Re: [at-l] Cheerio in the Smokies

[ThatSloetoe <sloetoe@yahoo.com>]

--- Coosa <coosa@fox21.net> wrote:
> IF a person was to skirt the Smokies -- is there a blue-blaze trail one
> could hike?  And if so, could one claim to be a Thru Hiker if one didn't
> hike the AT thru the Smokies?
> 

The AT through the Smokies follows the highest and generally most scenic
route. With the scenery and challenge comes usage, which is followed by
set/reserved shelter sites. As you get further from the AT, you quickly go to
shelterless sites (still requiring reservations) and then to regular
backcountry campsites not requiring reservations. But the reason they are
lesser used is because they have lesser scenery/challenge, and are at lesser
altitudes. (Just on a practical level, the lake front trail out of Fontana
would require a heavy increase in bug repellent. Eesh. The Smokies at lower
altitudes are a different ballgame.) You COULD hike the main ridge and hike
off and camp at night on lesser trails, but most of your hiking would be to
zipper back and forth across the AT route, and thus up and down the main
ridge, each day. Ugh!! A Shuckstack a day? 

The are 700 other miles of Smokies trails, however, so lots of other
traverses are possible. 

=====
Sloetoe


"And yet we shouldn't have needed the cataclysm to love life
today. It would have been enough to think that we are humans,
and that death may come this evening."   Marcel Proust, 1922.

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