Hiking – GringoPotpourri

Four Grains of Rice

The above picture, taken peak-pandemic, circa April, 2021, finds your favorite gringo blogger struggling to wake up and greet the day. Post-morning fart, with noteworthy bedhead and spectacular beardage courtesy of local hair salons being shuttered due to coronavirus, I blearily imbibe coffee. I don’t recall what prompted me to stage this photo, but I remember those uncertain months and that very, very long spring, when hoarding toilet paper became a stock-in-trade and when hand sanitizer was seemingly more valuable than a pot of gold.

Fast forward a little more than five years, and no one talks about the pandemic anymore—almost as if it never happened. As for yours truly, I’ve moved to Knoxville and am five months into a new job with a company that genuinely values its employees. I still have that bathrobe and coffee mug, as well as the facial hair. The beard is less unkempt, though speckled with lots of gray. Beneath each eye: matching crow’s feet, or laugh lines, if you will.

Also, I’m two inches shorter than I was when this picture was taken.

Lucky to be Alive

This is Mount LeConte. The third-highest peak in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, its summit lodge and unrestricted views attract thousands of hearty hikers each year. There are five routes to the top, each of varying degrees of difficulty. Even the easiest and most popular of the bunch, Alum Cave, is no mere walk in the park.

On Monday, September 9, the weather forecast was ideal: 70 degrees along the trail, 60 degrees at the summit, low humidity and nary a cloud in the sky. Knowing I had a new job waiting for me the following Monday, I woke up before dawn, printed out my parking permit, and made the one-hour drive to the Rainbow Falls parking lot, where the plan was to take the Rainbow Falls Trail up and either the Trillium Gap Trail or the Bullhead Trail down. I packed two bottles of Gatorade, two liters of water, and lots of trail food (beef sticks, pretzel sticks, honey stinger energy chews, trail mix). I bought a brownie at the LeConte Lodge store, topped off my water, and tightened my laces for the descent, deciding on the Bullhead Trail, which was roughly one-half mile longer than the Trillium Gap but which led directly to my starting parking lot, rather than to an additional connector trail that roughly paralleled the paved, Roaring Fork Motorway for 1.7 miles from the bottom of Trillium Gap to the bottom of Rainbow Falls.

It was late when I headed down, after 3:30 pm, so my choice of the shorter trail was the correct one, right? Seeing as I’m writing this with three broken bones, limited mobility in both arms, and a fresh forehead scar, I’d say I chose poorly.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Great Smoky Mountains National Park

I took the day off from work two weeks ago and drove to Cades Cove, a stunning valley in the northwest corner of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In fairness, the day trip wasn’t to get away from work but to cleanse my mind upon the aftermath of what may have been the meanest mid-term political election in U.S. history. ‘Murica.

But America, despite her flaws, is also home to some of the most stunning natural beauty in the world. The wide-open spaces of the west house such wonders as Monument Valley, Yosemite National Park, and the Grand Canyon. Space comes at more of a premium once you cross the Mississippi and continue east, but beauty isn’t in short supply out here, either. My current state of Tennessee and my neighboring state of North Carolina share hosting duties for what may be the most jaw-dropping sight in the Eastern Time Zone: Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The Smokies of the title join the majestic Blue Ridge Mountains as the southern half of the Appalachian chain of mountains. If you’ve seen the movie “A Walk in the Woods,” or better yet if you’ve read the book, you’ll recall that the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail passes through the Smokies on its way from Springer Mountain, GA to Mount Katahdin, ME. Many of its thru-hikers cite the Smokies as their favorite section of trail.

There are other trails, too – 900 miles of them, in total. (Yes, you read that mileage figure correctly.) A few of those trails will receive a brief mention in later paragraphs, but my recent visit to the park in general – at a time when the fall foliage was perhaps five days past its peak – reminded me that this park, a gem, is, nonetheless, an imperfect place.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) is, according to the park’s own website, the most-visited park in the U.S. park system. Human incursion, along with the traffic congestion, air pollution, and commercial over-development that follow, has left its footprint on the land. In November, 2016, arson in the Chimney Tops area of the park led to 14 deaths, and the park will long bear the scars of this devastating act. Mother Nature herself plays Russian roulette sometimes, too; flooding, snowfall, and other acts of weather do their own damage, although, lower carbon footprint notwithstanding, there is little we can do to appease the spiteful weather gods.

I am already six paragraphs in and I can tell you that this will be a long post as I write about the Good, the Bad, and – yes – the Ugly of this beautiful and complicated national park. Spoiler alert: there is much more of the former than of the latter.

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Another One of My Favorite Places in the World: Malibu Canyon

It was five years ago when I blogged nostalgic about my hiking memories in the Sycamore Canyon section of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. At the time of that post, the canyon was still smoldering as firefighters got the last sections of the Springs Fire under control.

