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Date Climbed
Conditions
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Tennessee's County
Clingmans Dome Website
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I have visited Tennessee on two occasions: in May 2000, while collecting a bunch of state highpoints in the southeast, and in August 2001, when I visited my friend Vi, who was in town for a job interview in Nashville. Both visites were short and quick and I have just barely scratched the surface of what Tennessee has to offer. The reports follow in chronological order:
Roan Mountain is a series of peaks along the Tennessee/North Carolina state line. On the Tennessee side, there is a state park with a Ranger Station, information kiosks and some built-up areas for the visitors. I drove in from the Tennessee side through the towns of Johnson City and Elizabethton, and just followed the signs to Roan Mountain State Park. The Ranger Station is located about 2 miles south of the town of Roan Mountain, and about 8 miles north of the state line. There is a pretty nice creek in the area. The Appalachian Trail is the principal hiking route through the park.
Roan High Knob is the highest of the peaks, and access to the summit is from Carvers Gap, where there is a nice parking area. The sign says it's 1.7 miles to the summit, so off I went. The trail starts steeply (and is eroded in places), then moderates through a series of switchbacks before becoming more level. Soon the trail makes a bend left around the mountain and starts a slow descent. Little did I know that I'd missed my turn-off! I knew something wasn't right but I hiked on anyway. Soon I came back out in the open to another parking area and a fee station. I asked the little old ladies in the booth where Roan High Knob was and they pointed it to me: right where I had come up from. I overshot it by about 0.7 mile. The thick forest inhibits views. So I retraced my steps, hiked back toward that "bend", and found the turn-off to the summit. It's poorly marked and only visible for the northbound hikers, not for southbound hikers like I was.
It's an easy trudge to the summit, which is marked by some rock outcroppings, dense forest, and a nearby shelter (apparently, the highest one along the Appalachian Trail). I built a rock cairn on the main trail near the turn-off for later hikers. In all I added an extra mile and a half to the hike, making a 3.5-miler into a 5-miler, although I can hardly complain. Overall, the hike invloved about 700 feet of gain and took me about 2 hours.
I didn't know it at the time, but the highpoint of Avery County, North Carolina, can be reached from the same Carvers Gap parking lot. Hike north across the highway, up the grassy slopes and follow the ridge line to the summit. I would have done this one had I known about it. Oh well.
I headed into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park via the town of Cherokee early this morning, the 27th. The southern border of the National Park is bordered by the Cherokee Indian Reservation, and they have built up every square foot of space with hotels, fast food places, souvenir stands and everything imaginable. The 20 miles or so from Waynesville to Cherokee was really bad. RVs going 10 mph don't help, either. However, once inside the park, the commercialism stops and the trees resume. I drove up the highway to the crest of the Smokies to Clingmans Dome, the Tennessee state highpoint at 6,643 feet. A road leads to near the top, leaving a one-mile round trip hike to the summit along a paved path. The fog was real dense so I saw very little, but there is an interesting tower at the top, and despite the fog there were numerous people there. State highpoint #32, done.
After Clingmans, I headed down toward Robbinsville where I was to meet up with Fred Lobdell, the king of county highpointers (at the time with over 490 done). He has done many peaks in this area, and it was his notes that I used for my highpoints along the Blue Ridge Parkway. His mother lives near Asheville, so it was convenient for us to meet. However, we both encountered delays into Robbinsville and didn't meet up there; instead we met at the Nantahala Forest Ranger station up the road by luck. Together, we convoyed over the Cherohala Scenic Byway across the Unicoi Mountains along the Tennessee and North Carolina borders, and knocked off two more counties: Graham County and, then across the state line into Tennessee for Monroe County.
Haw Knob was the second of the two Unicoi Mountain county highpoints Fred Lobdell and I did on this day, coming over from nearby Huckleberry Knob in Graham County, North Carolina. The parking area is at Big Junction pullout, about 5 miles from the Huckleberry pullout. Haw Knob is the highpoint of Monroe county in Tennessee, but the pullout and trail are in North Carolina, whereas the summit straddles the state line. We found an overgrown trail on the north-westish side of the pullout. This trail gets little use and we had to contend with much undergrowth and slippery rocks (I fell once). But it's a short hike, less than half a mile one way, and less than 200 feet of gain, so in about 20 minutes we were at the top, where the trees give way to reasonably nice views. We spent about 10 minutes up there, then retreated to our cars and on into Tennessee. Next on the list was a simple drive up to a lookout in Bradley County
This was the third and final of the three highpoints Fred Lobdell and I did together today, after having come over the Unicoi Mountains and the Cherohala Scenic Byway where we had tackled a couple of quickies in the hills on the Tennessee-North Carolina border. After descending off onto the flatter bits of Tennessee near Chattanooga, we worked our way toward a fairly easy one, mainly due to time restrictions. This highpoint is accessible via a dirt road, so it was a nice way to cap an afternoon. We left Interstate-75 at exit-20 northeast of Chattanooga. Fred rode shotgun and navigated using the DeLorme atlas, while I drove. It was a series of backroads, about 5 miles worth, roughly paralleling I-75, but I couldn't even begin to recall the names of the roads, except that we eventually found our way onto Owl Hollow Road, past some homes, and up Firetower Road toward Oolteweah Lookout.
