The search for a forgotten crossing from North Carolina to Tennessee

My relationship with Ekaneetlee runs as long as the creek. Since first reading of this secret passage from North Carolina into Tennessee, I was consumed with a desire to follow its genesis from Fontana Lake. Research into this defunct trail was as thin as the crossing itself. Some had heard of or done the shorter Tennessee section, but no one would claim any successful attempts of the longer Carolina “trace.” It was not looking as if anyone had moved through here in quite a while though, and following one stretch during which I was simultaneously ensnared in saw briars and dog hobble, I convinced myself of the minimal likelihood of popularizing this bushwhack.

They call it a trace, and anyone who has been briar bit and rhodo slapped chasing manways understands why. Having followed similar traces along abandoned routes before, you begin to realize the accuracy of that word in relation to this path. In these places you feel for traces of the people who crossed and their reasons for passing. Little remains now to indicate human beings ever stepped into this drainage. But the Cherokee regarded Cades Cove as a place of commerce and forged this path into our Tennessee valley. Pro-Union sympathizers fled North Carolina’s borders across this trail into Tennessee as well. They say at one time you could have driven a wagon from the Cove over Doe Knob and back down the mountains into Native American land.

This manway’s obscurity is beholden to access. Unlike more popular Tennessee side off-trail routes such as Porter’s Creek, the main obstacle is just getting to Ekaneetlee Creek. For us—my off-trail-enthusiast friend, Steve, and me—it meant a two-hour drive to Fontana marina across the notorious Dragon of US 129. If a couple hundred curves in 11 miles does not wear you out, then a one-and-a-half-hour canoe paddle across the frigid channel into the headwaters of Eagle Creek might. Assuming the former did not turn you around, a quarter-mile backpack to base camp and all the creek crossings could. We stashed the canoe, established base camp, and settled in for the next day’s mission. This is really no day hike.

Hour three on this crisp, November morning found us at the confluence of a creek running in from the north which appeared to be a drainage off Little Grill Ridge. We had walked Lakeshore Trail to campsite 89. From what I remembered of the topography map, climbing would start here for certain. In the shadow of Hurricane Mountain, I crawled through rhododendron following hog wallows. Sometimes a bear-scratched tree would pop up along with other signs of their passing. How the Native Americans knew it was a low point along the spine of what now is the Appalachian Trail, I will never know. Ekaneetlee is hick for Egwanulti, which in Cherokee means “by the river.” We were in their river and climbing their river.

We pulled ourselves through tunnels of rhodo and dog hobble. At hour four, we paused to measure the lowering sun. My accomplice, Steve, gave me that look of desperate times. The AT ran one of the ridges ahead; did it circle around this hill to our right? It was worth a shot. We hunkered down and lunged up, pulling small saplings from their roots. A few more feet and that blessed trail would have to appear. As I crested that razor ridge nothing but disappointment greeted our soaked skeletons as we muscled our way into the setting sun.

Hour five was grim. It was late afternoon, and our creek was but a trickle that I waded with squishy boots. Steve hopped back and forth. That V in the gap was suddenly upon us as we rushed forward pulled by the promise of a trail. As the gap eventually leveled and ultimately began to drop across the invisible state line, so did our spirits.

Sunset was fading into the lights of Maryville as we descended a bit more. Completely immersed now in a patch of mixed hardwoods, we entered another dimension of mystical forest. Fanning out to net trail in the remaining light, we simultaneously stumbled into a flat stretch, topping out on the Appalachian Trail. Steve resisted the urge to kiss the ground as winds from this notch whistled through our chilling cores. It was cold and my boots were not getting any drier. We had around two trail miles left to climb up to Doe Knob so we could immediately lose all that elevation by then descending six miles back to camp. Our elevation here was 3,842 feet. Our quest began that morning at Lake Fontana, at 1,760 feet—and none of the climbing was done on any real trail.

Our return is best described as dark, undulating until the Gregory Bald trail terminus, and interspersed with mirages. Steve spied a campfire that was nothing more than a visual created by alpenglow filtering through beeches and birch. I would have mine a few miles later after we dropped back down into Lost Cove via one of the steepest maintained trails in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was a gigantic lizard on a log when we resumed our crossings back on the Carolina side. Steve reassured me that it was just a broken piece of bark. It could have just as easily been Gollum. I was strung out in the hills again. But we had completed the magic crossing into Tennessee. 

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John Quillen 22 Posts 0 Comments

John is a self-described orophile whose mountain addiction has taken him across the globe in search of fresh peak experiences. After completing all the Smokies trails, he sought high points both obscure and well known. With two remaining, he hopes to become the first Tennessean to complete the global Seven Summits.

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it was peak leaf weekend.

On Saturday, we were joined by Micah, Robbie and Mikayla. They brought excellent weather.

It’s looking to be a beautiful fall, I think the colors are going to be exceptional. I hope you’re able to get out and enjoy them. I will try to do better with content here.

peace to all!

https://cityviewmag.com/the-meigs-line/

Walking in the footsteps of a forgotten expedition

Iwas surfing through bottomless rhododendron patches on Blanket Mountain for miles. This stretch out of Elkmont, Tennessee, in the Smokies, was as off trail as it gets. My objective was a long forgotten passageway that exists only in defunct maps and the imagination of Smokies historians.