Five years later and it has happened again.

As I write this, the Woolsey Fire, which began near the Santa Susana Field Lab nuclear research site, is blazing seemingly out of control in and around what I refer to as Greater Malibu Canyon – the Malibu Creek watershed in the area, the only north-south body of water to flow the entire breadth of the mountain range.

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Photo Locale of the Month – September 2018

Do you ever feel like disappearing into the mountains for a few days as a way of leaving your troubles behind? Yeah, I do, too. A few days of breathing clean – but thin – mountain air and taking in sub-alpine vistas can really cleanse one’s soul, and even though the journey doesn’t truly offer a permanent escape from whatever ails you, the trip can at least help put life’s crises into manageable perspective.

I lived in California for 12 years, and “escaped” into the mountains whenever possible. The 65-mile Backbone Trail, which I have section-hiked countless times, was no more than an hour’s drive from my apartment. That being said, there isn’t a single hiking experience in California that is on par with hiking in the High Sierra. Yosemite National Park, Inyo National Forest, Sequoia/Kings Canyon…these are special places.

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Four Days in Kaintuck

Ever since I moved to East Tennessee four years ago, I had it on my radar to check out Mammoth Cave National Park, three hours to the west and just 30 miles north of the Tennessee-Kentucky state line. I had long known that the cave system includes the largest-mapped single cave in the world, famous not only for its size but also for such geological features as Frozen Niagara. What I didn’t know was that the national park that manages the cave also includes over 80 miles of hiking trails, dotted with sinkholes and natural springs and rich in native wildlife.

I discovered this first-hand six weeks ago.

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Photo Locale of the Month – May 2018

A common theme of my monthly photo locale features is the concept of time. Namely, where has it gone? Of course, I haven’t traveled much these past few years, a reality that I hope to change as my salary grows.

With that in mind, it hardly seems possible that nine years have passed since my first trip to sub-Saharan Africa, during which time I took a whirlwind “taster” trip to several countries in the region including Botswana, home of the unforgettable Okavango Delta, and South Africa, home of the granddaddy of game parks, Kruger National Park.

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Reaching for the Sky: Climbing Mount Whitney

Once upon a time, I lived in Southern California and took advantage of the state’s mild climate by vowing to hike as many miles as I could and summit as many non-technical peaks as possible. My ultimate goal: the 14,505-foot (4,421-meter) summit of Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the 48 contiguous United States.

Although there are several approaches to Whitney’s rocky summit, the most well-trod route is via the simply-named Mount Whitney Trail. Hundreds of hikers tackle the route each summer day, making the Whitney permit business a lucrative one.

It was more years ago this very month than I’d like to admit when I made the climb. How long ago? Put it this way: the pictures I took that accompany this article were on a non-digital camera! (This fact is no doubt reflected in their poor quality.)

But I did it! In the paragraphs that follow, I’ll share my story and give you the latest information on the permit process. If the hike itself interests you, think about some training hikes that you’d like to pursue to get ready; it’s never too soon to start preparing for a Whitney hike or climb.

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Climbing Concepción Volcano

Some evenings, when sleep is slow to come, I watch the show “Naked and Afraid.” If you aren’t familiar with the show’s premise, it pairs up an adventurous man and woman who have never met before and drops them off into the hostile wilderness for 21 days. They are removed of clothes and personal belongings and left to fend for themselves. There is, of course, an element of phoniness to the whole thing, as medics and camera crewmen are never more than a few steps away. Still, the editing, which focuses largely on the snakes (vegetarians, avert your eyes) they often eat and on the ruggedness of the terrain, makes for a thrilling hour of reality television.

A recent episode found the protagonists in a rural swath of Nicaraguan jungle. Humidity was in the high double digits and there was an even larger presence of venomous snakes than normal, but of course our heroes survived their ordeal, dirtier and skinnier but otherwise little worse for wear. The episode reminded me of my recent trip to Nicaragua, a country about which I have not written nearly enough aside from a single photo gallery in late January. In particular, watching the participants navigate steep slopes and contend with ankle-twisting tree root “stairs” recalled the vigorous 12 hours during which time I successfully climbed Concepción, at 5,282 feet/1,610 meters the country’s second-highest volcano.

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Tennessee Hiking

Summer in Tennessee is normally too hot for hiking, but these past few weeks have seen temperatures perfect for enjoying the great outdoors. Additionally, rainfall for the year has been well above average, so that means that Tennessee’s lakes are full and its waterfalls are raging.

I have tried to take advantage of every free day to get out and about. Here are a few Tennessee hiking destinations from recent excursions worth mentioning:

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