for it's use in the making of gun powder. According to Sam, one of my friends along with us, saltpeter is derived from "cooking" a certain type rock in furnaces or open "pits". The substance called saltpeter would fall to the bottom after this process, I presume with water being used. After it dried out, it could then be easily be collected. At this site (picture on blog), you can see the remnants of the furnace, and shortly by this spot is an old cave where they mined to get the saltpeter. I did not climb down to look inside the cave as the other guys did, but I saw some pictures that they took of the inside. Awesome! We all wished we had brought up flashlights from our packs (we left them by the trail) and headlamps to look further! We shot many pictures of the area, explored more, and then headed back to the trail where our backpacks were waiting.

After all the sights we had seen so far, it is hard to top that. By about 3:30-4:00 p.m., we reached our campsite destination, the mouth of East Bee Branch canyon, entrance to "The Big Tree". This adventure so far has carried us 5 miles of walking to reach the campsite for the night. The Big Tree is just 1/2 mile of walking from here, but we are saving that for the next day. I love this campsite. This makes about my 5th time to stay here. It is very flat, right next to the creek, and just a "hop and a skip" as they say, down from the Big Tree.

This camping spot also has an unusual memory I will remember for a lifetime. The first time we camped here, Bud, one of my friends spent all night laying outside of his tent, throwing up from so much intense pain. His moans of pains pierced the woods and my heart. You can imagine what went through my head, and my buddy Sonny's head as to "what to do" in the middle of a wilderness area. He insisted he just stay put, and for us not to call for help. The next morning, he was able to carry himself, pack and everything out at an extremely slow pace. The fact that he was carrying himself out was alone a miracle, considering we thought he had the pain and suffering of a man about to die. I would have never forgiven myself if he had. He found out two days later that his body was trying to pass a kidney stone. Bud never ever got to see the Big Tree on that trip nor has he even to this day got to see it. He got within 1/2 mile of the tree at this camp, but pain and suffering that night halted any chance of getting up the next morning and heading for the Big Tree. It became a "pray that I get out of here alive day". I will never forget that night, laying in my tent, listing to Bud's intense groans of pain, terrifying me every minute if this man was going to live or die in the Bankhead in the middle of nowhere. I did some serious talks with the Lord that night in my prayers.

Meanwhile on this trip, Saturday night at camp yielded dead calm winds, yielding a "dead quite" sound in the woods that night. We laughed, talked, and did one of the most enjoyable parts of camping....the fireside chats. That's where you tell stories, learn all the embarrassing stories on each other while growing up, and tell tales that you would never speak of in any other environment. Want to get to know someone? Go camping with them and sit around the fire. Before long, you will be laughing your self to death with their stories. Everyone has some funny and unique stories that happen in their lives. The campfire is the perfect place to share them! At around 10 p.m., we rap up the last stories and retire to our tents and hammocks. As we all start to drift off to sleep, a lone coyote up on the top of the bluff nearby, howls out loud and shakes the ground with that erie sound that nobody forgets. It's the sound that brings chills up your spine, but makes the forest such a special place to visit.

Morning yielded crystal clear blue skies and a quick breakfast among everyone. We had a lot of things to do that day, in order to show the North Carolina guys The Big Tree, get out in time so that they will not have a horrific drive home and get in at a very late hour. We tore down camp, stuck our packs over in a pile, and headed up East Bee Branch for the grand attraction. A 1/2 mile walk on a chilly 27 degree morning carried us up the canyon to the Big Tree. Not a cloud in the sky, autumn color leaves preparing to drop, and that beautiful blue sky, made it a morning that one never forgets. The "out of town" guys were impressed, even though it won't even come in second place to the monster trees in Joyce Kilmer Forest over in western North Carolina. They knew that, but realized that this was our "pride and joy" in Alabama. A tree that has survived several hundred years and withstood the test of time and man's greed for lumber. Of just about all the trees stripped and pulled out of the Bankhead, this one has managed to survive. On this trip, one of probably 10 or 15 Steve and I have taken to this spot, we noticed something different. Absolutely NO WATER flowing over the falls. The Big Tree has two, very special, very tall, waterfalls that add to the beauty. With this summers hottest on record temps, and the lack of rainfall, there was nothing to see coming off the 90-100 foot bluffs surrounding The Big Tree. I shot some pictures to record this, since I have never ever been to this area when NO water was coming off of the falls. After showing the visitors around the area, we all packed up and headed back to our campsite. From there, we loaded up the packs and headed out. This time, we took the "unofficial" 2 mile short trip out. THIS is the way to the Big Tree. Unfortunately, most everyone that comes in out of town follows the traditional U.S. Forest Service trails. The easiest way to see The Big Tree is to park at Thompson Creek Trailhead as everyone does. Follow the trail down to the first branch you come to and cross. After you cross the branch, shortly the Forest Service Trail 206 bears on around to the right and follows Thompson Creek. Instead of bearing to the right, you turn to the left, and follow a worn out trail that most people that know the area take. They might as well designate it as a trail because it is already that from so much traffic. It goes up White Oak Hollow and then you go up and over White Oak. The incline going up the east side of White Oak hollow on the trail will definitely take the breath out of you while coming in to see The Big Tree, but reward you with a nice descent coming back from the Big Tree. Total miles going in-around 2 miles. Total miles going the long way-5.5 miles. So take your pick, a 4 mile hike to see the Big Tree, or a 11 mile hike.

After making our 2 mile journey from the Big Tree coming the short route, we close out another great adventure trip! A total of 9 miles walked in two days, more friendships made with our guys from North Carolina, and another reminder that more camping is full steam ahead with the leaves departing the trees. The chilly nights and crystal clear skies to behold at night in the outdoors! Let's get ready, get packed, and wait for the next weekend to go again! You will be there too so stand by and get ready!

60+ Mile Kayak Trip Cancelled-Rescheduled for June Possibly

2010-05-04T12:51:00.005-05:00

Well,

My heart sunk to it's feet the last weekend of April/first weekend of May 2010. That was the weekend planned for an adventurous journey I had been packed one full week in anticipation of. Trip leaders from the Huntsville Canoe Club in Huntsville, Alabama, had planned as much as a full year in advance for this trip. Mother nature took over and decided it would just not happen. Insane weather forecasted for the 3oth of April through May 2 called for thunderstorms, high winds, torrential rains, and even severe weather such as hail and tornados. On Thursday morning, I was called and notified the trip was cancelled due to weather. There is a possibility it will be re-scheduled for June. I certainly hope so. If it had happened, this was the schedule and time line of events.

Friday morning-April 30th. Meet at Madison County Boat Harbor on the Tennessee River south of Huntsville, Alabama to load kayaks onto trailers, then leave around 6:00 a.m. to be driven by bus to Mud Creek Wildlife area up near Scottsboro, Alabama in Northeast Alabama on the Tennessee River.

-Paddle about 22 miles. Spend the first night at Goose Pond Colony Campground.

Day 2-Paddle 25 miles. Spend the second night at River View Campgrounds in Guntersville, Alabama. Supper would be a "stop by" at Guntersville State Park Lodge on the way to the campground.

Day 3-Paddle 22 miles including going through Guntersville Lock and Dam until the final destination point of Hobbs Island near Huntsville, Alabama.

Sigh......Oh well....Maybe another time. Check back for an update. I want to make this trip real badly and hopefully we (you included) will be making this trip in June through this blog. In the meantime, get outside and enjoy the spring weather in your area. Thanks for following my adventures and have a great day! Rex Free

Preparing for a LONG Kayak/Camping Trip down the Tennessee River in North Alabama

2010-04-09T14:16:00.005-05:00

Preparations are underway for a 60 plus mile kayaking trip down the Tennessee River in North Alabama from north of Scottsboro, Alabama to Huntsville, Alabama. I plan on traveling with members of the Huntsville Canoe Club for a 3 day trip. Check back here after the trip is over and I hope to share some adventures with you. Weather will be a very important factor on this trip, in terms of progress and in terms of dangers. High winds will make it a miserable trip or a great trip, depending on the direction. Storms can be a hinderance or they can be life threatening. Part of the trip involves all the kayaks going through Guntersville Lock and Dam. That should be interesting in a 17 foot kayak. Please check back after the 1st of May and look for a post on this trip. Lord willing and everything works out, I hope to have another great adventure to share with you on this blog. Take care and we will talk to you later! Rex

Discovering History Through Rocks, Trees and Trash-Bankhead National Forest

2010-03-09T10:40:00.028-06:00

Several people following this blog have asked me "why Bankhead National Forest all the time?" The answer is simple. It is a 20-30 minute drive from my house and to the Sipsey Wilderness Area. We had planned for one or two trips to The Cohutta Wilderness (northern Georgia) or The Great Smokey Mountains National Park, or even a couple of places in North Carolina, but they just did not work out. When the trips like that fall through, we resort to old faithful, The Bankhead.

One of the most enjoyable things to do in the outdoors with our modern GPS technology, is to just simply study a map and pick the most remote area, or the most scenic looking, or the one with the most surprises, and just head out! We rarely follow any "hiking trails" as most folks do. We just cut our own trail. It is THIS way that we come upon surprises and finds that most people would rarely ever see. Such as the case on this last trip. After a "Creepy Night" that you read about last time, this trip was very, very quiet in terms of wildlife. My buddy Thomas has spearheaded the last two trips and led us down some interesting areas. He knows Bankhead well, it's history as well as it's terrain. On this trip, he told us "let's go explore Lick Branch". I thought, Lick Branch? I didn't even know there was a Lick Branch in the Bankhead. Thomas never has failed us on any adventure trip and so Steve, one of my other camping buddies and I were game to wherever.

The majority of the people that do not go into the backcountry forget something. These remote areas were at one time in history, very busy places with PEOPLE. They forget that yes, you still can find remnants of Indians that lived here. I remember my 17 years of working on an Army installation. There were remote areas that people were not allowed to go in to except at various times. These areas were a "gold mine" back in time. Even today, there is an old home place on Redstone Arsenal that is left basically the way it was in the mid 1940's. What this means is....there is still a Model T truck parked and abandoned, buttercup flowers still grow in April-May in a square pattern showing where the old house once stood. Glass jars from the era are still on the ground around the basement fruit pantry. A big dip in the ground indicates on old road bed that went by the house that obviously had lots of horse and buggy and car traffic. Across from this road is an old iron gate fence that houses a cemetery, and so on it goes. There are many places in the Bankhead similar to this. They may not still have a Model T truck parked, but there are still "signs" that point to a different world in time from just a grove of trees that you see. You have to know what to look for when you find an area like this. For example, if you are 3 miles from the nearest road in the Sipsey Wilderness, and you see trees covered up with carvings next to a spring, you can bet your house this was a heavy travelled and popular spot in years past. If the area could talk, you would be surprised at what it would tell. Family outings with their horse and buggy, whiskey stills, adultery commented, lumber mills, grist mills, drinking, you name it.

Thomas has helped me be more "in tune" with this fact when going into the wilderness. It has made me realize that at one time, this area might have been a thriving place where people were there every day. Just in the last 3 of some 13 years of backpacking, coming up on signs of Indians living there has given the place much more respect. I am always amazed at us humans. We tend to treat our planet like we are the ONLY humans that have ever done anything or gone anywhere in any one location. If we humble ourselves and look around, we will find that we are REPEATS of thousands of people that have gone the same exact path.

Well, enough philosophy, let's hit the woods!

We took the path and headed down our 2.5 mile hike to set up base camp. The goal was to camp at the intersection of Lick Branch and Thompson Creek at the northern edge of the Sipsey Wilderness Area to set up base camp. We even thought about going on up Lick Branch to set up camp. If you have read my blogs before, you know that we always generally go in and set up base camp, and then explore. That way, you don't have a 40-55 pound backpack with you all day long exploring. After about a 1/2 mile of hiking down an old road bed from the parking spot, our first stop was Baker Cole Cemetary. It is so old, about the only thing that tells you it is a cemetery is the emblem waypoint on my GPS unit, and two PVC pipes put in the form of a cross with the name painted on the PVC pipes. There were numerous tombstones or "rocks" with carvings on them. They are so old, you could not make out much of anything on them. Thomas carries chalk with him and we chalked them to help us be able to read them better. It worked well. One of them "came to life" so to speak after you run the chalk over it. What is on it is pretty strange. I have attached a picture to this blog and you can see it. I have no ideal on the this strangeness of how it is marked. Maybe someone that sees this will shed some light. The tombstone pictured was about the only one that we could make out some kind of writing.

