Re: [at-l] Cheerio in the Smokies

[Gary Ticknor <garyticknor@starpower.net>]

Still, the Mount Pisgah Trail comes to mind.

- Gary from Fairfax

ThatSloetoe wrote:

> --- 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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