Off Trail Hiking in East Tennessee

Go before the poison ivy comes out. "Frowned upon" does not necessarily mean illegal. It should be okay in most wilderness area and NF land. One problem is in a dense forest there isn't much too see. I'd look for an open area like a bald in the Smokies, Grayson Highlands or the Shining Rock Wilderness Area. There are already trails there but they are great places to practice navigation because you have lots of landmarks to work with.

Its damned hard to navigate by compass when you cant see anything to take a bearing on and maintain line of sight on.

About all you can do is dead reckoning, and with the detours required by obstacles, its not that great.

compass navigation is really for wide open spaces out west.

Topo maps, detailed, will be most beneficial, provided you know where you are when you start.

many times there no landmark peaks, just rolling hills all identical.

You can lean to navigate in brush. Try to see if there are any Orienteering clubs near you. They have meets where you learn how to navigate point to point in all kinds of land types. It teaches you to use compass bearings and landmarks. They give you a written course sheet, then you take a bearing from your starting point, and try to follow it to the next point, where you will locate a punch to punch your card verifying that you have reached that point, then the directions tell you which bearing to take and any visible landmarks to follow to the next and so on. It can be a great day in the woods and you learn how to navigate. We did it in PA where it was like a jungle.

Jarod, i'm in N AL. I have not found any established orienteering courses or clubs in the Smokeys. Hike there multiple times a year. There are some classes you can take offered by Great Smokey Mountains institute at Tremont, they may have a small course set up in conjunction with the class. Atlanta, GA has several established orienteering courses/maps avail/clubs/etc. Another great one is Oak Mountain just south of Birmingham, AL. I have done that one in the past. Hope this helps!

Jarod,

I'm from East TN and have been on several off trail trips in both the Smokies and Big South Fork. It's not illegal to hike off trail in those places, only frowned upon because rangers don't want to come perform a search & rescue mission. Which is a legitimate reason.

With that said, going off trail in the Smokies is truly a fantastic experience. You can see how wild and amazing that place really is when you're miles into a secluded valley or climbing almost vertical up to the Smokies crest. Porter's Creek manway is a great one to cut your teeth on, but I would recommend taking along a partner.

Ryan

I've done some off-trail hiking in the Smokies with the Smoky Mountain Hiking Club. Granted, you'll be with several other people but it is a good way to learn from some guys who have a lot to share. Look them up.

Thanks everyone. I think I have enough to get me started.

-Jarod

The problem with land nav in places like Savage Gulf, Scott's Gulf, etc. is that there isn't much navving to it. You're either down in a gorge/"gulf"/canyon or a limited area on the plateaus above that are surrounded by private property, and it's pretty much impossible to get lost to begin with.
I guess that's actually not a bad thing if you just want to practice.

A big spread out area like BSF has a lot more opportunities for that. If you Google around, you should be able to find descriptions and probably GPS coordinates for a bunch of unmapped and offtrail arches that most people never see, and could make it more fun, since it comes with a reward.
You might check with the rangers at Pickett State Park(that borders BSF) and see if there are topos available for Pogue Creek Canyon SNA, which should be all offtrail at this point, and supposedly has a huge collection of arches and other features.

Land nav in the Smokies seems like it could be particularly challenging, since you can't see crap most of the time, except what's right in front of you!

Pogue Creek Canyon SNA – This area looks like it will be an awesome off trail hike. No one around and awesome scenery. Looking forward to getting there in Spring.

Ryan