After a few pictures, we moved on. A hike on down through the woods yielded another strange item. There, laying on the ground, some one mile off the road in the woods, a 10 foot piece of vinyl siding. It does not take a detective to figure this one out, especially if you have a lived in the south. It is a 10 foot section of vinyl siding ripped off a home many miles away and lifted high into the air and dropped in it's place by a tornado. I have seen this before with part of a tin roof laying in the leaves in the middle of no where. You are miles away from the nearest home and laying in the middle of the Sipsey Wilderness, a piece of tin off a roof. Strange. If only it could tell you a story? How for and how high did it come from? So, we move on. After about a mile into the woods, we stop at Thompson Creek where we discovered a large amount of tree carvings at the intersection of Mattox Creek and Thompson Creek. We spent about 40 minutes looking at and reading the carvings. More history to uncover! It appears that several generations of a family have carved their name in the trees. The carving dates and initials range from 1938-1976. We notice right away that many of the older carving dates have the 9 backwards. I would be curious to know why? Is it ignorance or poor education, or does it mean anything by this?

Extremely Detailed Pornographic Carving On A Tree- In our looking around at these clumps of trees with carvings, we discovered one that cannot be described in this blog. It had a lot of time spent on it by carving the male and female in too much detail. Pretty sick to some people but I was surprised at how much time they had taken to carve something in such detail. I refused to take a picture of it at first, and only after the second day coming out did I decide to snap a photo of it. It looked like it had been done back in the 70's or 80's by the carving's looks.

Feral Pigs, Pigs, Pigs-One note here in the blog while I am thinking of it. Throughout our entire trip, the forest was absolutely saturated with signs of wild hogs. There were trails beat down so bad, it looked like humans were traveling them every day. Feral pigs are not native to the Bankhead, and the National Forest Service wants to get rid of them as soon as possible. We saw pig mud hole after mud hole everywhere we went the entire trip. I will not dwell on this point any more because I have talked about them on almost every blog, but they are a massive problem for the Forest Service. The irony is that the weekend we were out there was a scheduled hunt for Feral hogs. We went with "hunter orange" decked all over us and our backpacks, only to find not one single hunter out there in the drive into our location to park. Apparently hunters are not interested to help get rid of this problem. There will have to be some serious trapping of these animals that are not native to the area. They destroy everything, everywhere they go in the woods. The photo on this blog shows what they do to some of the trees by rubbing up against them, sharping their tusks on them, and wallowing in the ground around them, making large mud holes that scare the land. Another picture on this blog shows feral pig hair found on their trails. The situation is getting pretty sad. I won't mention them anymore in this blog, but I could not go without mentioning the severe damage we saw.

By 1 p.m., we finally arrived to set up camp at the intersection of Link Branch and Thompson. 2.5 miles was the total hike from our parked truck. We ate lunch, set up camp, rested a little more, and then Steve, Thomas, and I set out hiking up Link Branch, our final destination to explore. After no more than a 10 minute walk we discovered a neat looking bluff shelter and waterfall. Standing around and admiring the beauty, I heard Thomas say "Hey, here is an Indian Mortar Rock!". Much to our surprise was a beautiful hole carved out in the rock. For those of you wondering what a Mortar Rock is. The Indians ground corn and many other items up using a mortar rock. The deeper the hole is shows how much it was used, so I am told. This one was very deep (see picture attached with this article). We put a GPS waypoint on this find, took some pictures, and headed out. Moving on up the canyon, we saw little else of interest. About 1 mile up is Link Branch Falls. It was not very high and not very captivating to look at. With only about an hour before dark, we headed back to camp.

Nightfall yielded two things. One of the fastest temperature drops I can remember and an absolutely spectacular night of stars. At 4 p.m., the temperature was around 47 degrees. By 7:15 p.m., it was 28 degrees. This was an incredible drop in temperature in a very short time. The low that night was 24 degrees. Me being a weather "geek" as well, I carry a digital minimum and maximum thermometer. Around 10 p.m. that night, with the use of my iPhone and an application in it to help identify stars, we stood and admired God's beauty in the heavens. The north star was easy to pick out, since the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) was prominent in the sky. If you are not familiar how to identify the north star, it's easy. Just draw a line up from the two stars that make up the far end bowl of the Big Dipper. Follow that imaginary line straight up and the brightest star in it's path will be the North Star.

After a very quiet and pleasing night (only a couple of "hoots" from a hoot owl in the distance) with no animal noises like last time, we all got a great nights sleep. Unlike most people, I enjoy cold weather. One of the toughest things for me to do while camping in the cold is this. Getting out of your sleeping bag in the middle of the night to re-leave yourself from excess liquid. It is so hard to climb out of that warm sleeping bag. My body always says, "NO, I am NOT going back to sleep until you take care of this situation, and so I eventually go.

The next morning, we headed down Thompson Creek exploring. Within 25 minutes, we had come upon a bluff shelter that had been camped in many times over the years by an old cooler and trash left around. There were beech trees with numerous carvings of names over the years. One interesting item was a 1970's, 1980's ere steel cooler (see picture with this blog). Since it is protected up under the bluff, it only gets moisture from in the air to add to fuel the rust on it. It is not exposed directly out in the rain. All of this went on before this area was declared a Wilderness Area. So what you see out there, will be pretty much "frozen in time" until it has rusted, deteriorated and is gone. We hiked about 2 miles that morning and discovered a few other bluff shelters. Some of them had some interesting moss and ferns that you do not see anywhere, but for the most part, a pretty weak view of things compared to what we have seen before in the Bankhead. Around 11:00 a.m., we broke camp down and headed out. On the way out, we learned just how quickly a trip can turn into a nightmare. As we were crossing a stream of less than 7 inches deep, a "slick as ice" rock with moss on it, caused Steve to go flying up in the air and land almost sideways in the creek with his backpack on. After some very strong and loud moans of pain leaning over on the bank of the stream, he assured us that nothing was broken. Another lesson of how "fun" out in the middle of "no where" can turn into a long day when your body cannot transport itself out! That is one thing that the 3 of us try and do most of the time when we go together, and that is to be careful and not fall. A person who cannot transport him or herself out with there gear, can absolutely ruin everyone's trip. After some great steak at a popular restaurant out in the country, we headed back to modern civilization. Another great trip outdoors with two good friends. No "animal excitement" or breathtaking waterfalls as in past trips, but a step back in time looking at carvings and Indian traces. I have already started planning the next trip, so stand by and we will head out again soon!

Click below to watch a video clip of one of the bluff shelters we discovered.

A Remote Area, Some History, and One Creepy Night I Will Never Forget

2010-02-16T08:56:00.013-06:00

Sometimes the "unknowns" in life is what can create more fear, panic, or just simply the "creeps" in any of us than any other bumps in life. Of all the years I have camped in the outdoors among wildlife such as deer, black bear, brown bear, bobcats, foxes, raccoons, etc, none have provoked more "bone chilling", "blood curling" sounds than that of a coyote. As you read further, you will understand and hear just what I am talking about. First, let's start with the beginning of the trip. Thomas, one of my camping buddies and I decided to check out a place on the map called Davis Creek Canyon in the Bankhead National Forest of North Alabama. I have passed by it all my life and never been into this what seems like a massive sinkhole of a canyon for the terrain of north Alabama. Little did I realize what this place holds! Our plan was simple. Thomas had plotted the trip out on a map and I was game to wherever he wanted to go. He had decided for us to go in about a mile down into the canyon, set up base camp, and explore the rest of the day. We parked off of Cranal road, and begin the descent into the canyon. I noticed on my watch altimeter that we were at about 950 feet in elevation. As we started down into the canyon, we saw immediately this was going to be a very "rough" going adventure. All of the area had been clear cut of trees some 10-15 years ago, and so there was very thick and dense foliage to go into. It seemed like we only covered a quarter of a mile in one hour at times. It was tough, thick, and steep going into the canyon. The drop was so severe that we had to really look at the map good to find a way down into the canyon. When we finally reached bottom, my altimeter on my watch showed 650 feet. For North Alabama standards, that is a pretty good drop in elevation, although I realize compared to other areas including Alabama, this in nothing. It IS something when you are carrying 60 pounds of gear in a backpack, I can tell you that. As Thomas and I got to the bottom, we noticed a couple of things. First, there was absolutely NO sign of any human passing through this area in some time. The only tracks we saw were some very large feral hog tracks, and very fresh at that. When hogs roll around in the mud so happy, they want to get the mud off. They will scrap up against a tree and sometimes they wear the bark off. The size of the hog can be determined as well since the mud line on the tree bark will tell you their height. A picture attached to this blog tells that story. Some pretty good sized hogs!

We saw right away that this area is way to low of an area to set up any base camp, and so we hiked on up the canyon. After some 3 hours, we happened to notice on our GPS units, it said "Gum Pond Historical" on the map database in them. Hmmm. That sounds like we need to check that out, whatever it is! When we got closer to the waypoint that our GPS units already had on the map databases in them, we put our packs down by the creek and took off up the canyon. We did a "go to" on our GPS units to lead us to what was marked as "Gum Pond Historical". As we used our GPS units to help us "home in" on the point, we discovered something really cool! A late 1930's, early 1940's truck wrecked on the site of once was a narrow road down into the canyon. The truck was partially in the ground, with pieces and parts scattered about. We took pictures of it and I have them posted here. We could only "deduce" that a log truck must have gotten away and went down the steep hill, smashing into the rocks, or some guys had too much moonshine one night and totaled the truck out. It also had some signs like maybe a bulldozer later on tried to squash this truck up. We don't know the real story, but it was so cool to come up on such an old artifact. As we proceeded on up the steep hill to the top of the bluffs, I finally came to within 4 feet of the waypoint on our GPS map that said "Gum Pond Historical" waypoint. Nothing here but dense mountain laurel, and a beautiful view of the canyon. The history of this point has me curious and I plan to check into it further. It was obvious from the truck wreck, the old road bed, and other clues, that this was once a thriving place, perhaps before the U.S. Forest Service bought all the property up many years ago.

After lunch and a break, we set out for a place to camp for the night. We decided to go up one of the canyon walls or inlets close to our take out point going home on Sunday-February 14th. We found a pretty nice and fairly flat place to set up camp. It had a tall 50 foot waterfall not far from us, a small stream that ran right by the campsite, and plenty of downed trees for firewood. As dusk fell, this is when the "creepy part" of this simple little adventure trip begins. Our campsite was about 1/4 of a mile up from the main Davis Creek canyon. We were in a small little inlet that was a part of the main canyon. There was nothing but steep 40-60 walls in a U shape all around us, with two waterfalls emptying into our canyon. We were camped in the middle of this U shaped inlet. We had discussed early on HOW we where going to get out of this canyon, but we were both too tired to think about it on Saturday. We decided we would get up early Sunday morning and scope out the place first with no backpacks, before we hauled our gear going in circles trying to find a way out. Sitting around our campfire at dusk and eating supper, we heard this yelling sound coming from down in the main canyon. It went over and over. There was no break. Thomas said "I wonder if that is Sam?". Sam was a friend who said he may or may not be able to join us. As we continued listening, it was apparent that this yelling was not a person, but apparently a coyote. It sounded like it was down at the junction of the main canyon and this inlet were were camped in. The canyon is so deep that sound projects very well. This yelling or actually howling by the coyote went on for about 15 minutes. I have heard many coyotes in my time, but none last this long or sound like this. Usually you will hear the "yelp" sound in with the howl that is so classic of coyotes. As the evening progressed on, he begin to start howling again, repeatedly howling over and over. There was no moon so we had a very sharp pitch black night. Only the light from our fire showed evidence of where we were. Thomas said "Can't you record that coyote with your Iphone?". I told him yes, and so I ran over to the tent and grabbed my Iphone, brought the application for recording up, and we sat there on standby while we continued and finished our supper around the campfire talking. The small stream was right behind us, and it was making a soothing sound, but when this guy fired up with his howls, it would easily overpower the sound of the stream. After some time sitting and talking, the coyote cut loose again. I turned the recorder on and what we heard then is what you hear on the movie attached. THIS TIME, the coyote heads up the canyon towards us! NOT KNOWING things can send some chills up your spine. First, is he in the canyon or on top of the canyon rim? Is he rabid? Is he hungry? Is he calling for a mate or fellow companion? Is it REALLY a coyote or is it a wolf (as far as I know, we have no wolves officially in Bankhead NF)? Is he "ticked off" at us being there? Does he do this every night? Is he calling for the "troops" to check us out further for food? Thomas nor I never really feared for us having any real problems or us being in true life threatning danger, but the "UNKNOWNS" can really drive a fellow into some creepy thoughts! That blood curling sound can really work on your mind. It's also interesting here to point out some things. You get all types of reactions from people after hearing what we experienced. My wife laughed and said she would have loved to have been there and experienced that creepy sound. Others said I am absolutely crazy for being out there with that creature tormenting us like that. Everyone has a different reaction and thoughts on an experience like this. Anyway, getting back to the recording. The coyote proceeded up the canyon howling. After it PASSED by us howling, we then both deduced that the coyote was walking the rim of the canyon and not IN the canyon. I must tell you that as chilling of a sound that it makes, it gets OLD REAL FAST. I think the "not knowing" is what wears on you. Thomas laughed and said that I would be surprised probably of how small of a coyote this was and it was probably pretty skinny. His view is that perhaps this was a "loner" type coyote, kicked out of the pack. I hope he was right, because with a sound like that, I had envisioned a nice healthy 3 foot high wolf that was having his sights set on us, at least that is what my mind was leading me to believe by the bone chilling sounds it made.

