ROGER’S NEIGHBORHOOD

Last weekend started out good and just kept getting better. Boone (the dog) and I headed up to Boone Saturday morning for an APP State football game. Christy couldn’t make this one because she was coaching at a cross country meet later that morning. I left Kona behind, too, because two dogs is just a little more than I like to manage.

Originally I’d planned to spend a little time on the Parkway that morning before tailgating. I was running behind though, so I decided to skip it. The fall color around Blowing Rock was past its peak anyway. I did take a scenic drive down Winkler’s Creek Road though. The highlight was a stretch of dirt road through a golden forest. The rhododendron had a dusting of snow, which provided the rare opportunity to capture fall color and snow in a single photo.

I met Eric at our usual tailgating spot. It was a sheet of ice, so we took an adjacent spot. We had a great time despite the chilly weather, with plenty of beer and food and tunes and cornhole. For Eric though, the highlight was getting to see what was behind Door #1. That brings me to this week’s Public Service Announcement: If you’re a sorority girl and you’ve been drinking all day and you go into porta potty on a windy day, you better make sure it’s latched securely. Just sayin’.

The low point for Eric was slipping on some ice and falling during a game of cornhole. After all, there’s nothing worse than a cornhole injury. He’s currently listed as “day to day”. But aren’t we all?

The game was even better than the tailgating. A terrible start to the season had left us at 1-6, our first losing season since 1993, and our biggest rivals were in town. The Georgia Southern (or East Georgia, for the geographically correct - http://goo.gl/maps/pqtEJ) fans were strolling around town liked they owned the place. I guess they smelled the blood in the water. Fortunately, their confidence didn’t last long. In a stunner, we blew them out 38-14. I still have no idea what happened. Hopefully that was a sign that the team has finally turned the corner.

That night Eric and I parted ways. I drove out through Mountain City, TN and on to Laurel Bloomery and Gentry Creek. I was scheduled to meet Rick first thing on Sunday morning at the Rogers Ridge Trailhead. My plan was to camp there. I had my fingers crossed that there wouldn’t be anybody around when I arrived, because I had no backup plan.

I found the large parking area at the Rogers Ridge Trailhead deserted. What a relief! I pitched the tent near Gentry Creek and went to bed early. I slept pretty well, thanks to the cool weather and the sound of the babbling creek.

I was up at 6 the next morning. I made an egg and bagel sandwich and coffee for breakfast, and almost had everything packed up when Rick arrived at first light. This was my first hike with Rick, but we’d “known” each other through the interwebs for several years. It was great to finally meet him in person, even if it was too dark to really see each other.

Rick had planned an ambitious 17-mile hike. We would start on the Gentry Creek Trail, hiking upstream past the falls. We’d follow an old trail out of the gorge and up to Rogers Ridge. From there, we’d follow the Rogers Ridge Trail (an old road) across a couple of miles of grassy balds. We’d continue up to Glenn Bald, and then out to Pond Mountain. From there, we’d backtrack a bit, before following the ridge of Stone Mountain south along the NC / TN line. We’d finish the hike by descending another old forest road back to the trailhead. This hike has been on my to-do list for years, but I’ve hesitated to do it because of private property concerns. Fortunately, the Blue Ridge Conservancy recently purchased Glenn Bald and Pond Mountain and gave the land to the State of North Carolina. The area along Stone Mountain is still private property, but we were hopeful that we would find it largely undeveloped.

It was chilly at first light as we hiked along Gentry Creek. Fortunately the water level was low, and we were able to rock hop the many creek crossings without difficulty. On my last visit here, some five years earlier, some of the crossings had been spanned by primitive bridges. There was no sign of those bridges today. Either they were washed out, or they were removed by the forest service.

We hiked the first 2 ½ miles to Gentry Creek Falls in an hour. We took a long break there, mostly to enjoy the waterfall. It’s one of the prettiest in northeastern Tennessee, and the light was ideal for photography. The fall foliage was mostly on the ground, but it still provided enough color to add to the beauty of the scene.

Gentry Creek Falls is a two-tiered drop separated by a short run of riffles. Each drop is about 30’. Both are pretty, but my favorite vantage point was from the trail just downstream, where both drops are visible. We both took a lot of photos before resuming the hike.

