Susan Donnelly

You’re right, I want to inspire you to test your limits, break through your barriers and go further than you thought possible, so why would I possibly write about not reaching a destination?

 

Hear me out.

 

Rob and I went to the Smokies again on Sunday.  We go to the Cumberlands or the Smokies to run on non-racing weekends.  This is the perfect place to live for that, but I digress…

We planned to run Rainbow Falls trail to Mt. Leconte and back down Bull Head trail to the car.  I’ve done this loop several times and it’s a great way to grab the most elevation gain and loss in a short distance (16 miles?) with fantastic scenery icing the cake.  This is no ho-hum route and the weather was, well…unbelievable to those of us in the southeast.  Instead of HHH (hot, humid, hazy) it was CCC (cool, clear, and crisp).  Believe me, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event to be able to leave the windows and doors open in the mid-July because it’s nicer outside than in.

I needed to finish staining some window trim before we left, so we left later than planned.  The trailhead was crowded when we arrived and we got moving asap.  Steadily up the climb, we wove in and around all the assorted serious hikers and vacationing families families trudging the 3 or so miles to Rainbow Falls, talking a bit with most of them on the way.  It was fun sharing trail and joking with everyone, since we’re usually alone on most trails.  All in all, it was great to see a trail so well-used. 

 

 

 

The falls themselves performed just as advertised in the guidebooks, happy with recent rainwater.  Rob had never seen them and was suitably impressed.  We snapped some shots with everyone else and moved on uphill, suddenly without everyone else.

 

 

Immediately after the falls, the trail was thinner, less worn, and quiet.  We had it all to ourselves.  We wound upwards, switchback by switchback.  The cloudy sky started to turn into a permanent, cottony cloud.  I ran ahead and then waited around every other switchback or so while Rob climbed steadily behind.

And suddenly, a switchback below me, Rob pointed to something flaming orange below him.  A late flame azalea?  I ran down to see…wow…we stared, searching for the name.  Turk’s Cap Lily!  Neither one of us had ever seen one in the wild.  We looked around and there were several, all towering over Rob’s 6-foot height.  If you’ve never seen one, it’s hard to describe because they’re so unexpected and exotic in the middle of the Smokies.  They look like they belong in a greenhouse.  Gary Knipling, you should be here!

We oohed and aaahed to heart’s content.  Who knows if we would have this chance this year.  Each one of these giants takes years to even leave the ground and grow into a flowering plant.  We finally tore ourselves away and faced the tough fact that we wouldn’t summit today.  We could run another 20 minutes up.

Once I’m out there, I hate to face turning around before the destination so I didn’t think about it.

At 20 minutes, we stopped.  We spotted some blooming wintergreen and some blueberries that hadn’t been eaten (I amended the situation – yum!).  Unbelievably, we found some galax still blooming that should have bloomed back in April.

 

While poking around, we heard some noisy hikers slowly approaching.  We kept looking around, spotting neon-orange mushrooms and the whorled loosestrife we’d missed earlier (and still wow-ing about the lilies).

Eventually, it occurred to me that there wasn’t a switchback where the hiker noise was coming from.  It was off trail.  We peered over the edge into the rhododendron below.  Sure enough, a black bear going about it’s summer business eating something out of a tree.  We’d been talking and clearly hadn’t bothered it below.  We watched for a short while and decided now it was really time to go.

 

At the parking lot, it was hard not to laugh.  Turk’s Cap lilies-wow, a totally nexpected coup, Rugel’s indian plaintain, yellow-headed coneflower, red bee balm, white snakeroot, flowering rattlesnake plaintain, yellow jewelweed, and hobblebush viburnum with yellow berries…and a bear.  So what if we didn’t make it up to Leconte?  We were the only ones to answer to, and we were thrilled to have seen what we’d seen.  It’s the quality in the time that matters.

Besides, we’d never have spotted the Turk’s Cap lilies or the bear if we’d been dead-set on the end goal of Mt. Leconte that we missed the journey.  The goal didn’t really matter today – it wasn’t life or death, it was just a starting goal. 

We can go up to Mt. Leconte again because it’s so close.  Sometimes, like Sunday, you have to give up the goal you planned to see the one you’ve reached.

Posted: Tuesday, July 21, 2009, 12:02 am | Tags: Blog | Respond | Trackback