Firetower Road is dirt, and after a few hundred yards it comes to a 4-way junction. We took the left turn (sign says "Dead End"), and about a half-mile later arrived at the top. There is an abandoned house on the summit, with the actual highest point located around the back. We found a witness benchmark but not the actual summit benchmark, but the summit, such as it was, was plainly obvious anyway. After a few minutes we backtracked back to the main highway, where Fred and I parted ways: he to Chattanooga and me back to Atlanta. Fred gave me enough information to get one more quickie highpoint near the Atlanta airport in Clayton County.
That was it for this trip in Tennessee. I flew back to Arizona the next day. Boy, my arms were tired. A year later, I came back for some more in Tennessee. Read on...
This was the first of six highpoints (7 overall, as one was a two-fer) that my friend Vi and I did during our weekend in Tennessee. We both arrived in Nashville from different directions: me from Phoenix and Vi from Hartford. I arrived late the previous evening, and we stayed at a Ramada Inn near the airport. First on our agenda was for Vi to return some clothing she had bought for a planned job interview that ultimately did not materialize. We had to trek out to the west end of Nashville toward a town called Bellevue so she could get her money back. Looking on my maps, we were pretty close to the Cheatham County highpoint, only about 5 miles away.
The highpoint is not much: a non-descript point in a hilly area of the county a bit north of Interstate-40. The topographical map is handy, as is a good road map of the area. The highpoint is in a field between two homes on Savely Road. We found the area and parked, and walked about 50 feet into the field, and paced the area. Not much for this one. The grass was high and dry, and there was much undergrowth. In all, about 5 minutes in the field. We got back to the truck and started our drive east toward Knoxville, taking detours to knock out other highpoints along the way. We were opportunists - nothing requiring any lengthy hiking on this day. Basically we were looking for easy ones near the interstate.
Next up for us was Russell Hill in Macon County. We drove south up from Carthage through some very scenic countryside (lots of tobacco farms, and also whole trees consumed by ivy (kudzu?)). We hit the Macon county line then went another 2 miles or so to a small church after a bend in the highway. We turned right (south) onto Davis Road for about 1/4 mile to an abandoned home on the right. According to the topographical map the highpoint is a small contour just behind this home. We parked, walked out and went into the weedy and trash-strewn yard. We didn't stay long, just tried to hit some high bumps and tag some trees. From here we worked our way back onto the Interstate.
The Putnam county highpoints are located near Interstate-40 a few miles east of the town of Monterey, but there iss no exit from the interstate near the highpoint, as we so discovered. Instead, we exited in Monterey and found a state highway (forget the number) that parallels Interstate-40 for about 3 miles. The highway crosses Interstate-40 from south to north, then goes back to the south side about a mile later. It's at this point that a non-descript paved road runs parallel to Interstate-40, literally about 100 feet from the highway. We turned onto this road, then made an immediate left-turn onto a gravel 2-track road for about 1/4 to 1/2 mile. The road follows a barbed-wire fence and tree-line, which is the county line. Where the road makes 2 little rises, we took to be the county highpoint. Actually, one rise is higher than the other, but we couldn't tell so we tromped around both for just a few seconds, then went on our way to Knoxville, where we stayed the night.
Vi and I spent the night in Knoxville's west side, in a suburb called Farragut. We got on the road about 9 a.m. and headed east about 20 miles to the US-11 exit, which is called Rutledge Pike (as best as my memory serves me). We traveled east about 10 miles to Idumea Road, where signs point the way to the House Mountain Wildlife Area. We went about 1/4 mile on Idumea, then took a left on another road (just following the signs) past some homes into the Wildlife Area. We parked in a small parking lot on the north side of the road.
Unlike our three easy highpoints from yesterday, this one actually required some effort. House Mountain is about 900 feet above the surrounding country-side. It is heavily forested with sections of bare rock. However, a very good trail network has been created fairly recently, and it seems to be popular with the locals, as we saw a few out and about.
Vi and I headed in and went up the West Overlook Trail (this is a few yards past the "Mtn Trail" junctions... see below). The West Overlook gains moderately steeply up the slopes to a rocky outcrop at the west end of the ridge in just less than a mile. We saw a few people relaxing here, with very good views to be had. We then continued on the ridge, hiking eastwards and following the trail as it went up and down the bumps. In about a half-mile we came upon a small structure, and past it, in the woods a little bit, the remnants of a lookout tower. This was one candidate for the highpoint.
The second candidate is about another half-mile east. The trail drops about 100 feet and comes to a junction for the Turkey Trail, which went to our right. We stayed on the main trail (east) and regained our lost elevation, coming to another rocky outcrop that again had very nice views off to the north. The highpoint is a large rock that takes some care in being scaled. We stayed here about 20 minutes to enjoy the veiw. Coming back, we met up with some hikers who mentioned that the Turkey Trail that we'd just passed would take us back to the parking lot, so we followed it istead of retracing our steps. This trail covers just over a mile, and re-emerges with our original trail at the aforementioned "Mtn Trail" junction at the bottom. There is a possible point of confusion: there are two "Mtn Trail"s at the bottom... but they meet up together a hundred or so yards into the woods (coming down, we saw this fork which confused us a bit). Coming up this trail, you'd come to the ridge about equidistant between the two highpoint areas.