After some 20 minutes of this tormenting, it stopped. I needed to contact my family anyway by ham radio and let them know we were both fine out here in the backcountry. Where we go in the Bankhead, no cell phones work, and so your only communication with the outside world is through ham radio. I think my talking on the radio finally ran him off, because we never heard him again. About 10 p.m., hoot owls cut loose not far from us. They too can send out a creepy sound, and so this just added to the already bizarre night. At 10:30 p.m. we both retired for the night to our beds. Thomas in his hammock some 50 feet away, and me in my tent. I was so tired from the 4 mile hike that day that I crashed immediately into a deep sleep. Around 11:30, I awoke to the familiar sounds we hear a lot of lately in North Alabama, even in the rural areas and not just the forest-It was the sound of a full pack of coyotes yelping and on the chase of something down in the main Davis Creek Canyon. I lay there a few minutes listening to them, and then rolled over and went back to sleep. Around midnight, I awoke to the strangest sound I will NEVER forget. I heard up on the top of the canyon, a repeated over and over-"grunting sound" that sounded just like a constant grunting sound a black bear would do. I was nestled in my zero degree mummy sleeping bag with the bag zipped up all around me. The only thing showing was my face. In order for this sound to wake me up with this insulated bag all around my head, it had to be pretty loud! In hearing this, a wave of panic set up in me with "what the crap is that?" I immediately begin to wrestle trying to find the zipper and get out of this mummy sack sleeping bag that locks you in. I had a large knife beside my sleeping bag and I fully intended to get to it as fast as possible. As I finally ripped free of the sleeping bag, I heard two last grunts out of this 10-15 second constant chilling sound. I grabbed the knife, got ready to get out of the tent and that was it. Nothing else heard. The only sound from then on was the stream flowing, and the snore of Thomas in deep sleep, out for the night in his hammock. He didn't hear a thing obviously. I lay back down in my sleeping back, churning over in my head, what the crap could that have been? We supposedly don't have any black bear in Bankhead National Forest. I don't know of anything that big that could make that kind of grunt. Then it dawned on me. Could it have been a very large feral hog? Possibly. I then begin to tell myself that as I tossed and tumbled all night trying to go back to sleep. The crack of daylight seems to always relax anyone nervous of the dark, and such was the case here. I wanted to go back to sleep and sleep until 10 a.m., but sleet and snow were forecast to move into the area later on in the morning, and so at 7 a.m., I begin to pack my things. I awoke Thomas by my noise and so he joined in as well. We ate breakfast, explored the canyon more and found a very, very, steep place to get out of the canyon pretty close by to camp. At 9:00 a.m., we begin the slow journey of hauling our backpacks and ourselves up a 45 degree incline in thick foliage. There was a trail that went around the perimeter of the canyon we were camped in. There was dung from deer and feral hogs on that trail. Thomas and I decided that this was the trail the coyote was taking to as he tormented us during the night. We made it back to the truck and completed a 6 mile journey that started early Saturday morning, the day before. It was an adventure we will talk about for a long time, but in some ways, the creepiness of it made me glad to get the heck out of there! I will always wonder.....a stray small and puny coyote, or some healthy wolf. No one will ever know. From the chilling, blood curling sound it left in me, the panic in my mind would say it was a 7-10 foot high wolf. Listen to the coyote sound below by clicking on the play button and adjust the volume up on your computer. As you listen to the coyote sound below, bear in mind that the microphone on my Iphone is not as sensitive as the ears, and so the sound you hear was actually about 2-3 times louder than the recording! I still hear that "bone chilling sound" in the back of my mind.

Exploring Little River Canyon National Preserve in NE Alabama

2010-01-19T15:23:00.017-06:00

No matter if we like it or not, or we will acknowledge it or not, weather decides what we do in our lives. Such is the case with our 3 month long planned trip to northern Georgia's Cohutta Wilderness over the Martin Luther King holiday in 2010. Another setback is the crew of about 6 guys, starting dropping like flies as the date got closer. Heavy rains forecast days in advance had me frustrated, especially since I had packed for this trip one week in advance, food and everything! As the long weekend came closer, it became evident that we needed to change plans. Rob, one of my camping buddies and expert guide for the Cohutta Wilderness called me a few days before and said that we need to modify our plans. He said river levels would be so high that we would not get much out of the trip. Since camping and hiking in the Cohutta Wilderness requires so many stream crossings, it became evident that this trip was not meant to be. We tossed around options and finally decided on a new place to explore.......Buck's Pocket Canyon over in Northeast Alabama. If time permitted, we would move on to Little River Canyon National Preserve.

After watching weather radar and listening to forecasts, we decided to drop a day off the planned trip and meet up on Sunday at noon. It just seemed like the best thing to do unless we wanted to spend part of our long weekend hovered under a tarp wishing we had dry firewood. Once we met up at Buck's Pocket, the rain continued to come down. We were impressed with the canyon, but with rain, fog, clouds, and overall "mess" we just could not get the views we wanted. We also decided that Little River Canyon was the place that we really wanted to go to, since anyone that had ever been there raved at how beautiful it was. So that was the ticket.......head for Little River Canyon. The only problem we found in this plan was that The National Park Service allows NO camping within Little River Canyon. What a bummer! We still had to check out this wonderful beauty, so the next best deal was to go on over to Desoto State Park, camp in their primitive camping area and then launch a full blown attack on hiking Little River Canyon Monday morning. We arrived late Sunday afternoon to Desoto State Park's Primitive campground. It is a neat little area that allows you to lock yourself in to the campground. This adds new worlds to security and safety in a public camping area. This is great, and allows for no "riff-raff" to ease in to your campground and steal some goodies and leave quickly. They have to have a physical key to get into the campground. We quickly found out WE were the ONLY ones in the entire campground, therefore leaving us free to pick any site we wanted. To protect us from the now brutal winds that were coming out of the west, we picked a group area behind some pine thickets. You have to remember that this campground is up around 1,300 feet, and so were stuck in clouds, fog, and a mess! I thought I had lost my wallet as well. This tends to add excitement to the afternoon. After making myself absolutely sick with worry, I finally found it laying in the tent. I think the next thing to being naked in the middle of downtown with no clothes on and your friends passing by and seeing you, is to be without your wallet. If my heart were running a marathon, It just ran 10K in 1o minutes.

Night time turned out to be a pretty depressing site for most folks, even for hard core campers. If my buddy Rob had not brought firewood from his home in Chattanooga, we would have been totally miserable. Camping at 1300 feet in a cloud bank (fog) can wear on you. Everything is damp, everything is cold, and nothing but a hot meal could deal a blow to this mess! Ah yes, a hot meal! That did the trick along with a warm campfire. Some warm French Vanilla coffee does wonders as well. How many moments in the wild are warmed from worries with a fire. That fire was worth a million bucks! We sat around talking. Campfires are some of my favorite times, no matter what the condition or the temperature. Sharing stories with camping buddies is hard to beat.

After a good nights sleep listening to all the sounds down in the valley all night long from trains, dog barks, to "back up beep" indicators on commercial vehicles, we were ready to go to Little River Canyon by 10 a.m. A hearty oatmeal breakfast and hot coffee will start the day off good. The sun peaked through the clouds around 10 a.m., yielding a crisp, clean, clear blue sky to greet us all day long. After a short 20 minute drive and our arrival, I was set back right away with such beauty of Little River Canyon Falls as I crossed the bridge on Highway 35 and turned in. Most everyone's first stop is Little River Canyon Falls just off of the highway. This is your first clue that many more wonderful sites are coming your way. The Little River Canyon National Preserve, has only been under the National Park Service since the 1990's. Little River Canyon, is little known to locals of what a treasure it really is. The Little River Canyon is one of the nation's longest rivers that travels on the top of a mountain, then plunges off the Cumberland Plateau at the head of Little River Canyon. The Canyon starts at 1,900 feet up in elevation and drops to around 650 feet. That is a pretty amazing and a fast drop in some 20 miles of the canyon! You can imagine how the current rages with this steep of a drop. The water remains a beautiful green looking color, even after a lot of rain we experienced the day before.

Little River Canyon Preserve offers something for everyone. If you don't even care to get out of your car, you can drive the outside rim of the canyon and enjoy some scenery like you have never seen before. If you get out of your car at each overlook, you will be treated to stunning views of the canyon. If you do this, take binoculars! If you care to do as Rob and I did and go down in to the canyon, you will leave with views that you will never forget the rest of your life. The best place to go down into the canyon as we did, is at Eberhart Point. This is a very old site that was once the site of a sky chair lift that for a fee, would take you down into the canyon. It was privately owned. Remains of the old site are still down there and can be seen in the pictures I have taken of the trip. There are still concrete pillars and old concrete picnic tables left over from these bygone days. It must have been a neat spot in it's time. I don't know, but one would only surmise by the name that Mr. Eberhart ran the sky lift and picnic area in it's time. GETTING down to this neat place is where the stamina comes in. From the high point of Eberhart Point where you park your car, to the bottom of the canyon is about a 400 foot drop in elevation. The old winding road going down to the bottom of the once sky lift location winds down at approximately a 45-50 degree slope. There are park benches every 300 feet. There is a reason for this! It is a under a quarter of a mile to the bottom of the canyon, but it will feel like 2 miles to the top when you decide to walk out! The river bottom greets you with old building and ground remains from the old chair lift. The walls of an old stone building, which looks like pre-1940's is there as well as picnic tables that look like out of the 1940-1950s. There is a non official trail that leads along the river going south into the canyon. THIS is the trail you want to take. When you look around, you are suddenly stunned and a little confused. THIS scenery does not look like Alabama! This looks like the cliffs in Northern New Mexico, or the hills of Northern Virginia. This place does not even resemble the normal terrain of Georgia, Alabama, or Tennessee. It is like a mini Grand Canyon in some ways. Taking this trail I mentioned going downstream will take you along the roaring sounds of the raging river, as well as yield breathtaking views along the way. If you have the time, go up to the north of the canyon from the picnic ground as well upstream. You will eventually come to Brooks Branch which runs in to Little River. When you get to this point, look up and see the mighty tall Crow Point towering way above you. If you look closely, you will see a small point or two of people at the top looking down at you! That's exactly what they look like, small points! This view is shown on the blog, showing the intersection of Brooks Branch on the left, coming into Little River and Crow's Point towering in the middle. About an hour or two walking downstream from where we descended into the canyon, we came upon a tree with either a snake carved in it, or a map of the flow of Little River. It appeared to be very old carved into a birch tree. Is it Indian? Is it fairly recent?....Who knows. Toward the close of the day, Rob and I came up out of the canyon, climbing slow and steady up that LONG incline trail towards the truck. When we arrived, we found that the kayakers whose boats were on top of their vehicles parked up with us, had apparently taken the kayaks and descended down in the canyon to do some true whitewater kayaking. I don't whitewater kayak, only long boat kayaking on the river or on lakes. From some of the current that I saw, it would appear that the odds of death boating in some places would be around 70%. I would have loved to have watched them kayak this raging river. Rob and I closed the day out by going by and stopping at High Grace Falls, believed to be the tallest waterfall in Alabama. As we were leaving, Rob and I realized that this Canyon goes some 20 miles. We had only been about 10 miles down it. We barely even scratched the surface! Maybe another day. I certainly hope so. My only complaint is that the Park Service allows absolutely NO camping whatsoever. I don't really understand that but we go with the rules. Rob and I talked about the wonderful possibilities if you could camp in the canyon. A base camp set up on the stream, and nothing but beauty to explore for days. Maybe one day the Park Service will open this up for camping. But in the meantime, this place has something for everyone. From the casual person who wants to see nature and never get out of their car, to the person who wants to stop at each scenic overlook and take in the beauty, to the hard core hiker who wants a challenge and to be rewarded with some of the most scenic beauty in Alabama. Put Little River Canyon on the calendar if you are passing by that way. I can guarantee you that you will not regret it!

