Chimney Tops Trail

The Chimney Tops Trail is a steep, 2-mile climb known for the sharp twin peaks that once gave hikers one of the wildest summit scrambles in the Smokies, at least until the Chimney Tops 2 wildfire in 2016 left the last quarter mile too unstable to safely reopen. You might not remember that fire, but you almost certainly remember the Gatlinburg Fire it turned into which made national headlines.

All cause two kids were out in a national park playing with matches. Like, what the fuck?! I wonder where those kids are today or if they even felt bad about it? Only the court system knows.

Because they were juveniles, their names were never released, the records were sealed, and the case was ultimately dropped when prosecutors determined they couldn’t link their actions to the full scope of the Gatlinburg firestorm. Wherever they are now, they’re adults living their lives in anonymity, their involvement known only to the handful of court staff who handled the case.

I know I should be mad at the parents, but come on, I was a teenage kid once and damn well knew the consequences of playing with matches.

With the coolest part of one of the most popular hikes in the park off limits, the Park Service built an overlook just below the old scramble. Nine years later the real summit is still closed with no sign it’ll ever be opened again. It breaks my heart more than I’d like to admit, though the Oregon Trail kid in me still believes I’ll stand on those pinnacles someday because I’ve lived long enough to see a lot of impossible things happen. Janet and I needed a short hike, and even though I’d been saving Chimney Tops for the day the pinnacle section is reopened, we figured why not. Worst case, we hike it twice.

The first section of the trail crosses Walker Camp Prong and Road Prong, two gorgeous streams of pocket water nirvana. I stared over the wooden bridge into the dark water and imagined giant trout hovering in the current below.

After that, it’s all uphill with about 650 stairs mixed in along roughly 1,300 feet of elevation gain, according to my All Trails app tracker. As we climbed, I marveled at some of the giant tulip poplars and the people who built all those damn stairs. You don't let the fire in your thighs slow you down when you think about how the people’s legs must have felt like who carried all those logs and rocks up the mountain to build those damn stairs.

And then you reach the overlook. The view is gorgeous, sure, but just off your eight o’clock sit those twin chimneys, glaring back like two outlaw peaks daring you to ignore the view, and the Park Service’s polite barricade blocking the old trail to them. They whispered like Timothy Leary, “Turn on. Tune in. Take the pirate trail anyway.”

I won’t pretend I wasn’t tempted. On a different day, it could’ve gone the other way entirely. The summit was calling to me in that deep-down-in-my-gut way the best bad ideas I've ever had always do.

What’s the worst that could happen? Cliff breaks out from under my feet and I fall to my death? Like that's ever gonna happen...

Instead, we sat on the overlook and ate PB&Js like respectable citizens. A couple of hikers with bigger nerves than mine popped up on the chimneys, and Janet muttered something in disgust about their lack of respect for the sign that told them not to keep going. I just washed the peanut butter out of my teeth with electrolyte water and admired them in silence, wishing that it was me up there.

It's the kind of place I’ll request my ashes to be spread someday to force my kids into having an epic adventure in memory of their old man.