Southern Sixers: Mt. Collins (6188'), Mt. Love (6400'), Clingman's Dome (6643'), Mt. Buckley (6560')

On the way down to visit that Chattanoogan fellow I've mentioned in previous posts, I thought I'd stop by the Smokies for a bit of February mountaineering. I hadn't hiked through snow since my winter ascent of Mt. Washington in 2016, and the ice axe I'd bought after that trip was long overdue for actual use. Plus, what better time to snag the handful of Southern Sixers along the main drag of the Smokies than in the dead of winter? I'd have the mountains to myself, I figured--my own little ice-encrusted wonderland at the crown of the southern Appalachians.

Now, if you've noticed any trends while following this blog for the past two years, you're probably wondering what's about to go wrong. And the answer, my friends, is...

...absolutely nothing.

The weather on the high ridge of the Smokies that weekend was perfect for hiking: warm, sunny, and snowless. And I looked like a fool schlepping an ice axe all the way to Clingman's Dome.

Huckleberry Knob, NC (5560') ...and the Great American Eclipse

Chattanooga--and my friend there--proved quite hospitable. My hiking buddy and I arrived at his place in the late afternoon; later that evening, another pair of friends from Northern Virginia joined us. We spent the next day resting from our various drives and lives, then turned in early that night.

Our plan for the following day was to drive up the Cherohala Skyway to the bald summit of Huckleberry Knob, the high point of the Unicoi Mountains. Though a thousand feet lower and much less prominent (both topologically and in terms of renown) than its northern cousins, the Smokies, that peak was smack-dab in the middle of the Great American Eclipse's path of totality. On any other day, it'd be a gentle 1.2-mile stroll from the Skyway--pleasant, no doubt, but hardly worth a ten-hour drive--but for two minutes and thirty-eight seconds, starting at 2:35 pm on Monday, August 21, 2017, the sun above that mountain was going to disappear. And we planned to be under it.

Southern Sixers: Roan Mountain, NC/TN (6267', 6286', and 6189')

The Friday before the 21st, a friend and I headed south from Northern Virginia, hoping by our early departure to beat the worst of the eclipse-weekend traffic. As far as I know, we did, but there were still about twice as many accidents as usual along I-81 southbound through the Valley. Things cleared up somewhat once we hit the plateau west of Blacksburg, and they stayed that way until Bristol...

...where our route happened to take us past the Speedway on a race day. The two-mile stretch of US-11 running past it was lined with parking lots, carnival tents, and streams of pedestrians homing in on the racetrack. Even if that 162,000-seat stadium was only half full (which it might well have been; the night's race was only a minor one), it held a crowd one-sixth the size of the population of the Bristol-Kingsport-Johnson City region, all of whom had turned out in their best on that drizzly summer evening to watch a bunch of cars drive loops around a half-mile track. I guess you have to grow up out there, in NASCAR country, to get it.

My friend and I, however, drove on by. Our reason for detouring off the interstate lay further down the road, up US-19E among the western slopes of the Blue Ridge--which, after a summer wasted in the flatlands, looked so rugged and green and beautiful that I could barely keep my eyes on the road. But I did, and shortly before dusk we arrived at the base of Roan Mountain, a twenty-mile ridge along the TN-NC border home to three peaks above 6000 feet and the longest grassy bald in the southern Appalachians--and conveniently located two-thirds of the way to Chattanooga, our base of operations for the eclipse.

The campsite I'd reserved in Roan Mountain State Park, one of only three available when I'd picked it out two days before, turned out to be an RV site:

Note the utter lack of soft, flat ground suitable for pitching tents.

Highpoint #7: Clingman's Dome, TN (6643')

Though the winds in the valley rattled my tent's cover all night (the same way a curious bear would, I imagined), I slept much better than before. I woke to find the sun already risen--maybe, just maybe, I thought, I'm getting the hang of this "camping" thing. While the morn was still young, I broke camp, loaded up my car, and headed out.

Farewell to the Black Mountains!

I took a twisty two-lane road up and out of the valley, then hustled westward down I-40. There was no time to lose; on this beautiful, sunny Saturday morning, with quite unintended timing, I was headed for the Great Smoky Mountains Tourist Tra-... er, National Park.

Full disclosure: I hate the Smokies.

Highpoint #6: Mt. Mitchell, NC (6684')

I got a late start out from Burnsville on the 6th after spending most of the morning writing blog posts. What with that and a few embarrassing navigational errors—particularly so since I’d already been to this place!—I didn’t make it to my base camp at Black Mountain Campground until noon. That campground, located a few miles east-of and 3000 feet below North Carolina’s Black Mountains in the Pisgah National Forest, is the logical entry point for those seeking their summits.  Rather than pay for an improved campsite with shower access (since I’d had that at the hotel last night), I drove a little further up the road to one of the free backcountry sites and staked my claim. Had I arrived any later (in the afternoon or in the season), I’d have been hard-pressed to find a site, but the few folks who spend their May weekends in these hills aren’t too prompt about showing up. In retrospect, this ought to have warned me of something… but I’d discover that surprise soon enough.

Spring had arrived here, a hundred miles south and several hundred feet below my camp at Mt. Rogers, but only just. The cold breeze chilled me as I emerged from my car, but the exertion of setting up camp and assembling my gear soon warmed me up.

It almost looks like it's May down here.

By the time I’d packed up my high mountain gear (the same stuff I brought up Mt. Rogers), pitched my tent, and backtracked to the trailhead just inside the campsite, it was 12:30. This left me with a little over seven hours until sunset: exactly the time in which I’d hiked this trail last summer. If I could replicate that pace, I’d make it back before dark; if not, I’d need to break out the headlamp. I set my phone’s alarm for 4:30—summit or no, I’d turn around when it rang—and headed up.

Hazy-Bordered Flashback Time

As the sun sails the high skies of summer, an old red Honda makes its way down I-81, the bumpy backbone of Appalachia. The car shoots across the Tennessee-Virginia line, then turns eastward and upward to climb over high green hills into North Carolina. Halfway to Asheville, it circles off the interstate and follows a series of mountain roads, each rougher than the last, deep into the dark narrow valleys of the Black Mountains. It stops at last, late in the afternoon, at a campground beside the South Toe River, here little more than a creek. Above loom densely forested foothills, mountains in their own right... and beyond them, Mount Mitchell, the pinnacle of the eastern United States.

Here the driver disembarks, pitches her tent, and waits out the night.

In the pale purple dawn, before light reaches over the eastern hills, she rises. Still sleeps the campground. She checks her pack once last, then trudges to the trailhead to begin her solitary climb.