KEPHART'S GHOST
Until last weekend, I'd never made it to the Deep Creek area of the Smokies. Tales of hordes of tourists and families and tubers in the warmer months had always kept me away. January seemed like the ideal time to visit the area.
It may be January, but last weekend's weather was more reminiscent of May. Temperatures were in the 60's, and threatening clouds didn't discourage everyone. Bob, Joel, and I arrived at the trailhead a little before noon and found a dozen cars or more in the parking lot.
We hiked upstream along Deep Creek. I was immediately impressed by the stream. It was not only deep, but wide and fast. In fact, many rivers in the North Carolina mountains are smaller than Deep Creek. In most areas, streams are surrounded by private property by the time they attain the size of Deep Creek. I can definitely understand its appeal for inner tubing.
We walked a short distance and arrived at a cliff where Tom's Branch cascades into Deep Creek. We continued upstream and reached the tubing put-in at the confluence with Indian Creek. From here we took a short side trip to scenic Indian Creek Falls. The waterfall is a steep slide for advanced tubers only. Actually, the park service forbids tubing upstream from the confluence, and the owner of this website doesn't recommend it, either.
We resumed our hike along Deep Creek. Eventually the old road ended and we continued the hike on a footpath. The trail climbed up and away from the creek, and we left the dayhikers behind. We bypassed a steep gorge, but descended to the creek again at campsite 60. This is a large and especially pretty site on the banks of the creek. After the campsite the trail continued to wander up and down over spur ridges. This made for a more demanding hike than we had expected. Eventually we reached the creek again at campsite 59. This was one was nice but small and right on the trail. We continued for another 15 minutes and reached site 58. This one was situated right on the bank of the creek. After a brief debate we decided that we'd gone far enough and set up for the night.
Afterward, Bob and I hiked farther upstream. 10 minutes later we reached historic Bryson Place. This was the site of Horace Kephart's last residence in the Smokies. Kephart is a famous author who spent years living in the forests of the Smokies in the early 20th century. There was no sign of his former camp though. No buildings mark the spot, though a campsite, complete with picnic tables, occupies the knoll above Deep Creek.
We continued beyond Bryson Place and returned to the creek. This section of the stream is still quite large, despite being 6 miles upstream from the trailhead. We passed campsite 56 and hiked to the junction with the Pole Creek Trail. Here we found a long, narrow footbridge spanning the stream. We took a few photos and hurried back to camp. It was getting late, and we still needed to gather firewood before dark.
We spent the evening relaxing around the fire. A chili dinner warmed us, but that was unnecessary because temperatures stayed toasty throughout the evening. A few sprinkles did put a damper on the evening though. We finally retired when the rain picked up enough to drive us to our tents.
The rain stopped early that morning. We had debated taking the long way out, by way of the Pole Creek Trail and Noland Divide. It was still quite cloudy though, and more rain threatened. It was hard to justify the effort required to attain Noland Divide under those conditions. Instead we stuck with the original plan.
We broke camp at 10AM and returned to Bryson Place. From there, we followed the Martin's Gap Trail on a long but well graded climb up Sunkota Ridge. We followed the Mountains to Sea Trail on this portion of the hike. This is the westernmost section of the MST that I've been on.
From Sunkota Ridge we descended into the Indian Creek valley. Indian Creek is much smaller than Deep Creek, but still similar in size to the typical mountain stream. We were grateful for the many old footbridges that spanned the creek. This valley is pretty and quiet, and much less traveled than Deep Creek.
Farther downstream the footpath became a roadbed. According to the guidebook, we passed the location of several old homesteads. We didn't see any sign of them from the trail though. Just upstream from Deep Creek we passed a fisherman heading up the valley. We were quite startled, as we hadn't seen anyone since lunchtime the previous day.
The rest of the hike out was uneventful, though we started to see a lot of traffic as we neared the trailhead. Luckily the rain held off, and the sun even made a brief appearance that afternoon. Our visit to Horace Kephart's former haunt had been a pleasant one, even if we were only able to stay for a couple of days.
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