For more pictures and video shot down in the canyon during the trip, go to http://gallery.me.com/ambervas

Click on the Photo album titled "Buck's Pocket-Little River Canyon". It has short movie clips contained in it as well.

The Indian "Bird Man Tree" Carving and Suprise Waterfall in Bankhead National Forest

2009-12-26T22:08:00.022-06:00

When my friend Thomas suggested we take a day hike to the "Bird Man Tree", I really had no ideal what he was talking about. I was certainly ready to go anywhere in Bankhead National Forest so I told him sure, let's go! As is always the case with Bankhead NF, it is full of surprises.
We left Wren and set out for Leola Road (Lawrence County Road 90) off of Highway 33. We proceeded down Lawrence county road 90 (or also called Forest Service Road 249). We then turned onto county road 89 or also a continuation of U. S. Forest Service road 249. We pulled into the first turn off after getting onto 89. Leaving the truck, we proceeded down the old U.S. Forest Service road 249A. It has been closed to traffic for about 10-15 years. The "blow down" as we often call it or fallen trees was terrible after about 1/2 of mile in. Pretty soon, we came to a very thick grove of pine trees planted by the Forest Service. It was so thick, you could not walk or penetrate the pines, so we went off to the left of the road into a canyon. As we proceeded down about 1/8 of a mile, Thomas grinned when he discovered some writings on a tree. Thomas checks all the Birch trees he can get to. As stated in some previous blogs, Birch trees can hold carvings for several hundred years if carved deeply into them. The carving Thomas found on the tree got both of us excited! It had 1927 carved into the tree as well as 1938. The tree was beside what looked to be an old road that went nearby the tree. That explained the carvings. I am sure that tree could really tell some stories if it could talk. The old road bed looked like it had been used heavily at one time.

After leaving the 1927/1938 tree, we noticed that hemlocks were growing more and more populated as you looked down the canyon. We both knew we were on to something. Neither he or I had been to this part of the canyon before, and from the looks of the growing number of hemlocks, the scenery was going to do nothing but get better. Anytime you see hemlocks or often called "evergreens" by some, it tells you that the canyon has plenty of water flowing, and that the evergreens of moss, hemlocks, ferns and other plants are "dead ahead". The canyons in the Bankhead are so unique and beautiful compared to anywhere else in the country. The normal forest in December is pretty brown, dull, and boring in scenery. The canyons have all the green plants sheltered in them and offer almost a completely different climate. The temperature is cooler, everything is green and appears like it would in summertime. As we proceeded on down the canyon, we noticed it getting deeper and deeper. Soon we found where two streams fed into each other and formed a larger branch. Some 150 feet ahead, a massive 70 foot waterfall spewed the contents of those streams on down deeper into a deep canyon. We had hit a gold mine! A massive waterfall we knew absolutely nothing about! There is no name on the map for this priceless view, so since we were headed to the Bird Man Tree on down the canyon, we simply named it "Bird Man Falls".

The canyon was so deep that we discovered that we could not get down into it without walking an additional 1/2 mile up above through some very, very thick foliage! The terrain was exceptionally rough and to our right up us moving down the canyon was a massive pine thicket that there was no way to penetrate, so we had a very narrow passage of thick foliage to get through on top of the canyon. Upon arriving down into the bottom of the canyon, we headed back towards the waterfall. Along the way were two very different surprises! First, a possible Indian Marker Tree and a "half moon" carved into a tree up near a bluff. There is a special meaning to that half moon you will find out later on as you read. The canyon was FULL of massive Poplar trees in large sizes. I could not believe how large they were. I snapped several pictures of them and collected a few "waypoints" on my GPS unit. A couple of "odd" facts on the possible Indian Marker Tree and the half moon carved on the tree. First, the possible marker tree was pointing almost due south. It also lined up with the carving of the half moon on a tree some 75 yards in a straight line. Way to "chance" for me. I feel like it was some kind of Indian sign or markers pointing to something.

After taking pictures of the trees, we proceeded on up to the waterfall we came upon earlier but could not get access to. BOY was it worth it! The waterfall dropped some 70 feet into a beautiful pool of water below it. It then roared on down the canyon at a pretty fast pace. Thomas and I took our time here, to absorb all the scenery, shoot pictures, and record "waypoints" on our GPS units. This stream eventually empties into Brushy Creek, just downstream from the famous Indain Bird Tree carving. We spent a good 30-45 minutes in the canyon admiring the waterfall. Thomas said he knew nothing of it and that probably very few people knew of as well. We saw really no indication anyone had been here in a long time. It is so remote and such rugged country, I doubt that it has been visited in a while.
After about another 30-45 minutes walking downstream from the falls, we finally discovered our "jackpot". There, down by Brushy Creek as Thomas remembered was still the famous "Indian Bird Man" tree. This carving is very odd. It is like nothing I have ever seen before. It kind of looks like a stick man with a hat and a bird figure face. Thomas Graham, one of my hiking buddies with me on this trip, says the carving was reported by his mother some 10-15 years ago. After further investigation by some experts, it was found that this carving has been found in different parts of the south. It has been carved into rocks and seen with other Indian markings in other states. According to Thomas, nobody seems to have any ideal as to what it means. The moon figure we found up the canyon was the same shape as the one included on the Bird Man figure carved in the tree. Very interesting! As far as we know, nobody knows about the half moon carving we found on the tree back up in the canyon above. The possible Indian Marker Tree and the half moon were marked with our GPS units and we documented them with video and pictures. You must remember that the Indians had no "language or alphabet for many, many years. They went by signs and symbols. An IMAX film crew out of Atlanta walked in about a year ago and filmed this tree. The are compiling a documentary on Indian carvings across the United States and spent some time in Bankhead National Forest filming Indian carvings and markings. Nobody seems to know when the documentary will be released.
After taking all the pictures and video we could take of the tree, we ate lunch at the tree, and then headed on back home. It turned out to be a full day's work to get to this tree, but WELL worth it considering the waterfall that surprised us. I encourage anyone who is in the area to try and see some kind of Indian carvings in the forest. They are very special and really put a perspective on truly how rich in history an area really is. By the way, Thomas took a yellow colored piece of chaulk in with us and outlined the carving in the tree to see it better. After the first rain, the carving will return to it's normal state and not be so pronounced.

A VERY exciting day and a lot of knowledge gained. Another day to be thankful for the great outdoors and the adventures it brings.

UPDATE 11-18-2011: Not very long after this article was written, a storm came through the area and a tree fell on the famous Bird Man Tree. It would take paragraphs to explain what all transpired, but basically through the efforts of volunteers, the National Forest Service allowed the tree to be cut down and preserved in a museum. It is now in Lawrence County at the Indian Oakville Mound Museum. A process of trying to preserve it went underway and I understand it is now in safe keeping for everyone to view now. Attached above are some pictures of the tree that fell on it and prompted it being cut down, as well as early photos when McKinney Graham first discovered the tree and showed it to locals in 1992.

8 Stunning Waterfalls in ONE Bankhead National Forest Day

2009-12-21T11:24:00.019-06:00

We have all heard the term "Timing is Everything". This turned out to be truly the case on what started out as a very simple overnight trip in Bankhead National Forest. Almost every trip we go on in the woods, we seek a goal of seeing this or doing all of that. We plan our routes, the camps, the highlights all out. The goal on this trip...Visit and see as many waterfalls as possible. We started out with a total of 6 guys for the trip. 3 of them were day hikers and 3 of them were staying overnight. Rainfall in downpours on Friday knocked our 3 day trip into a two day trip. BUT, the multitude of water and overcast clouds helped us in many ways. It allowed for beautiful pictures since it was overcast, the immense amounts of water yielded gushing waterfalls and added to the beauty, but the extra water meant more problems navigating beside the streams.

If you are not exactly familiar with the area and don't really care for the details and locations, please bare with me as I explain locations to you while caring you with us on this adventure.

We parked our cars off Cranal Road just past the Wolfpen Hunting camp. Taking the canyon into the Sipsey Wilderness, we wound around past carvings on trees, one of which had dated 1918 on it. The base camp destination was on Eagle Creek , just above Eagle Creek Falls. This was supposedly an old camp for loggers back in the 1940's. Barbed wire is left at the site still and so the "story" goes, the mules used in the logging were kept here. This was going to be our base camp before we ventured on to other falls.

After arriving on Eagle Creek to set up base camp, 3 of us began setting up camp while the day hikers talked and visited around the area. After a weeks worth of torrential rains, the creeks were "roaring" with water and sound. The ground was soaked from a heavy rain the day before, and so finding good firewood was going to be tough. Thomas, a good friend camping with me is always one step ahead in this area. He had talked two of the hikers into bringing two store bought fire logs with us to the camp. As we found our later, these two logs were going to be a life saver. More on that later.

After about an hour for the setup of camp, we all tore out downstream of Eagle Creek anxious to see some more scenery. First stop was the main Eagle Creek Falls. These falls are always a beauty. They used to be even more beautiful then they are now. Several years ago, some trees were downed from a storm surrounding the falls. This killed the dark canopy that once ruled over the falls and protected the moss and ferns from the straight sun. As a result, the sun has parched a lot of the remaining hemlocks, moss, and ferns that used to cover all around the falls, and converted it to a rather boring looking falls for scenery in my opinion. There is little to no moss growing now but still, with the stair step drops it yields for falls, it is still very pretty. We worked our way on down Eagle Creek. Just up ahead, two more nameless waterfalls that I had seen before, but with all the rain we had the week before, these small waterfalls were spewing wide open with water. One of these waterfalls is on the left going down, and then the second one is on the right. They were small but very beautiful. Working our way down the creek proved to be quiet a labor. I have been used to just walking the stream bed in years past down this path, but with the water levels so high now, we found ourselves challenged in every way to work our way down Eagle Creek. Many times, our path would take us up a 45 degree incline and then back down, sometimes crossing the creek back and forth. After about a quarter to a half a mile hike, we came to the intersection of Eagle and Little Ugly Creek. Here, we turned left and headed up Little Ugly Creek. This my friend is one of my favorite stretches out in Bankhead National Forest. No where else can you be right in the heart of the Sipsey Wilderness Area, see so many waterfalls within reach, and see little to no one! You basically have the whole place to yourself. As we hiked our way up the canyon, you begin to notice that you are all in "hemlock country". The tall hemlocks provide a blanket of tropical atmosphere in the canyons of Bankhead. Even in the dead of winter, you can walk down into a hemlock canyon and see green all around you. It is like another world. That is what makes the Bankhead so unique. I have been blessed to travel to Arizona, California, Oregon, Maine, Alaska and many other locations, and NOWHERE will you find such diverse plant growth with bluffs, hemlock trees, and canyons. In fact, you will be lucky to find one single bluff shelter in the Great Smokie Mountains or the Cohutta Wilderness in northern Georgia. There are hundreds and hundreds of bluff shelters in Bankhead. This again, makes Bankhead a very unique place.