My old guidebook suggests climbing the first tier on the left side, crossing the creek on slippery rocks at the brink of the lower plunge, and scrambling up the second tier on the right side. This is not the best way. Instead, we crossed the creek at the very base. We climb away from the creek, until we found a break in the cliff. We worked our way across and back down to the base of the upper drop. We then attempted to scramble up the second level on the right side. However, the first couple of steps are tricky, and I couldn’t get Boone up. Forcing him is impossible, and he wouldn’t budge.

After a couple of minutes of whining and barking, I was afraid that we would be forced to turn back. Rick suggested searching for another route, so we gave that try. Once again we followed the cliff line up and away from the creek. After a couple of minutes we found another break in the cliffs. We scrambled through it, and found a beaten path on the hillside above the creek. Rick met us there, and we continued together upstream.

The valley was more open above the falls. We crossed the creek a few more times, before accidentally following an old road upstream along a tributary. We doubled-back and regained the trail, which is lightly traveled above the falls.

Christy and I had attempted to follow this trail from the falls up to Rogers Ridge once many years ago. Unfortunately, we failed to find the old road that climbs out of the gorge up to the ridge. My guess is that we were on the wrong (east) side of the creek when the trail turned away from the stream. On that occasion we had simply bushwhacked up to the ridge. That had been unpleasant, and I was glad that Rick was familiar with the correct route. As it turns out, there wasn’t much to it. About a mile beyond the falls we began climbing above the creek. After a short distance there was a single switchback, and we picked up an old roadbed angling back to the southwest. We followed it for a ½ mile up to another switchback just before the the crest of the ridge, where we met the Rogers Ridge Trail in a small, muddy clearing. The junction is unmarked, but is a little over 4 miles from the Rogers Ridge Trailhead, where my car was still parked. Those first 4 miles of the Rogers Ridge Trail are steep, rocky, steep, muddy, steep, and boring, so we didn’t miss much by skipping that part of the trail. The hike along Gentry Creek was much nicer.

We followed the Rogers Ridge Trail north, towards the high country. Before long we reached a fork. The yellow blazed trail goes right here, but Rick directed us to the left, up a steep, old roadbed. This was advantageous, as it took us up to a grassy bald that the official trail bypasses. We were treated to our first views here, and they were outstanding despite the cloudy, hazy conditions.

For the next couple of miles we strolled across grassy balds nearly as scenic as those at Mount Rogers are Roan Mountain. While the views back to the south and west were hazy, the vistas ahead, towards Mount Rogers and Whitetop, were superb. We continued on to a junction of dirt roads. Here, the point where NC, TN, and VA come together is just a short distance downhill to the left. We turned right though, towards Glenn Bald, which features a single house on its summit. The house used to be privately owned, but it is now the property of the State of North Carolina. Unfortunately, it has been heavily vandalized. Broken glass was everywhere, so we abandoned our plan to eat lunch on the porch. Instead we sprawled in the grass nearby. From there we had a spectacular view to the north, and the house blocked most of the icy wind.

The day had started out chilly, but we had heated up on the climb out of the gorge. The wind was fierce up on the open ridges though. Even in the sun it was pretty chilly up high.

After lunch we continued on the dirt road to the east. We descended into the woods, where we found some snow leftover from a minor storm that had passed through a couple of days earlier. We continued down to a Christmas tree farm. The trees are pretty young, and apparently the previous owner still has an easement to harvest them. Somewhere along here I noticed that my hat had fallen out of my pocket. I told Boone to go find it, and turned to follow him. A couple of minutes later I found him standing over my hat.

We hurried to catch up to Rick, and spooked a deer in the process. From there we climbed up to the summit of Pond Mountain. There used to be a Christmas tree farm here, too, but all of the trees have been harvested. Pond Mountain features a great 360 degree view. Whitetop and Mount Rogers tower to the north, and the rugged peaks of the Amphibolite Mountains in Ashe County roll away to the south. Unfortunately it was too hazy to clearly see Grandfather Mountain or Roan Mountain. Another large house is visible from here though, and the mountain still has equipment and a building from the old Christmas tree operation. Pond Mountain has great views, but it isn’t exactly a wilderness.

