I'm usually not much of a summer hiker, preferring to hit the bike instead until the weather cools down. This summer though, I've really enjoyed hitting some of the high country trails, especially after the long, bitter winter that we endured. Donna needed Palmer Creek, Sterling Ridge, and a short piece of the Pretty Hollow Gap trail for her 900 quest, so we re-visited the hike that I did on May 30. I need very little coaxing to hike Sterling Ridge, one of the finest stretches of pathway in the Smokies. When I did the hike in May, I started out from the Balsam Mtn. road and saved the climb up Palmer Creek until the end of the hike. This time we started down in Cataloochee and got the climb out of the way early in the day, before the heat settled in. For some reason, the Palmer Creek trail has always seemed to be a really easy climb to me. The ladyslippers that lined the upper section of trail back in May were long gone, but there were still a few flame azalea hanging on.
Above, Donna crosses one of the bridges on the lower section of the Palmer Creek trail. Somebody had been doing some trail work down low on the trail and had repaired a lot of the horse damage that I had seen on the earlier hike.

Balsam Mtn. was a real treat on this walk - cool and breezy and for the most part, dry. This was one of the hog bogs that we passed near Beech Gap. We had passed this way only a few weeks earlier on a trip to Tricorner Knob, but on that trip, it was a muddy, slippery (and still enjoyable) mess. Check out that grin - she's digging it!

We spotted this bear track on the upper section of the Pretty Hollow Gap trail. It would have made a great cast, with a lot of detail in the track. There was a lot of scat too - lots of bear traffic on the Pretty Hollow Gap path, probably heading down to scope out the campsites at the bottom of the mountain.
Sterling Ridge was in fine form, smooth and for the most part, weed-free. There was a short stretch, perhaps 100 feet, of tall weeds right as we dropped down into the Gap. It should be a good year for blackberries - lots of those in the Gap. We stopped for a brief food break there before heading on down Pretty Hollow. I wonder how many times I've sat there at the Gap over the decades that I've hiked the Smokies trails - 30? 40? More??? It just keeps getting better and better as the years go by.

We saw beaucoup large fungi and shrooms along the trails, especially as we dropped down through the Pretty Hollow Gap section. This one reminded me of a turkeys display.
After a long cool day on the high ridges, the heat and humidity along the lower stretches of the Pretty Hollow Gap trail was hard to handle. The temptation to take a long soak in one of the pools down low was nearly irresistable, but the late evening munchies were coming on strong, so we pressed on to the end.
We enjoyed a great day on the trail, with near-perfect weather and some superb Great Smoky Mountain scenery.

Turks Cap Lilies.
Next day:
We dropped off Donna's car at Cove Creek Gap the next morning and drove over to Polls Gap to start the hike along the Cataloochee Divide. I haven't hiked the eastern end of the trail since sometime back in the 70s. The changes were numerous and amazing, with a lot of development going up right beside the park boundary. Some of the changes were welcome - there's a heck of a lot less trash along the boundary now than there was then. The Swag is beautiful and fits in well with the high mountain scenery, but some of the road construction nearer Cove Creek Gap was a mess, with a lot of erosion and trashy empty lots.
I was pretty sleepy, but Donna sets a good pace and I had to either wake up or wimp out. We covered the first few miles out to Hemphill Bald in short order. The Bald is the first of the several open areas that we'd pass along the trail, and it offers hikers some great views of the Cataloochee Ranch and ski area.

Rhododendron lined parts of the trail and were still in full bloom.

The trail out of Polls Gap was in great shape. Somebody had done a lot of clearing and tread work on it recently.

As the trail climbs the westerm side of Hemphill Bald, it runs alongside a meadow that is a part of the Cataloochee Ranch. It's a lot steeper than it appears in this photo, but the scenery more than makes up for the effort of climbing.

A sittin' and thinkin' spot atop Hemphill Bald.

The view down into Jonathon Valley from Hemphill Bald.

Some of these photos are from an earlier hike to the Bald. This one is from a walk I did last summer. A thunderstorm was blowing across the ridges below me, creating some interesting lighting as the sun played hide and seek with the clouds.

Shrooms!

I always wondered how I'd look with a 'full' beard - now I know, thanks to some thick moss that was growing on a trailside tree...

Baby juncos in a nest tucked into a little hollow beside the trail. We saw hundreds of the little grey birds along the trail that day, but this was the only nest that we spotted. In many parts of the park, wild hogs have decimated the population of juncos by scouring the trails for nest sites.

The Swag, a high-end resort right on the park boundary, created this unique area with fantastic views of the Jonathon Valley and the surrounding mountains.

My favorite spot at the Swag. A deck has been built by the resort out on the mountainside overlooking the valley far below. It's a great place for a trailside snack and some R&R before continuing the hike.

And this one wasn't bad either.

Lots of shrooms growing on the fallen trees at trailside.

Further along the trail, we passed this neat little spot, Taylors Turnaround - not sure about how it got its name, but it's another cool place to kick back and enjoy an idyllic spot on the mountainside. The Divide trail is a fine walk, especially if you enjoy a path that winds across rolling ridgelines with terrific views. The worst part of the trail is knowing that you'll soon reach the end...

It was a terrific weekend, one of the best mid-summer hiking trips that I've ever had. I enjoyed great company on some of my favorite trails, good weather, some good food, and we even snagged basecamp sites at the Cataloochee campground in the valley. Can't beat that for good times in wild country!