Sweat Heifer Cascades

An Off-Trail Hike in GSMNP

Elevation Profile for the Sweat Heifer from this past weekend’s hike/scramble

You know those elevation profile graphs—the jagged little line charts that show every climb, descent, and flat stretch of a trail from start to finish? They're useful in the same way that reading a menu is. You get an idea of what's coming, but not what you're about to eat.

Four and three-quarter miles into what had been advertised as an off-trail “hike,” I found myself on all fours, driving trekking poles into wet moss and clawing my way up the side of a steep ridge. I’d been scrambling up boulder after boulder for about a mile and was on the verge of bonking.

Somewhere between gasps for air, I remembered studying the elevation profile the night before. Sure, it looked steep, but I had dismissed it. The graph was compressed on my phone screen. The scale was probably distorted. The whole thing seemed exaggerated. It turns out the graph wasn’t lying to me, I was.

This was my first off-trail hike in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and my first outing with a local hiking club, a fact that suddenly seemed like a serious lapse in judgment. About a half-mile earlier, one of the veterans had casually mentioned that this was considered one of the easier off-trail routes in the park. I spent the next thirty minutes trying to figure out whether he was optimistic, sarcastic, or simply fucking with the new guy.

When I finally reached the ridge top, I pulled myself off the ground and began extending my trekking poles back to normal walking length. As I stood there breathing hard and listening to my heart beat, a retired man in his sixties walked straight up the same slope without breaking stride. No hesitation. No drama. He moved up that mountain the way water runs downhill. Watching him, I had a sudden realization. This is how the South gave the Union such a hard time. You can have all the factories, railroads, and industrial advantage you want, but eventually somebody has to chase these people uphill.

On paper, the route sounded simple enough. Start at Newfound Gap. Follow the Appalachian Trail to Sweat Heifer Trail. Drop down to the cascades. Leave the trail and follow Sweat Heifer Creek upstream, hopping rocks and picking our way through the gorge until the creek petered out. Then bushwhack up the mountain to reconnect with the Appalachian Trail and follow it back to the cars.

Sixteen people had signed up for the hike.

Despite living in Tennessee for nearly a year, I still don’t know many people here. A few neighbors and our realtor. That’s about it. There are no familiar faces around town. Making friends gets harder when you travel for work, spend long days at a home office when you’re not on the road, and dedicate most of your remaining time to your wife and whatever project the new house has decided to throw at us this week.

I’ve never been the kind of person with a large social circle anyway. A handful of good people has always been enough. Left to my own devices, I can go a long time with little social interaction beyond family, neighbors, and the occasional conversation with a cashier. But even the most solitary among us are still social creatures. Sooner or later, you miss being around people.

That’s what led me to the Smoky Mountain Hiking Club. Partly because I wanted to meet some like-minded folks and hopefully make a friend or two. Partly because joining a group seems easier than sitting around waiting for friendships to magically appear. And partly because these people know corners of the Smokies I will probably never find on my own. This particular club also gives me the opportunity to give back to the Smokies via volunteer time, and I’ve always been a big fan of giving back to the places I love.

At the trailhead that morning, all of those reasons seemed perfectly sensible. Three hours later, halfway up a near-vertical ridge and wondering whether my $40 carbon-fiber trekking poles qualified as climbing equipment, I realized these were my people.

It’s been a couple of days and I’m still feeling that hike in my legs and shoulders, but I’m signed up for another group hike this weekend. I can’t wait to see the flame azaleas on Gregory Bald at peak bloom for the first time, and hopefully run into a few familiar faces from this past weekend.