As we get closer to Deer Skull Falls, the sound becomes louder and louder. Within 15 minutes of walking, we have arrived. Truly a breathtaking site and worth every muscle of work to get to it. Deer Skull Falls, is actually two waterfalls that come together beside each other. The term Deer Skull was coined to them but actually they are Deer Skull "A" and Deer Skull "B". Deer Skull "A" is on the main branch of Little Ugly Creek, and is not very high, but is unique because of it's glowing orange color "iron ore" that bleeds out through the rock. To the right is Deer Skull "B" waterfall. It is breathtaking when there has been lots of rain. It towers up about 80 feet and drops by steps, 6-8 of them as it makes it way down. Take some time sitting and watching both of these waterfalls. Your mind will relax like you have not felt in a long time. After pulling all of this in, shooting 17,000 pictures (just kidding) of the falls, we sat down and ate lunch. As you sit there and admire the beauty, you suddenly feel very cold. That's because in December with the high temps only in the low 50's, the cool mist blowing off the falls can send a chill down to your bones real fast, especially if you are sitting on a cold rock! Such as the case with me. I had to stand up, move around and finish out the lunch. The chill was soaking in fast.

By now, the time was 1:15 p.m. With short days, we knew we had to get going fast if we were going to see a host of other waterfalls. As we departed, the day hikers decided they would not have time to complete the planned journey and get out to the truck before dark, so they proceeded back up Eagle Creek to go home. That left myself, my nephew, and my good camping buddy Thomas to finish out the journey. As we headed down Little Ugly Creek going past where we had come in earlier, we noticed an absolutely stunning giant tall waterfall on the other side of the creek from where we were on Little Ugly Creek. We took pictures, shot video of it, pulled out the map and realized this was Hemlock Creek Falls. We decided we MUST investigate it on the way back. We could not find a quick place to cross the creek and get to it, so we marched on. Next up on the planned stop was Fernglade Falls. It was on the right side of Little Ugly Creek. We had found a place to cross over the creek this time so getting to it was easy. It was a little bit of a let down. It had a massive Poplar Tree up near it, but was not the tall "falling off of a bluff" type waterfall like I had hoped for. It was more of a 100 foot tall, stair step type falls, with much of it going under rocks and underground slightly. It's roar was incredible, so you knew that it was big. It just was hiding a lot of it's contents in the rocks and underground as it plunged down the 100 feet drop. After a short time here and a few picture snaps, waypoints taken on our GPS units, we were on to the next and last stop......Wolfpen Creek Falls. As we made our way around the top of the canyon up by Fernglade Falls, we found where Feral Hogs had made a massive mud hole underneath one of the bluff shelters up by the falls. Feral Hogs are absolutely ruining the forest. If left unchecked, they will destroy much of the forest. I have seen them take a beautiful hemlock area and root the ground up like a tiller pulled by a tractor, rub all the bark off any trees nearby, and severely scar many of the others by sharping their tusks on the trees. Feral Hogs are basically barn raised pigs that have gotten loose and are managing on their own. Since they grow and multiply like rabbits, they are taking over the forests in the Southeast. I cannot stress enough how much they are destroying the forest.

As we moved on down what is now Sipsey River, since Little Ugly Creek empties into Sipsey, we came across some very strange carvings on a tree. It looked like someone was trying to be cute, it was Indian Carvings, or just some writing that had faded away badly, we don't know. It sure caught our eye though. We snapped a few pictures and then headed on. Wolfpen Creek Falls requires a pretty good little 1/4 of a mile hike to get to it up the canyon. We walked and walked and I thought we would never find this waterfall. Pressure was mounting on us, knowing that it gets dark very soon, and we were 2 miles from camp through some very rough country. Finally, at 3:00 p.m., we made it to Wolfpen Falls. Well worth the trip because there was also a very impressive side falls up near the main Wolfpen Falls. It had about a 50 foot drop. We snapped tons of pictures, moved on around the canyon and Thomas found an interesting deal. He located an opening up under a bluff that apparently was the opening to a small cave. Thomas, being a bluff and cave lover, asked to borrow my flashlight and proceeded right into the hole! He said it had a small dry room about 10 feet long and 5 feet wide. It was very dry up in it. There was a slight moldy smell though that came out from the hole. I don't think I would want to spend the night in there, but it would make a great tornado shelter. I can only imagine how many rattlesnakes make their way in there during the summer. After admiring the shelter, we realized we needed to get our tails out of there and head back to camp if we were planning on making it back before dark. We left out about 3:15 p.m. headed back at a rather fast pace of walking. We had lights, maps, ham radio, and GPS units to get back to camp with, so we were not worried about getting lost. It was the added danger of negotiating bluffs, slick mud rocks, and the falling danger with so little light that started to get us a little worried. We picked up our pace considerably coming back with a little bit of anxiety. As the evening light got lower and lower, we made it back to Hemlock Falls, the falls I mentioned to you earlier. This is a 60-90 foot waterfall that plunges water straight off the top of the bluff. Man this waterfall will catch your breath....It was so impressive.....We said "we must come back to this one". After snapping several pictures of the falls in VERY low light, we tore out at an even faster pace trying to get back to camp above Eagle Creek Falls. By now, it was 4:30 p.m. and the light was getting very, very, low. As we arrived into camp, it was at the point where a flashlight was needed to see anything. We definitely pushed our limit on that one, but hey!...We got in 8 waterfalls in one day! How many people can say that! After reflecting back of our hard work for the day, it made me even more proud that we pushed ourselves to get all of them in that we wanted to see. I must tell you that with the anxiety of getting back before dark, coupled with the treacherous terrain, my legs were the sorest I have every felt in a long time. I pulled every muscle I had available in my legs that day. Supper never tasted better that night around the fire. There was no problem getting these 3 guys to fall asleep fast that night. We all went to sleep with the roaring sounds of Eagle Creek, roaring from all the water flowing. The only discomfort was the fire. With everything wet around us, people camping here from time to time, we were "flat out of luck" on any decent firewood. Thomas and his store bought fire logs were the lifesaver. We huddled around these tightly until 10 p.m. and then hit the beds.

The next morning was pretty simple compared to the previous day. Get up, eat some oatmeal for breakfast, tear down camp, pack up, and head out home. Another day older, but much wiser in appreciation for God's country and a "flushed out mind" ready for Monday's challenges of life.

Whiskey Stills-Indian Mortar Rock and a History Trip in Bankhead NF

2009-11-30T08:24:00.013-06:00

Backpacking and camping on any trip yields different things at different times and sometimes some surprising unique experiences. Like many of the things in life, sometimes what you think might be very boring can turn out to be one of the more fun times you never expected. Over the Thanksgiving Holidays of 2009, my camping buddies and myself decided to try something different. Bankhead National Forest, located in North Alabama had a scheduled deer hunt on one half of the forest lands over the Thanksgiving holidays. The scheduled hunt covered all of the Sipsey Wilderness area that weekend which is our prime playground for adventure! For safety reasons, we decided to stick to the side of the forest with no scheduled deer hunt. Thomas, my good friend and camping buddy, loves bluff shelters and the history of the local area. We kind of put the load on him this time to be our guide and come up with a trip. Thomas picked a route that would be different from our normal routine. Most of the time, we pick an area very few have been nor would begin to think about because it is so remote. This time, Thomas picked the least obvious. He picked an area right behind the central forest tower and work center for the Bankhead district of the U.S. Forest Service. For most people that know us personally as adventurers, this route would be the least one we would pick.

Day 1

Before the trip started, Thomas wanted to show us a very old cemetery located in the National Forest. He took us to a cemetery named Tapsville. It was a very old community that I am sure at one time was alive with activity. The cemetery only had a few graves that could be made out with modern cemetery markers. Most of the graves were marked with stones. Just 100 yards down the hill, Thomas pointed out where the ground was cut out and held an old whiskey still at some point in time. That was neat going back in time and seeing this old cemetery. After that, we piled in the truck and headed out to start our journey.

We parked at a hunters camp full of deer hunters for the big weekend hunt. We pull up, get out, and start getting the backpacks ready. Immediately, the hunters suspect a "different" kind of folks that have pulled up in their area. We didn't pull out the guns, we pulled out the backpacks! It is funny but you get this weird feeling that they are thinking, yeah, some more "city folks" coming out here and clogging up the woods. The hunters that were there in camp gave us some "looks" as we loaded up and hit the woods. The part they don't know is that I hunted just as hard as them for 9 years and gave it up. I found more pleasure in walking the woods I love more than sitting on my tail with it asleep and watching one part of the woods. Everybody has their thing.

The plan was to hike in along a canyon that we had talked about exploring, set up base camp and explore for the next 3 days. The outdoors yields different things to different people. I love the hemlock canyons, the waterfalls, and the evergreens in the dead of winter in areas. I love camping around that type scenery. My buddy Thomas loves bluff shelters and historical artifacts. I too enjoy the history part and exploring bluff shelters. All of us on the trip did. Upon our arrival in the area, we were all kind of thinking that this might not have been such a good ideal. The area seemed kind of generic and bland with your typical winter time woods. After walking in about a mile, we set up base camp. Late in the afternoon as the sun starting setting low, a hoot owl erupted about 50 yards away and shook the woods. We all chucked, commented, and we never heard him again on the trip, but man it will wake you up that close. The moon came up that night with crystal clear skies..... I love those moonlight nights over the forest. Even though you don't see that many stars, being able to see in the woods and hear the sometimes distant calls of coyotes can really bring chills as well as comfort while out in the woods. Our exploring that day had only yielded a couple of interesting bluffs and an Indian mortar rock. I thought to myself that just seeing another Indian mortar rock would make it worth the trip.

Day 2-Surprises

We all slept late. Momma didn't "bang the pots" to wake us up nor did the alarm clock "blare out" that you need to "go to work today". It was simply just the pleasant sounds of birds chirping. I think so many of us forget that the body needs that kind of relaxation from time to time. It does wonders for me and flushes so much of the stress in my life away. The weather was perfect this day. The temp had gotten down to a cool 29 degrees. The forecast called for an absolutely beautiful day ahead with no clouds and a warm low 60's for temps. After some breakfast, we decided to pack up enough supplies and head out all day exploring and not return to base camp until the late afternoon. After walking no more than an hour, we discovered this beautiful "green area" ahead down at the base of a hill. As we approached, I thought we had discovered a really neat swamp area that was totally green. As we got closer, one of the guys said "oh crap!" We quickly noticed that the beautiful green swamp we spotted was NOT a unique swamp area but a massive game plot with green grass! We had walked right into private property! As we all stood their trying to decide if we were truly were on private property, I starting pulling out the map. We all knew there was some private property located in the middle of the forest close to us, but we did not think we had walked down that far. As I started unfolding the map, we all heard a loud whistle coming from the area over by the game plot. It was a definitely a whistle that said ONE of three things.....It said "hey, I am over here hunting- you jerks" or "hey- over to one of his hunting partners on the game plot with him that signaled that some jerk guys were trespassing on our land and headed this way". Either way, it spelled "get out of dodge" for us! We quickly departed and on the way out, noticed a big yellow sign that we had overlooked earlier. It said "Property Boundary-U.S. National Forest Service". O.K., so we are all slow readers, or we just didn't see it!.....That was our excuse and we were sticking to it. The true reality is that with current state laws, they could have shot at us and been perfectly legal. Getting out quickly was a smart thing to do. My heart sunk when it seemed that half of our exploring territory for this trip had been simply cut off. We stopped, talked about our options for the rest of this trip. Do we go out and go to another area to camp? Not enough daylight. Do we just simply deal with what we have left around us to explore? Yep, that seemed to be the most logical plan. We move on.

After 10 minutes of walking, we come upon a small little bluff shelter. Upon inspection in the shelter, some very strange lines and grid patterns that are discovered in rocks up under this shelter. To this day, I don't know what they are. It may be iron ore? Someone can correct me on this later after you see the pictures. After snapping pictures of this oddity, we move on up the canyon. We searched the bluff lines walking up high in the canyons. This is fun to do. You never know what you may find.
We discovered some more bluff shelters with small waterfalls running off of them. There are hundreds of these in the Bankhead National Forest. This is one of the things that makes it so unique from other areas of the country. They all hold hidden secrets of one thing or another. As we moved on up the canyon, we spotted the coolest thing. An old whiskey still. The metal remnants were pretty much intact. We grabbed a few pictures and then move on. All of these whiskey stills we find are the same in one respect. They are all next to a small stream and they are all positioned close to a road. Obvious but none the less interesting.

