Off-trail in the Smokies, remembering a friend’s final bushwack to what’s next
My feet were dangling way too far from terra firma so I death-gripped a bending piece of rhododendron. The branch stretched with increasing gravity, and my toes reached for nothing as the shrub eventually succumbed. When this alpine slide was complete, some 20 feet down the hill, I signaled to Frank Whitehead, my usual cohort, that everything was fine and the pathway fully paved. For some reason he was not inspired; I released the small rootball in my hand.
He was warned. Porter’s Creek manway is not for the fainthearted. Just ask Morgan Briggs. In 2009, he took off in pursuit of this elusive, Smokies off-trail, but learned that “ciphering” is the real trick here as there is no “trail.” Where Porter’s Creek ends, true adventure begins.
I tend to use backcountry site #31 as basecamp for this bushwhack. Rescuers can begin their search at my tent if ever needed. Morgan didn’t have a basecamp when he took a left turn at Albuquerque, so to speak, instead of a right one and ended up stranded atop Porter’s Mountain.
My compadre on this ascent was wetting his feet at one of a dozen crossings, occasionally marked by rock cairns. We’ve lost count of our decussations and Frank notes, “It’s wild in here.” Wicked big trees and massive blowdowns create what we call the mega logjam, an important navigational marker. We can either turn right and shoot for Lester Prong or muscle straight up to the Appalachian Trail (AT). Over my shoulder is the shadow of the mountain where Morgan ended up when the helicopters found him after several days. He was no novice and got a full dose deep in this punchbowl.
I know which way to turn here thanks to some critical data from an expert on the area. I’d made this climb several times, but reached out to Jenny Bennett in 2012 as Porter’s Creek was always her jam, and I was looking to dial in to what she considered the “real” route. Of course, this is all subjective, depending upon your goal. Jenny usually angled for the bottom of the “true Bunion”. This was the path of Lester Prong.
Charlie’s Bunion folds down to this valley, but few will ever make it down to Jenny’s trail. We veer uphill aiming for a feature known as The Sawteeth. It’s where Class 3 scrambling turns into full-blown mountaineering as we dodge crippling undergrowth and climb precipitously in our second mile. We will miss the “true Bunion” as this present line seems to pull me like a magnet towards the AT. Perhaps I was putting off the reality of Lester Prong.
Small patches of snow glisten in the sun as we rise to the spine of our favorite national footpath. Frank grumbles about my decision to forge another “new” route. He has more sense than me and notes we have abandoned the cairns that would mysteriously appear in random places. It’s getting slick as we rise to almost 5,000 feet. Patches of ice lurk beneath shrubbery likely unread by any human boot. Rhododendron and laurel are replaced by heath and shrinking branches less conducive to our pulling. We claw our fingernails into loamy soil for purchase, chasing false summits. “It’s got to be over the next rise,” I yell to him.
Any chance he wanted to bail on this climb were extinguished when we turned at Lester Prong. No one wants to be down there blazing back through this wilderness alone. The Sawteeth were directly above me, less than 100 feet away. This is a rocky section of the AT, north of Charlie’s Bunion. It was getting late when we slapped that patch of flat ground. The relief on Frank’s face said it all. But we were only halfway. Summits are optional; successful descents are mandatory. Given the late hour, any notion of running out to tag Charlie’s Bunion was abandoned.
I campaigned to chase another line downhill, much to Frank’s chagrin. Shortcuts aren’t always shortcuts. Frank asks, “How do you always find the most difficult way?” It took two hours to drop back into the large part of this creek. We pause to dust off limbs and dirt from our sleeves as we wade the split at the creek.
Pausing half in and half out of Porter’s Creek, plastered in leaf litter and gratitude, Frank may have doubted, but we were going to make it out of here in a couple of hours. That’s not always the case with Porter’s Creek. I thought about what Jenny once prophetically wrote, “Porter’s Creek and Lester Prong form pathways for rock hoppers that lead to mysterious and difficult places.”
You see, somewhere along this stretch within 800 or 900 yards, my friend made her final bushwhack. It was 2015 when she disappeared deep into Lester Prong for another one of her solo hikes. Rescuers spent several days combing lower Porter’s Creek, but I had a feeling
I knew where they may find her. Jenny’s final resting spot was here where untamed Lester says goodbye to Porter’s Creek and rises up to the real Bunion.
Much speculation surrounded her passing, which reverberated deeply through the off-trail community. She wasn’t lost; the NPS report determined that Jenny decided when and where she wanted to exit this planet. As we paused in the reverent shadow of unlogged poplar and hemlock, pink-billed junco birds shot like missiles through the air as the day’s remaining light fell. I wanted to sit and bathe myself in this maze of connecting streams that collide to form Porter’s drainage. In that moment, as a pileated woodpecker squawked in the distance, I felt some understanding and clarity. I could envision no more suitable portal to transition from this adventure to the next.
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