Not all who wander are lost. Some are right where they should be.
I wanted to get lost. If only for a day.
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and give strength to the body and soul,” said John “of the mountain” Muir, naturalist and “Father of National Parks”. Snacking on fried pimento at Chattanooga’s Basecamp, I noticed this quote on a t-shirt. It got me thinking about the Smokies.
Bruce, a buddy from Maryland, had flown into town. When I say “flown,” he had just landed his 1959 Beechcraft Bonanza at the Chattanooga Airport. He was on his way to a wedding. An experienced pilot, I assumed he knew Tennessee was not on his way to Virginia. But maybe he wanted to get lost, too.
At dawn we hopscotch our way through Lenoir City and across the Tennessee River onto US 321, stopping for gas at Weigel’s. Bruce is a matcha green tea swigging, vegan-jerky, dried fava bean eating hombre. But he cannot escape the seduction of Southern convenience store charms. He buys sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits. “I never eat this stuff,” he says. “It’ll probably kill me.”
He takes a bite. “Oh my God, these are little drops of love.”
Splitting off US 321 onto State Road 73 the Great Smoky Mountains loom, mesmerizing beacons. Merle Haggard’s “Ramblin’ Fever” comes in and out as the radio feebly attempts to acquire a signal. The “No Service” flag on my phone might as well be saying, “Don’t even bother.”
The Cherokees considered these hills sacred. “Shaconge” means land of blue smoke. The scientific explanation for the iconic fog swirling upon these towering heights represents volatile organic compounds, chemicals which have a high vapor pressure and are released from the millions of plants and trees inhabiting the Smoky Mountains. When the vegetation releases vapors, the molecules in the “smoke” scatter light from the sky and tint the fog blue.
In 2018, nearly 11.5 million people explored the Great Smoky Mountains (established in 1934), earning it the distinction of being the country’s most visited national park. The record foot traffic might dampen prospects of getting away from it all. Don’t be discouraged. With 384 miles of roads, 850 miles of trails (70 of which link with the Appalachian Trial), 730 miles of streams and 1,300 miles of tributaries (home to the black-bellied salamander) sprawling across over half a million acres divided between Tennessee and North Carolina—if you can’t get lost, or at least off the beaten path, then you’re not trying.
Cades Cove is the single most popular destination for park visitors. An 11-mile loop offers stunning panoramas of restored 18th and 19th century churches, barns, log houses, and grist mills as well as glimpses of Southern Appalachian heritage. It also provides some of the best opportunities to spy wildlife, including black bears, which are the source of hubbub as we arrive. Cars are snarled on the one-way loop for four miles because someone decided to stop and take pictures.
“Black bears, they walk right into Gatlinburg,” says a ranger station attendant. “They walk right into the stores. Black bears love candy stores.”
“That’s cool,” says Bruce.
“Not if you’re in the store,” the attendant says.
We track along Little River Road before pulling off at The Sinks. Although a modest waterfall, its volume draws from the flow of the Little River. Waterfalls abound throughout the Smokies, bearing names like Juney Whank and Place of a Thousand Drips. Some are accessible by car, others by trails varying in distance and difficulty—from the 2.5 mile paved jaunt to the popular Laurel Falls to the arduous 8-mile trek to Ramsey Cascades, the park’s tallest waterfall and one of the most dazzling.
Bruce and I determine: if you don’t go to the top of the mountain, then why come? Climbing the corkscrew turns of Newfound Gap Road through verdant woodlands dense with sugar maples, hickory, spruce, and Fraser firs ,we reach Clingmans Dome, the highest peak in Tennessee at 6,643 feet. We’d entered the park in the morning at 83 degrees. It’s a chilly 65 at the crest. Bruce scans the horizon. On a clear day, you can see seven states: Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama.
“I feel like I’m back in the plane again,” Bruce says. “Absolutely breathtaking.”
“Thanks for coming along for the ride,” I say.
The top of Clingmans Dome reveals more of John Muir’s wilderness wisdom penned in 1898. “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find that going to the mountains is going home.”
Maybe I didn’t need to get lost. I just needed to go home.