The next place we discovered surprised all of us I think the most. We move up a very boring looking area going up the canyon and noticed some writings on Beech trees as we moved up. Beech trees if you are not aware, are one of the few trees that when carved on, can last for up to 100 years. Many people used to mark property boundary lines using these types of trees. Some very old dates that we have found on trees in the Bankhead are just that. Property line markers. They might say "Smith-1912". On this day, the first tree we came to had 1958 carved on it. The second Beech tree had someone's initials, and 1973. As we walked up another 50 yards, we were set back and puzzled at what we discovered. This Beech tree was lined from top to bottom about 7 feet high. The carvings were so old you could not make out much of the writings. They were mostly peoples initials and dates with one that you could make out "Loves". Upon further inspection and discussion, we discovered a natural spring coming out of the ground right by this tree running into a stream. We decided that this must have been some VERY popular spring site and that people stopped here to draw water from the spring, and then carved on the tree. The stories this tree could tell if it could talk! This would have more than likely happened before and shortly after the government bought up the land to become a national forest. I stood there imagining the years when this was a popular spot. It felt odd and amazing being there, knowing that this site has been long forgotten and slowly fades into the history pages of the area. Life moves on. It is kind of sad in some ways because you realize that YOU are only one of millions people moving through time on this earth. Nothing is permanent in your life.

After a "sneak peek" walking up behind the National Forest Service work center at all of their "stuff" piled out back, we headed back down into the canyon to camp. A warm fire and much fireside chats yielded another moonlight night to sleep by, and this time the temperature only got down to 42.

Day 3-More Surprises

We tore down base camp and hit the trail early on this last day to get out of the area. We had plans to go see some more bluff shelters located in a different area that Thomas wanted to show us. In order to do this, we needed to hike out as soon as possible. We arrived at the truck around 9:00 a.m. After a short drive down the road, we left our packs locked in the cab of the truck and hiked down to 3 absolutely stunning bluff shelters. One was extremely large. TWO of the smaller bluff shelters nearby yielded some beautiful Indian Mortar Rocks. We all agreed that THIS is where we should have set up base camp. Perhaps another time and another trip.

Seeing these mortar rocks really stirs some emotions in me. You realize YES!, the Indians DID live out here. You don't have to just take some middle school or high school teachers words for it. You SEE where they lived and you witness the remains of that. Seeing all of the old whiskey stills has been interesting as well. Growing up in this area, I had always heard there were some stills out there at one time. Just HOW MANY is what floored me. It seems like every other canyon in the Bankhead near a road has the remnants of an old whiskey still. It must have been a really wild place back in the 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's... The Civil War era probably had it's own stories out here as well, there is no doubt.

Another wonderful time in God's country. Ready for the next adventure....

Camping Season 2009-2010 is Here!

2009-11-07T22:00:00.000-06:00

Well, The summer is over and it is time to hit the woods and the water!

Look for hopefully many blogs to come this season which for us starts in November and ends around April. We are starting off in the Bankhead and have a big trip planned in the Cohutta Wilderness of Northern Georgia in December. First, I have many things to be thankful for and I have a new perspective on life that I would like to share with you if you don't mind. Everyone has a low point in their life and I certainly hit mine this past September. In mid-September of 2009, I was on a video production shoot with two co-workers in Vicksburg, Mississippi for a one week shoot and return home. On Wednesday night, I had to be admitted to the hospital with a "gall stone" attack. In great pain, the next morning they went in and broke up the stones with the intention of sending me back to Huntsville to have my gall bladder taken out after resting 2-3 days in the hospital. On Saturday, I had a massive attack and they had to do emergency surgery. I spent the next 9 days in the hospital with 2 of those in ICU. It has taken 6 weeks for my 11 inch long scar to heal and I am clear to start lifting over 5 pounds now. This little "deal" knocked me out of a work trip to Alaska as well. I was scheduled to fly out in two weeks after the shoot in Vicksburg. This absolutely crushed my spirit because those of you that know me, know how much I love Alaska. The guys went on without me but promised me trips back next year.

I don't know how well I will hold up with my backpacking and kayaking buddies on these upcoming hikes and kayak/camping trips, but I pray I can keep on going the same speed as they do. I am fine now with my health and I just need to get my strength back up. You never appreciate anything until it is hits you in the face and threatens you that you can loose it. I certainly value good health now and do not take it for granted. I hope to share many adventures ahead with all of you in the coming months.

Enough of me, you tune into the blog to hear about adventures and not about me, and adventures is what I hope to bring you soon through my writings and pictures! I also will be posting many pictures of the trips on facebook if you are a part of that. If not, I hope to share some pictures on the blog site as well!

Well, got to get the backpack out and start getting the camping stuff together. Look for the first trip and first blog around Thanksgiving. Until then, I will be walking and packing getting ready for the hikes and paddles. I want to walk the park here in my hometown on weekends carrying my backpack to get in shape. My wife says I will look like a "dork" and says she may walk BEHIND me instead of with me if I choose to do this.....LOL!...Adventure seeking we will go and we be sharing trips with you later! Thanks for being a part and sharing adventures with me!

Cades Cove-GSMNP-Bear Bear Everywhere

2009-06-03T10:16:00.000-05:00

I don't normally write a blog from a family vacation, but when it packs adventure in the outdoors as this past vacation did, I could not resist in sharing it with everyone. This all happened in Cades Cove of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.

I will spare everyone the details of my family and this trip since many of you may not know my family at all. I will try and focus on the wildlife and outdoor adventure part of this trip. This trip, my wife and I have made every year for some 25 years. My daughter, now 22 years old, has made the trip with us just about every year of her life. Also I might add that my wife's parents and some of her brothers and sisters make the yearly trip as well. They are all married with children, so it is a rather large party of folks making the trips around the cove in pickup trucks. This is an added excitement because with that many eyes peering out on both sides of the road, a bear or deer siting is bound to occur. The key is driving slow and watching very carefully. Most city folks blow through the cove and say "I didn't see a thing". A 350 pound bear could have been just behind that tree when you came through blazing at 30 miles per hour.

Cades Cove in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park is one of the most unique areas I have ever been to or heard of in all of my life. No where else that I am aware of, is a place where from the comfort of your automobile, or from the comfort of your camp chair, experience so much wildlife before your eyes. The most amazing part of it is this.....You never know what you will see, what will happen, or what to expect every time you come here. The more you stay, the more you will see. In my 25 years of coming here, this last trip marks the most bear I have ever encountered viewing. The situation is so bad, that after talking to the Park Service workers, they are on "pins and needles" worried about someone being hurt, or having major problems in the campgrounds from the bear. I will explain more later on this. The way to encounter the most out of this area is to camp and live here for several days as we have done. The majority of most people do not do this. I can respect those that don't, but you must realize that you are missing out on a lot by not staying.

Arrival-We arrived Friday (May 29th) around noontime at the Cades Cove Campground. There was a light mist of rain and occasional shower while we were setting up our tents. The next days yielded nothing but beautiful weather. For the next 4 days, we would live, eat, and breath Cades Cove. What that means is this...Stay in a tent or camper (tent in our case) without hookups and running water, showers, and all the neat comforts we enjoy. Cades Cove means to spend the night in Cades Cove and make the 11 loop anywhere from 1-4 times each day. In order to do this, you will need to flush some of the modern comforts away like taking a bath every day. You need to learn the meaning of "bird bath" that your mother may have mentioned the term to you when you were younger. Basically, Cades Cove campground has no modern showers and bath houses. Our family usually goes about 3 days and cannot stand it by then, so we drive to Townsend, Tennessee, pay $5.00 per person and take a shower, then return back to camp. This can be the best $5.00 you have ever spent. This is an incredible place to take children. They can ride their bikes around the campground and to the general store. For those of you that have been to this unique store, they told my daughter that before they started staying open past 5 p.m., they were selling in excess of 450 ice cream cones per day! Again, if you have been to this store, the ice cream (even though it is $2.50 cone) packs an amazing taste. When you arrive at this place, you chuckle because it seems out of the hundreds of tourists going in and out of the store and standing outside. More than half of them are holding ice cream cones.

A TYPICAL CADES COVE

Normally, every trip around Cades Cove yields so many deer that you see, that by day 3 or 4, you are bored of seeing 25-70 deer grazing in the fields each afternoon. As is the normal for viewing wildlife, morning and afternoon are the best times. We usually don't like going in the middle of the day around the cove because it yields so little of results. Instead, we use that time to hike, bike, or just simply sit around the camp. This year, anytime you drove around the cove, you would be treated with bear viewing....just about always! The Park Service says bear usually start coming in to the Cove more around mid to late June. This is the time the female deer give birth and the bears are waiting on this for a meal. This is also about the time the blackberries and other berries become ripe, so the cove is teaming with bear. For whatever reason, the bear where in there earlier than normal. The situation has gotten so bad that the Park Service is relying on it's network of park volunteers to help patrol the roads and keep traffic flowing. Normally, when you go around the cove, the first hint that someone sees a bear is when the traffic has come to a dead stop. "Bear gawkies" don't take the time to park a car. You just simply bail out and abandon it running wide open with your camera in hand if there is a hint of a bear ahead. The Park Service does not take kindly to that, seeing how traffic can back up a mile or more at times because of this. It is quite funny though. If you see the traffic stopped, the first word out of every ones mouth in the car is "BEAR". This year, the bear are so bad, that park volunteers dressed in uniform were stretched out and directing traffic every time there was a major bear show. We saw numerous mothers with their cubs, some as close as 100 yards from the main campgrounds. The Park Service has already begun transporting some of the problem bear out of the area. In fact, we saw on more than one occasion, the park's pickup truck with bear trap cages in the back.

BEARS TURF

One interesting note to our seeing bear everyday is the location they were in. Just about the same place every single day! They must have their own territories they stay in. The closest visitor was a mother and her cub that was about 200 yards off the entrance to the cove. She gave us some VERY tense moments with her. I will tell you about that later. She and her two cubs hung out in the same area pretty much all the time. We would see her in that area at all times of the day except one. The day I hauled a commercial video camera in to get some video of them, they were no where to be found. Murphy's law is always there! I was however blessed to get some great video on the last day of two separate mothers with their cubs. Another monster sized male bear could be spotted in just about the same area at the same time of day in the afternoon. I never saw this bear, but the family members saw it it on a number of occasions.

INVADING A BEAR'S "SPACE"

Of all my years of camping in the back country and camping in Alaska, I have never had a problem with bears. I am always more afraid of bear when I camp at Cades Cove than in the back country. Why? Because bear in Cades Cove are not afraid of humans! This was underlined to me again on this trip. Throughout all of our viewings of bears in Cades Cove, they behaved like normal with bear that are used to seeing humans. I have observed a standard practice with bears in the Cades Cove that are around people from time to time. Give a Black Bear his "space", and he will carry on as if you were not even there. If you invade his predefined space (by his or her standards), then you are about to get a shock. They normally " bluff charge" a person as I have observed over the years watching them in the cove. I was even stupid enough before I knew more about them to get a very strong bluff charge on myself. I even captured the bluff charge on video as I turned the camera back looking behind me over my shoulder. It was sometime in the early 1990's. I have had 5 or 6 people ask me to find it. I hope to located it and post it here. A "bluff charge" usually goes down like this. A bear is carrying on their normal activity. They will look up every now and then and check where you are at. If you keep getting closer and closer, at some point, the bear will look up, see where you are, grunt, snort, and tear out after you. They usually stop about 5-10 feet away from you and grunt or snort....telling you to back off!! I have video shot in the late 1990's of one doing just that to about 15 tourists hovering near one with cameras. It was hilarious to watch in that you knew exactly what was about to happen, and when the bear did his bluff charge, you have never seen so many tourists run as hard and as fast a trail to their cars. It was almost to the second predictable. The bear does nothing but eats, the people come in closer. The bear moves over a little bit and does nothing, the people come closer, and then finally......too close! The bear in Cades Cove seem to know this, so they use this tactic a lot to clear their "space". The worry here is that one day, some bear is doing a bluff charge, spots a very small 5 year old boy running and the instinct kicks in to the bear that this is "prey". The boy gets singled out and well, we all know the rest of that story. That is exactly how a young girl died a few years ago near the Smokies in a National Forest. When the mother tried to stop the bear (she was mauled badly) it was sadly too late for the little girl. Now that I have your attention with this, let me tell you what happened Sunday mid-day on the 31st of May of our trip.