Our round trip took about 2 hours. The weather was nice - about 70 degrees. But the humidity was almost 95% and the air was still. What this meant was that any sweat was not going to evaporate. I completely sweated through my clothes, wringing out the goop at the end. I'm not used to such stifling humidity. I like my Arizona and its days of 6% humidity.
"The Flag Pole" is the name given to this summit on Vowell Mountain, inside which the county line for Anderson and Campbell counties wriggles. The county line goes right over the top of the peak, and thus is the highpoint for both counties. Vi and I had hiked House Mountain in Knox County just down the road. From Knoxville, we drove up the interstate about 20 miles to Lake City, then followed a narrow highway southwest about 3 miles to the community of Briceville. In Briceville, we took a right at the school and went into the hills about a mile. The turn-off for the highpoint is to the left, just past a bridge. Vi was driving.
When we pulled into this area, we found three roads leading from this open area. The one to our left didn't look right at all, so we ignored it. The one on our right seemed larger so we went in on that one, but quickly learned that it wasn't the right one, either. Vi drove us up a steep gravel portion in a strip-mine area. Here, we switched and I took over driving. We backtracked to the start and went up the middle road which at first looked real thin but it soon opened up wide, and we knew we were on the right road.
We just drove up this road as it switchbacked up the mountainside about 3 miles. It was steep in places, and we used 4-wheel drive just in case we needed it. The road eventually leveled out and came to a junction. The main road went left down the other side of the mountain, while the road we wanted continued straight. After about 1/4 mile, we spied a junction with a lesser dirt road that at first we drove by (we dead ended). We backtracked to this junction and parked, and started in on foot.
The hike one-way was about 1 mile with about 300 feet of gain. The road contours around a lesser peak and approaches the main peak. We left the road and took a short series of trails to the top. The top is marked by numerous buildings, towers and fencing with razor wire. I found a knob of rocks near one fence and stepped on it, as well as circling the fences where possible. I spent about 10 minutes wandering the top. The natural highpoint has probably long since been bulldozed. After awhile I was satisfied that I'd stepped on all the candidates and started back. Vi stayed a bit below and checked out some other buildings. The weather was hazy and we had a sprinkle, but overall we stayed dry, other than sweating a ton. The round trip took about 40 minutes. We drove back to Lake City, had lunch at the Cracker Barrel, then spent the rest of the day up at Cumberland Gap National Historic Park. We had some enjoyable hiking on the trails there, plus the museum and all the historical bits. Afterwards, the day running out, we popped back into Tennessee and found a hotel in Cookesville to crash in for the night.
This was the last highpoint of my 4-day trip to Tennessee. We started up around 9 a.m. and made the 50-mile drive toward Pilot Knob in Clay County via Livingston and Celina. From Celina, we went northeast on TN-53 about 5 miles toward a slight right dogleg bend in the road. From here, we turned left onto Old Highway 53, heading generally west for about 1.5 miles, the turned left onto Pea Ridge Tower Road, which meanders mostly south for about another 2 miles through pretty farms and countryside. A sign on the road points to Pilot Knob lookout tower. We drove the short gravel road to the gate and parked. Some property lines come right up to the gate and had "No Trespassing" signs posted, but the road apparently is not restricted.
Past the gate, we just hiked up the dirt road about 3/4 mile to the top. It's a moderate grade in places but short and quick; we were at the top in about 20 minutes. The summit contains a lookout tower and an apparently abandoned house, plus some other small buildings. The clearing is pretty small, and the summit is sufficiently rounded so that one point was readily obvious as the highpoint. We found the benchmark embedded in the rock just a few inches from the highpoint.
Vi and I stuck around for about 10 minutes, then started back down. Overall round trip took about 45 minutes, with about 1.5 miles of hiking and about 300 feet of gain. It was warm and extremely humid, and we were both soaked with sweat despite the short hike. We backtracked through Celina, then headed west through Red Boiling Springs and down into Carthage, where we checked out the "Gore-Lieberman" shop downtown and the Gore ranch on the outskirts of town (a friendly gas station owner told us where to go). From here, we returned to Nashville. We made an effort to locate the Davidson County highpoint but time was running out, so we went back to the hotel where Vi would be staying so I could shower and get to the airport for my flight home. In all, a fun trip, and many thanks to Vi for hiking with me to these highpoints.
And, until who knows when, this is it for my Tennessee excursions.
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(c) 2000, 2001, 2006 Scott Surgent. For entertainment purposes only. This report is not meant to replace maps, compass, gps and other common sense hiking/navigation items. Neither I nor the webhost can be held responsible for unfortunate situations that may arise based on these trip reports. Conditions (physical and legal) change over time! Some of these hikes are major mountaineering or backpacking endeavors that require skill, proper gear, proper fitness and general experience. |