Banzai! Slickrock Wilderness with Old Friends But No Stiffknee
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Its the first weekend of May and 2 months post-surgery on a torn meniscus. I've been in first gear for quite awhile because of the knee, so I'm dieing to get out. My doc has released me to do anything I want "as long as I don't hurt anything." So I talked 3 of my friends into a trip to the southern Appalachians for a weekend trip. After poking around the series of tubes on my computer, I settled on Slickrock/Citico Wilderness on the NC/Tn border just south of the Smokies.
My friend Tim has just discovered UL backpacking and is really interested in getting into it; he's been my good friend since we were 2 years old. Jeremy has been a traditional packer who is working on his weight too; he's also my volleyball partner. Mark is the oldest at 60 and carries a heavy pack; but he's a running machine and in the best shape of the rest of us who average about 15 years younger.
We meet Mark at a little Tennessee town and drive the Cherohala Skyway to Beech Gap to park. Its really a pretty drive that rivals the Blue Ridge Parkway. We take Big Fodderstack Trail on past Big Fodderstack to camp. Rain threatens all day but holds off. We immediately run into plenty of great flowers. These were a few of the trillium we cross in big patches:
We camp on the Tn side of where trail 84 goes down into Citico. Just next to our site is a large patch of these pink lady slippers:
We have a great night of telling lies and sipping bourbon(we are Kentuckians) and tequila. We hang our food and have a good sleep.
We see bear scat but nothing else. We see a lot more signs of heavy boar traffic though.
The next day threatens rain too. We planned to go down to stiffknee trail. It was a bit further and everyone decided we would not tempt fate considering my recent surgery. Instead we take trail 139 down to Slickrock Creek. Its a steep downgrade with lots of flowers. The gems are these blaze azaleas that lined much of the trail:
We made our way down to the creek and had a nice stop at the 4-level Wildcat Falls:
Some of the rock was polished in a wave-like formation around the falls:
Since we skipped Stiffknee Trail, we decide to head up to one of the balds for the night. Some other hikers tell us that Slickrock Trail has lots of downfall and iss very difficult. We are trying to decide whether to go this route or not and Tim yells "Banzai! Lets go up" And so we do. We are really glad we take this route, at least early on. About 1/3 of this wilderness is old growth and this trail goes through the heart of it. We walk several miles up a creek, then deep into the hardwood old growth full of oak, maple, poplar, and other big trees:
We then walk some really nice ridges through the mist:
Then the trail gets really hard. It becomes littered with old hemlocks that had fallen and obscure the trail. And its steep. And the rain starts falling so hard it's difficult to hear. The upper parts of this trail become pretty tough. No pictures here as the rain is really hard. The rain lasts the rest of the day. We top out on some beautiful grassy balds that I'm sure have great views. But we are socked in.
We are only about 5 miles from the trailhead by then. We are wet. The rain shows no signs of stopping. We decide to walk the rest of the way out. We make it to the trailhead at dark. The trip was cut a little short but the knee feels just fine.
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