TENSE MOMENTS-WRONG TIME TO HAVE SMALL CHILDREN WITH YOU

A cousin of mine ( also husband to my wife's aunt) and I decided to carry a group of the family ranging from ages 5-7 on a "hiking trip" in the great outdoors. Some of the group were his grandchildren. My wife had already made the comment that "it might not be a great ideal to carry the kids hiking with so many bear around". The danger of that passed as all the adults thought of how neat it would be to take the kids out for an "outdoor experience".

The first short hiking trip was a simple 1/2 mile trail that takes you up high for an overlook of the cove. That went well, only took 20 minutes and the kids were ready for more "adventure". We decided to take them on one of the major trails around the cove. We could hike them down it a short piece and turn around. We took the first trail right at the main entrance into the park. We had hiked no more than 5 minutes down the trail and we spotted a husband and wife with long lens cameras up ahead. They were snapping pictures one right after the other. I thought, all right, some deer for the kids to see. Great! This trail was just inside the woods boarding a large open field to the left. Solid woods were to our right. We promptly marched them up there telling them to be very quiet. When we got up there, I croaked! About 40 feet away from us and the two photographers was a mother bear and her cub! Not good! Bad situation to have grandchildren and cousins holding your hands and by you. Because of the situation and the two photographers not moving, we did not move. We stood there. The mother did not seem the least bit upset at us being that close, although she would occasionally smell over at us, or glance up at us while grazing. The kids were on cloud nine. I was on cloud zero although fascinated at how close we were. My cousin was greatly concerned because he did not want to explain this to his daughter if anything happened. I felt we were all too close but we just monitored the mother and her reaction. So far, so good. Another man had joined us just shortly after we arrived. A man from Nashville whom we passed with his family while walking in. His wife when we passed was really upset at him nagging him with "Honey we going to be late, we need to turn around". I could tell it was not one of those memorable moments with the husband. He was really frustrated that she had enough of this walking. When he spotted the bear after coming up to us, he was just short of yelling at his wife to come on up. He was motioning wildly for her to come up the trail to him and join us all on our "bear gawking". She slowly made her way up to him in disgust. I thought, when she sees this, here attitude toward her husband will change. Well, it didn't. She looked at it for about a minute and whispered "WE HAVE TO GO HONEY NOW OR WE WILL BE LATE". He seemed to ignore her and stood there popping pictures off of the mama bear and her cub. Finally, he said "go ahead honey, I will catch up" in a whisper tone. "Take the kids and go ahead back to the car, I will catch up shortly". So she promptly did, walking back down the trail as if this bear stuff was really cramping her time. She was walking back and had gotten about about 50 yards down the trail back towards where we all had come. She was with all of her family except a young boy, maybe 7 years old. He was tagging along about 25 yards behind her by himself, between us and the woman. There was an unusually straight path down the trail so we could see a good 70 yards straight down the trail. The little boy was dressed totally in black. Black shirt, black short pants, and black clogs. The mother bear and her cub seemed quiet happy with us, and all of sudden the mother cub stopped, raised up on her hind legs (picture on this blog) and spotted the lone boy walking down the trail. She homed in instantly and started a slow but steady walk down the field towards the boy. The boy had his back turned and did not see what was transpiring. I think the man with us (who later said that was his nephew) did not realize what was going on either. He just kept snapping pictures. I thought, oh boy, kid, don't turn around, panic, and run, or we all might witness something bad here. The woman looking back down the trail at us became alarmed when the mother bear and the cub promptly came into the woods, got on our trail and proceeded to slowly stalk this boy. The bears pace picked up every few seconds closing in on the boy. I was so upset that I did not shoot anymore pictures from this point on. Not only were WE cut off from our path in but if the boy panics and runs, oh boy, anything could happen. The woman or aunt of this boy, calmly motioned for the boy to come on. He never turned around thank goodness. When the aunt picked the boy up in her arms, the mother bear stopped quickly, stared a few seconds at them, and then turned back up into the woods. The cub following closely behind her. Wow, that could have gone any way in a matter of seconds. After some time, we slowly were able to squeeze by the mother and her cub and get on back up the trail towards camp. My cousin replied, "Well I believe that will about wrap up our hiking for today! We are DONE with this!" He was absolutely right. We needed to get those kids out of there. The ONLY saving grace is that I was carrying bear pepper spray. I did feel better having it but putting those kids in that type of situation was not good. We won't do it again. I saw exactly what the Park Service is talking about. Given time, somebody will do something stupid and get hurt. Looking back, I truly belief that the mother bear could not see good and may have mistaken the child for another bear, being that he was decked totally in black. The reason I say this is because the bear had plenty of other children to pick from. It could also be that because the child was alone and with his small size, he might have been mistaken for an easy meal. Either way, it shook us up.

MOONLIGHT STROLL IN THE COVE

You would think with all that happened that day, we would not put the children in harms way again. Well, my wife and I wanted to take the children on a moonlight hike a short piece down the cove. Since traffic is cut off after dark, it is a wonderful and fun thing to do if the weather is clear and the moon is out. With my bear pepper spray in hand, hiking staff in hand, we set out at 10:30 p.m. through the campground and down the cove road. I told the kids to talk and make a lot of noise, be sure and stick together CLOSE, and we would not have any problems out of bears. They did just that, and had no problem making noise. With 9 flashlights shining everywhere and the kids making a roar of laughter and talking, I figured it would run off most anything. We hiked about a half of mile down the road until we got out in the clearing on both sides of the road. The horses that the Park Service uses to ride folks each day in the cove came over and greeted us at the fence line by the road. The kids had a ball petting the horses. We convinced them all to turn off their flashlights and we then gazed at stars. The half moon lit the whole cove up and you could see better without a flashlight then with one. I pointed out the big dipper star and how to find the north star using the big dipper. You know kids. It soaked in to maybe one or two of them. They all had a great time. Hiking the cove at night with a moon is definitely a wonderful experience. My wife loves it so much she insists we do it every year, even if the moon is not out. I will have to say though, I kept one hand holding my nephew's hand and my flashlight, the other hand making noise on the pavement with my hiking stick, and prepared to pull "the ole" bear pepper spray out at any second. I could easily convert to "quick draw Rex". It is only when we got down to the open field that my nerves settled a little bit.

LAST DAY-DAY 5-JUNE 2ND-BIG SURPRISE!

On the very last day, my wife and daughter did what we have started doing every year. Get up very early just as soon as the gate is opened to the cove. We pushed ourselves out of the sleeping bags, loaded up the truck and headed out while 90% of the campground slept. This time, I had my commercial quality DVCAM video camera and still camera. My daughter carried her video and still camera as well. We were sorely disappointed with not seeing much at all around the cove. We were in fact, surprised at how little we had seen. As we got to the half way mark, my wife commented that she had a good feeling the best was yet to come. We might see a bear before we get out. We had made it past the 3/4 of the way journey when bam!....There they were....A mother and two cubs. We jumped out of the truck along with about 4 other folks and quietly, without talking to each other, starting taking pictures. I managed to get my beast of a commercial camera in size out of the truck and turn it on. I thought, I need to put this on a tripod to get steady shots. I then realized by the time I got the tripod set up, it might be too late. We videotaped and shot still pictures of the mother and her two cubs about 100 feet off the road. They were just about out of site and I heard someone startled say look over here!.....I whirled around with the group and BAM!.......30 feet away was a mother bear and a cub standing up BEHIND US watching us watching the other bear!......GEEZE....It must have been Yogi bear waiting to pick our pockets! If they were terrorists, then the ambush would have worked!...We would be dead!......We just proceeded then to watch that mother and her one cub. Again, the scary part is the mother is teaching the cubs to not be afraid of humans. THAT worries me. The two wandered out on the road less than 40 feet away from us! Not a care in the world, other than the fact you would see the mothers eyes look over our way every now and then to make sure we were out of their "space" (Check Out A Short Video Clip Below). In the video clip, you cannot make it out good because of the quality and upload size I was restricted to, but she looks over at us with those eyes glancing every now and then to see if we have remained outside of "her space". Classic Smokey Mountain Cades Cove bear behavior. After about 10 minutes, she wandered off into the dense forest with the cub close behind. What an amazing event to cap off an amazing vacation/adventure/trip. The amazing Smokey Mountains did it again. What a place. Time to plan the next trip.

Fontana Lake-Great Smokey Mountains National Park Back Country

2009-05-11T08:40:00.000-05:00

Rain Rain Rain and Sunshine to Leave With.....

What a wild trip. Nothing boring about this one. This will be about my seventh trip to this wonderful place. It always dishes out something different every time. It once again taught me the importance of preparing for the outdoors and it's dangers. As you read on later you will see.

This trip was a little different in other regards as well. A total of 5 of us were going. Two of the guys, my good friends Thomas and David, went up a day early on Thursday. Rather than take kayaks like we have always done in the past, they paid the marina to shuttle them over to Lost Cove-Back country campsite 90, our destination. The plan was for my good friend Steve, my nephew Eric, and myself to join them Friday morning. Steve was going to be shuttled over by the marina into the back country while Eric and I would take our kayaks with gear loaded in them. The journey is a 4 mile paddle by water and 8-9 miles by land.

Travel to Fontana Resort Village

We departed Moulton around 2 p.m. on Thursday the 7th. The drive was uneventful and arrived at Fontana Village Resort around 10:30 p.m. eastern standard time. Fontana Village Resort is a very neat place to go if you want to get away from the commercial side of the Smokies. It is a privately owned hotel and resort complete with cabins, lodge, restaurant, marina, swimming pools and water slides. It is all located what appears to be out in the middle of no where, and it it is for the most part. There is no cell phone service to be found, so if you go, you will be blessed with no one calling you. They do have Internet service on a computer in the lobby and WiFi is available throughout the lodge.....but that is not the reason to go to this place. It is quietly nestled by the edge of the Nantahala National Forest on the south side of Fontana Lake. On the north side of Fontana Lake is The Great Smokey Mountains National Park. This area is incredible in the fact it has not been commercialized. There is no room thankfully for it to occur. The only private land around is Fontana Village. This makes it the best in my book to take the family to the outdoors while still enjoying comfort, or you can taste the raw outdoors totally isolated from society.

Day 1-Start of Trip

Well, back to the trip. Friday morning we woke up at 6 a.m. and found a line of storms moving in while watching television in the lodge room. We watched a line of nasty storms move in on the lake and lodge, so naturally we decided to wait before marching out in to the mess. As we watched skies turn from dark to almost black, we thought about Thomas and David already out there, hoping they were fairing the nasty storms with lighting and rain. Mr. geek here carried a weather radio around in the lobby as we watched this move in, and yes, the siren on it went off at least 2 times declaring a Severe Thunderstorm Warning. The storms went through about 11:00 a.m. and the weather finally cleared. That was our sign to head out! We departed and made it safely to campsite 90 around noon in the kayaks. Steve took the leisure 10 minute $50.00 boat ride and beat Eric and I there. Steve has a kayak but is having surgery soon on his shoulder, so no kayaking for him for some time. Kayaking over across the lake into the Smokies is a soul stirring experience for me every time I make the trip. When you are one foot above the water paddling in your kayak and you come around the bend from the protected part where the Marina is located, the full extent of the tall massive Smokey Mountains National Park always takes my breath. The Natahala National Forest with it's tall mountains is behind you. You feel so small! It is a reminder that YES, that is why I come here every year. For those of you that love the outdoors and scenery, no feeling comes close to the relaxed calmness that occurs when you see something like this. It sucks away every one of the worries and concerns of life I have in me.