We backtracked from Pond Mountain to the Christmas tree farm. There we picked up another old road heading southwest towards Stone Mountain. Initially this seemed promising. The left side of the road was heavily posted with No Trespassing signs, but they didn’t seem to apply to the road itself. Unfortunately that didn’t last. Before long we found the route blocked by a barbed wire fence, and the trees were heavily decorated with signs.

At this point neither of us wanted to backtrack all the way down Rogers Ridge. We crawled under the fence and reached a junction with the road connecting Stone Mountain with Glenn Bald. We headed south, through acres of open pasture. We were nervous about this, because the road was obviously well-traveled. The pastures left us out in the open, so if there was anybody around, they would certainly see us.

We contemplated our options, but decided to continue ahead. The road is very close to the Cherokee National Forest boundary in several places. If necessary, we were prepared to bail off the road and bushwhack directly back down towards Gentry Creek.

We really got nervous when we spotted a camper along the road ahead. Even worse, there were 3 horses grazing in the yard in front of it. If there were horses, there were bound to be people around. Luckily we didn’t see any vehicles. I leashed Boone before we continued ahead, towards the horses that were now walking down the road. This annoyed them, but they moved off the road to get out of our way. As soon as we passed they fell in behind us and began following us. This was a little creepy. Were they guard horses? At any rate we were now trapped between them and the camper ahead.

I always feel that times like these demand humor. We began to discuss what our “story” would be if someone confronted us. Rick’s suggestion seemed like the best option. We agreed that we would tell them that we hadn’t realized that the area was private property when we started the hike, but now we didn’t have enough time (daylight) or energy to go all the way back the way we had come.

There was at least some truth to this.

While Rick’s suggestion was the most sensible, mine was more entertaining. I suggested that we tell them that we were with the government, and that Obama had sent us to seize their guns and confiscate their land. I can just imagine how that conversation would go:

Me: “Have you ever heard of Eminent Domain”?

Local: “Emmett who? Is that one of them ganster rappers?”

I always say if you’re going to go out, you may as well go out with a bang!

Luckily we didn’t see anyone around the camper. We hurried on by, and followed the road into the woods. Things were looking up, and we decided against bushwhacking down to Gentry Creek. We enjoyed some peaceful hiking through the woods before another barbed wire fence intruded. Beyond were more pastures, and one had a shiny tractor sitting in it. Once again we were in luck, as we didn’t see anybody around. We continued ahead, enjoying more fine views of the mountains in the distance. We kept up a fast pace though, because somebody could show up at any moment.

Finally we reached a gap just east of Winnie Knob. Rick wanted to bag the peak, and conveniently an old road climbs steeply up the mountain. We climbed 400’ in 0.2 miles to reach the summit, which is heavily forested. We took our last break there while contemplating our options.

Earlier Rick had suggested bushwhacking straight down from Winnie Knob to Gentry Creek. That would be the most direct route, and it would be in the National Forest the whole way. I was a little leery about it though. It would be a long bushwhack, and it would suck if in turned into a rhododendron jungle halfway down. In the end we doubled-back to the main road, which we followed down to another clearing at Cut Laurel Gap. This area is heavily posted but undeveloped. From the gap we followed a rocky forest road along a small stream. After a short distance we re-entered National Forest land for the final time. It was a huge relief finally being off private property. The final descent was tedious, but at least we didn’t have to worry about running into anyone else.

There were a couple of cars at the trailhead when we arrived, and two horse trailers at the Rogers Ridge Trailhead. We didn’t see any actual people though, meaning we completed the whole 17 mile loop without seeing a single soul. It had been a tough hike, with 3,900’ of elevation gain along the way. It had been as spectacular as it had been challenging though, with a beautiful waterfall, incredible views, wildlife, and solitude. Thanks go out to Rick for planning and leading a great hike! I would definitely do a variation of this hike again, though I wouldn’t take my chances with the private property. Next time I’ll go as far as Glenn Bald, or maybe even Pond Mountain, before doubling-back down Rogers Ridge. The Rogers Ridge and Gentry Creek Trailheads are only a mile apart, so a short walk on a gravel road is all that is needed to connect them.

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