Wild Country

kevinumberger · Joined: 03 Jul 2008 Posts: 66

i'll look at my calendar and figure it out.....

i think that weekend in august would work for me, but let me check.....

yellowhammer · Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 164 Location: Western N.C.

Dave, I sure wish I had seen the trap, but I didn't. That's quite a find! I can't say I have ever seen anything like that in the woods except for the pit that was just up the mountain when I was a kid. My dad told me it was part of a bear trap but I never really quizzed him on it.

Jenny, Aug. 7 or 8 won't work for me and September probably would, but it certainly won't hurt my feelings if you folks go in August if that weekend is good for others.

Thanks to both for the kind words.

jennyb · Joined: 04 Feb 2009 Posts: 154 Location: Asheville, NC

Kevin Umberger, Chris Sass, and I ventured up the Shanty Mountain manway on Sunday. It was a fine adventure. The route we took included two distinct segments of human history: the settlers of Cataloochee in the lower section along Shanty Branch, and the old Spruce Mountain firetower. We found an old phone line along much of the ridgecrest--it was used for communications to the fire tower.

Due to schedule constraints, we didn't start until after 11:00, and we came out in the dark with headlamps. We ended up using the Balsam Mountain road and the Palmer Creek trail to return to our starting point. My original idea had been to connect with the Palmer Creek valley off trail, but it was getting too late to do that. What really slowed us down was a section of laurel and rhodo along the upper ridge which we traveled on hands and knees.

For a full account of the trip, go to:

http://streamsandforests.wordpress.com/2010/08/10/shanty-mountain-manway/
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RyeCrouton · Joined: 20 Jul 2007 Posts: 106 Location: Knoxville

Nicely documented as always, Jenny. Thank you for each of the trip reports on your blog site that you create- there's a bit of time invested on those!

I'm glad I was able to help out with some notes for this outing. I would like to have gone along, but maybe not if the group didn't get started until 11 AM. You were doing some serious bushcrawling in the hottest part of a mid-90's day! I would have started an outing like this around 7 AM and been close to the top by mid-day. But then again, if so, I'd have missed the night-hiking your group did, which is marvelous this time of year.

Congrats on another classic manway outing, and one that a lot of people have not done but needed to know about.

kevinumberger · Joined: 03 Jul 2008 Posts: 66

jennyb · Joined: 04 Feb 2009 Posts: 154 Location: Asheville, NC

Kevin, you made a few more stops than Chris and I did, but it didn't make that much difference in our total time! Besides, you had a great eye for spotting the phone line and the faint paths that ran off to the side, and that really helped. Smile

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kevinumberger · Joined: 03 Jul 2008 Posts: 66

jenny also didnt mention her method of slow hikers keeping pace----if someone is slow, she ties a rope around ya, and if you slow down, she'll give it a yank...

Wink

jk----this was a good hike........tons of history and what not........

fwiw, here's some video of the elk that came through the campsite on saturday..........i stayed there and then met jenny and chris the next morning down at the road.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9GWSsig8kM