Beauty, Sunshine, and then RAIN

After setting up camp and relaxing for about 4 hours, we felt our first of what was to be a regular routine ever hour or two our entire trip......rain. We came prepared for this though and set up two tarps that gave us a roughly a 14 by 18 foot space to kick back in our chairs, talk, eat, and even cook anytime the rain started. Since 3 of the guys were shuttled over instead of paddling in a kayak like Eric and I did....They brought all the important things that keep men happy.......FOOD! Steaks, hot dogs, bacon, eggs, and hamburgers were the order of the day with these guys during the trip. Since Eric and I came over on kayaks, we had the dehydrated backpacking foods, one notch above TV dinner quality. Space is premium in sea kayaks that we use. They just don't have room for grills, coolers, and large lawn chairs. The guys were nice though and shared some great food with us. I realize everyone is different, but for me, it is hard to beat a nice hot cooked meal, sitting dry in a chair under a tarp, and watching the bottom fall out with rain around you. You stay toasty dry under your tarp, and watch mother nature do it's thing.....while us humans do ours.....EAT.

Relaxation Reward From A Long Day.....

Late Friday night just before midnight, while sitting around the campfire, we watched an awesome full moon come out over the lake and forest. I asked Eric if he was up for a moonlight paddle on the lake and he said absolutely! This was yet another soul stirring experience in the wild. As we launched our Sea Kayaks out onto the lake, a chorus of bull frogs, ranging from the tuba bass to tenors, sung while we launched without the slightest need for a flashlight. The lake was mirror smooth, the frogs were singing, the moon was bright, and my mind has been taken a thousand miles away from any cares or worries on this earth. THIS is the reason you kayak over for these trips. This is what puts you in the middle of mother nature. Always at these times you realize that mother nature doesn't worry about tomorrow, it only excepts today for what it is. Eric and I paddled around for about 3o minutes, quietly listening to mother nature sing here song. I cannot think of a better way to close out a day.

Day 2

The original plan was for some of us to hike 3 miles up to Shuckstack, an old Fire tower at 4,020 feet in elevation up above us. When we listened to the weather radio, we decided it was not a good thing to do with severe storms forecast. It was a good call too, because we saw our share of tornado watches, sever thunderstorm watches, and isolated storms with up to penny sized hail forecast. In lieu of all of that, we decided to just hike nearby the camp. Eric and I kayaked up the what normally would be a rocky creek that we we camp by, but because of the massive rains, it had become a lake. Our 17 foot and 14.5 foot kayaks cannot normally do this kind of thing with a narrow rocky creek that you can almost walk across any other time of year, but with the creek having flooded and turned into a lake, it enabled you to paddle in places you had never been. As we rounded the curve at one point, an extremely large water snake, probably 5 foot in length, was coiled up on a stump taking in some solar rays. It was brown in color and no wedge shaped head, so I felt a little better knowing it was not a poisonous cottonmouth. With the current so strong and moving fast, we played in the rough water with our kayaks for some time. Also amazing was the number of trees and driftwood pouring down out of the mountains. There were logs running 20 feet in length that drifted by our camp. Amazing considering the journey they may have taken coming down from the mountains. One of the most amazing things we witnessed while kayaking was mother nature at it's finest. There were "mounds" of what looked like "dirt" floating down the flooded creek in the current. Upon closer inspection, we found it to be a mound of millions of ANTS! They were all clinging to each other, making this small little 6 inch high mountain floating down the stream. As we shot pictures of this and watched with amazement, I noticed one mound just slightly grazed a small blade of grass where the creek had flooded the land. The ants that touched it, hung on to the plant and the whole mound stopped in it's tracks! The mound just stayed in place there. I noticed that all of the ants worked together, clinging on to each other, and ANYTHING they touched. How amazing is that! O.K. I confess. The little boy came out in me and I had to see what would happen. I took the paddle and splashed some water into this mound of ants floating on the water. Guess what, Some of them broke off in nickel and quarter sized chunks away from the mound. Check this out.....After some time.....the little chunks made their way back to the mound and were immediately locked onto by the mound colony. How's that for mother nature! After witnessing this, I honestly believe that ants cannot be killed at home. They just keep coming back. And to think we just take them as ants.....They are amazing to watch.

Unprepared in the wilderness as so many are....

Lately, it seems that no matter where I go, something happens to someone out of bad luck or just not thinking. You may remember from my other post the story at Sipsey of the two guys dumped out of their boats? Well, this time, it was another two gentleman with bad luck, and this time, they were much older hikers.

Around 6:20 in the afternoon, we were all cooking supper under the tarp and having a merry old time. A gentleman in his mid 60's came walking down to camp from a trail going up the mountain. He walked up and asked if the shuttle from the marina had already come and gone? He said he and his partner were supposed to have caught the 5:00 p.m. shuttle back to the marina. He said they had been walking all day. We all told him that we saw a pontoon boat arrive shortly before 5:00 p.m., stay for about 30 minutes and then leave. He said they were running late because his buddy was having trouble keeping up the pace. His hiking partner soon appeared and looked very tired, but in good spirits. We tried to convince them to stay with us. I had brought an extra 3 man tent to put supplies in out of the rain and was happy to share it with them. They went over and talked among themselves and then thanked us and said their wives would be worried sick. They said "we'll just hike on out". Severe storms were forecast that night, a severe thunderstorm watch was currently posted for the area, and it would be getting dark soon. We tried to give them food and water but they declined, thanked us and left out going back up the mountain. We shook our heads and went back to eating. For some reason, it really upset me. I was worried about these two gentleman. I am always somewhat paranoid of severe weather, and these guys were "Wal-mart" style hiking out in the middle of no where. They had on short pants, an Outdoor Products very small day pack, and no compass, GPS, or even maps! They looked like the type that just said...."Let's just follow the signs the Park Service has up on the trails. The back country of the Smokies is no place to play around. Hypothermia, snake bite, storms, and a long list of things that can kill you could be talked about here, but we will move on. Around 7 p.m., the marina pontoon boat showed up again to pick them up. When we explained what they did, the guy on the boat said "WHAT!...They went on!.....That's a 6 mile hike back". He then shook his head and said "There's no way they will get back tonight". We discussed that they both were ill prepared for this, storms were coming in, and they were putting themselves in jeopardy by doing this. He said he would call the Park Service when he got back and he said that if they come back to camp, do not let them leave again. I will be back in the morning to get them. He stuck around for another 30 minutes after we blew safety whistles and a fog horn (canned air horn I carry in my kayak for emergencies) to hopefully cause them to turn back and come back down off the mountain trail. No luck. At 7:30 p.m. with rain and darkness setting in, the pontoon boat left. For some reason, this whole situation really shook me up. My buddies at camp assured me they would make it out. I guess the part that really bothered me, is that in all my years of coming out here, I have learned you take nothing for granted. Nothing is out here, so if you need it for survival, you darn well better have it. I am totally shocked at people that we come up on the trail with, that have nothing, sometimes not even what I would call bare essentials. I guess their thinking is that someone will find them. Me, I never want to assume anything. I guess I am over cautious. I just cannot walk 10 miles out in the middle of no where with one bottle of water, a raincoat and short pants. Upon our arrival at the marina on Sunday, we learned they made it out around 10:30 at Fontana Dam, some 3 miles from the location of the marina where they left in the boat from earlier that morning. I still shake my head over what people will do, without much thinking of the essentials needed in the back country.

Day 3

Eric and I left around 8:45 in the morning to get a jump on the shuttle guys. The marina shuttle was to arrive at 10:00 to pick them up. Departure yielded us an absolutely beautiful blue sky morning with mixed clouds. The lake was about as smooth as I have seen it, and the trip over was a pleasant and relaxing paddle in mild water. As I turned back around for one last look before going around the protected cove of the marina, I glanced back for one last breathtaking look of why I come here every year for.....Those powerful, beautiful, and soul stirring Smokey Mountains. Something else to look forward to next year as we go through our journey of life.

Sipsey River Canoe Trip

2009-04-13T08:23:00.000-05:00

In my quest to find some weekend adventure, I noticed the Huntsville Canoe Club was planning a canoe trip down the Sipsey River in the Bankhead National Forest on Saturday. I am a member of the club, so I replied on the club's forum that I would be happy to join the fun. We had 9 boats and 11 people show up. One neat thing about these kind of events is that you never know who you are going to meet up with and spend the day with. I knew only two of the eleven people that went.

We did the "usual" canoe trip that hundreds of people do each year in the Bankhead. Launch the canoes at Sipsey Recreation Area and take out on Highway 33 on the way to Double Springs. It is about a 11 mile trip. After meeting them at Warrior Mountains Trading post, we launched from the Sipsey Recreation area around 10:30 a.m. The water level was just about right for a smooth ride and no log jams. If you have ever been canoeing, log jams can really mess up a good trip and I have been on trips where you felt like you pulled the canoe as much as you paddled it! Around 12:30, we stopped at a beautiful bluff area for lunch. As it is with many of these trips, you get a full array of skill levels and all kinds of boats. 10 years ago, everyone that showed up would have the standard old canoe. Today, they may show up with 7 foot kayaks, sit on top ocean kayaks, very large canoes, and the list goes on. We had several people who had not been down the Sipsey river and also had not been in a kayak or canoe very much. Those people are the ones that make you nervous going on the trip, because you know (and they don't) that one tip over and a soaking may mean hypothermia setting in or not. Many of them don't even bring a change of clothes for this, and so with temperatures not getting out of the 50's all day, without other people to help you though the situation, it can get from bad to worse quickly. Most people don't realize that water related deaths are more from hypothermia than the accident itself.

Three highlights of the trip were this. The beautiful bluff area about 3 miles into the trip where we stopped to eat. The absolutely stunning Hurricane Creek Waterfall that is about 1/4 of a mile off of Sipsey. It empties into the Sipsey River about 7-8 miles down on our trip. See picture of Hurricane Creek Falls. The last highlight of the trip was one where you really feel sorry for someone. At about mile 9 of the trip, we came upon this gray-haired man who looked in his mid to late 50's, standing in waist deep water clutching tightly two 7-9 foot long kayaks. That looked strange? When we got down to him (I and a couple of others who were in the lead of our party), we asked him what was wrong? He said he and his buddy lost control of their kayaks and flipped over back at the 100 yard dash and he lost his paddle, his $250.00 Magellan Meridian GPS, and his shoes. We asked where his buddy was, and he said he is walking beside the creek back up from where they lost control of their boats. I felt really sorry for the guy. He was in short pants, it's 56 degrees outside standing in creek with a temperature in the upper 40's. The 100 yard dash he is talking about is something everyone that canoes Sipsey knows. It is a stretch of fast moving water, class 2 or 3 depending on the water level (class 1 is pretty much calm water), that is supposed to be the fun of the trip. This 100 yard dash is fun to ride unless you wind up like these guys. The new folks with us were periodically questioning us about this 100 yard dash, with a little bit of "nervous tone". It is nothing though. Just a lot of fun....but somehow, these two guys we came up on, must have really hit it wrong!

After helping these guys for a few minutes, some of our folks helped him find his paddle, but no luck on the shoes and the expensive GPS unit. This guy had a great attitude over it. With my conservative raised background, I would be sick for days losing that much money. He said the GPS unit floats, so someday, somewhere, when someone least expects it, they may get rewarded with a GPS unit. As we were resting in our canoes/kayaks on the side of the bank at one point waiting for the rest of the crew to catch up, I discovered some cheap aluminum cooking pots and pans on the bottom of the creek right underneath my canoe. With some help, we were able to gather the items up and collect the "trash". We all laughed and said they must have come from another "dump" of a canoe or kayak at the 100 yard dash upstream. As we came up to the take out point, the line was sort of "bottle necked" waiting in line to pull our kayaks and canoes out of the water. I looked back and there, sitting in the kayak with his white legs propped out of the cockpit of his small kayak, and still in short pants, was the man who dumped out back at the 100 yard dash. Shortly behind him was his partner paddling up. As we loaded boats for the next 20 minutes, I noticed this guys partner never ever spoke to him. Evidently, he was not in a "good mood" over their spill, and he never smiled the entire time we loaded boats...Oh well..That is why they call it adventure!.....At 5:40 p.m. I came flying in the driveway (running later than I thought I would be). My wife and daughter had steaks going on the grill outside and both of them wearing coats. Another adventurous day in the beautiful Bankhead National Forest, and my mind "cleared" to face the work week.