In 1802, Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs Sr., agent to the Cherokee Nation, and surveyor Thomas Freeman set out to define the line between Cherokee lands and those of new settlers. Meigs was a hero long before accepting this assignment from President Jefferson. In 1777, Revolutionary Army Colonel Meigs led 220 men across British lines in Sag Harbor, New York, where he burned 12 British ships and captured 90 prisoners without the loss of a single man in his detachment.

 These pioneers stumbled along my present route delineating a boundary using everything from marked boulders to unusual arboreal arrangements referred to as “witness trees”. Some called this the “White path”. Meigs’s directive was to settle disputes from earlier boundary attempts. In many ways, his foray was the progenitor of Lewis and Clark’s more well-known journey two years later.

I eventually stepped on some flat ground and was confronted by an anomalous quartz rock embedded into an ancient tree. Later, I was made aware of its significance. Turns out, I had discovered a boundary marker integral to Meigs’s mission. That was 15 years ago, but my quest to uncover the Meigs Line secrets continues to this day.

I recently returned to Blanket Mountain. While I won’t share the exact location of the marker—souvenir hunters and day hikers can get into trouble off trail—the path up is well-worn. From Jake’s Creek, I ascended the junction of Miry Ridge. Trekking the unmaintained trail to the right, I came across the remnants of an old fire tower. 

Back in Meigs’s day, their methods were somewhat rudimentary. When Meigs needed to mark something, they supposedly threw a red blanket over it, allowing it to be sighted across the col between Jake’s Creek and Miry Ridge. A prominence I found there bore direct resemblance to Meigs’s writings on the subject.

Back in the ‘70s, a couple of Smokies rangers traced this trail from its beginning outside the Smokies to its end near—something of particular interest to me—Mt. Quillen in South Carolina. Like Meigs, these government employees encountered all manner of bears, snakes, and geographic encumbrance albeit with the resources of their positions within the National Park Service. Vinn Garoon, who was nearing retirement, was one of them.

In the shadow of Clingmans Dome, Garoon got seriously lost having forfeited a boot in the headwaters of the Little River. As he was more than a day late for scheduled completion, park service colleagues organized an extensive search involving airplanes and seasoned trackers. They found the aging ranger hobbling shoelessly in the back of beyond, having learned a final lesson from the mountains he thought he knew. I’m sure Garoon was pining for the amenities of Meigs’s survey group, which included Cherokee scouts and seasoned locals. I could seriously relate to the frustration of false summits that these hills and hollers can produce when alone and bushwhacking.

High atop Mt. Collins is the most important marker for this survey expedition, a stone which has seemed to walk across the mountain alongside the surveys, elusive as a bobcat. Some blame the lumber companies who sawed full bore right up to the day these lands were marked as federal property. I have wandered in search of this particular stone to no avail, but treading through time definitely channels the spirit of these early adventurers. Next stop for me is the ending point and my namesake mountain. It’s probably through private land, and I will end up with a backside full of buckshot. Any takers? 

Yo Yo and I met up for a quick overnight on the AT at Carver’s Gap.

It was chilly up there at almost six thousand feet. Plenty of company.

After all, this is what Roan Mtn is known for. The next morning, Frank went south and I went North. Had to do a shuttle for a friend who was thru hiking. She left her vehicle at Damascus so I drove up and got her (and her dog) and drove them back to Iron mountain where she left off. A grand weekend for certain. So good to be back on the AT, if but for a minute, and see old Yo Yo.

Prior to his service as a Seabee during the Second World War, my uncle Jay was quite the prankster. I’ve oft envisioned him scouring the family farm fields on the Jefferson/Hamblen county line, glass jar in hand, filling it with any fluorescent capable insect trying to contain this lightning in a bottle for later in the evening. That is when he would enter White Pine’s only movie theater, position himself somewhere in the middle to back rows, and release all manner of hell upon the establishment.

We can only imagine to what audience his flickering spectacle was met. But their night was definitely “Gone With the Wind”. Jay’s lightning bug release remains the stuff of legend in our family and we miss him dearly. One thing is certain, he never called them anything but lightning bugs and neither did we.  As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until the park service began monetizing their viewing that any of us locals had ever heard this foreign “firefly” blasphemy.

Yesterday, I backpacked 1300 feet over a mountain and into our secret spot to meet my friend Myers Morton and the Hackenberg family, Tyson, Elizabeth and Henry. We have been congregating for years to receive our annual dispensation of Smokies goodness and they did not disappoint. Synchronous is misunderstood as we shared this with some newcomers who wandered into camp and astutely noted, “They all stop at the same time!” Myers was quick to note the pause typically adheres to seven second intervals.

The lightning bugs are a wave that moves through you as a school of fish for a diver. Averse to light and movement, they accept you only after your stillness is verified. The first Europeans to reach these hills noted this anomaly in divine terms, and I still do. We have been privately enjoying the show for decades, long before anyone ever had to pay to park, hike and view them. If you have never experienced this blessing, then go up and do so. They exist in multiple places along with the much trafficked Elkmont hordes. One thing is certain, I’m not giving up my honey hole and I’m lighting up anyone who calls them fireflies!

So I’m very pleased to be caught up with Frank and reaching the 700 mile marker on the Appalachian trail. This is such an enjoyable section it ranks up there as one of my favorite. I don’t think you’ll ever get a memorial Day weekend with cool temperatures down in Georgia like that. In total I completed 40 miles. My total is ascent was $11,840 ft, my total decent was 12,300 ft.

An excellent weekend.