Stick to the plan? How about firm but flexible instead?
Fall trip to the Sheltowee Trace and John Muir Trail from Bandy Creek in the Big South Fork, Sept. 11-14, 2024. 34+ miles total.
By Mark Neikirk
Our hiking group has, over the years, developed a few sayings that we are fond of. We repeat them knowingly to one another, as a long-married couple might.
One is, “Another fine mess you’ve gotten me into.” That one is self-explanatory, and becomes more pertinent when any difficulty arises, such as a sustained thunderstorm or a lost route or deep creek to cross or an infestation of ticks. Suppose someone had the symptoms of dysentery. Or developed an abscess in his throat that constricted breathing and swallowing. Those would earn the "fine mess" sobriquet.
Another of our oft-repeated phrases is, “Not another Pauly Death March!” This one harkens back to the early years, which our “CEO” Bob Pauly liked to map out 25-mile hike days with full packs for us. Nowadays, we rarely hike more than five or six miles a day but dare to go, say, seven, and someone can be counted on to say, “Not another Pauly Death March!”
But the two real fixtures are “Stick to the plan” and a corollary that arose a few years later, “Be firm but flexible.”
All of these would be invoked on this trip. Beginning with the trip planning.
Where to go? There’s the question that looms large each time we plan a hike. First, Bob selects and announces a weekend, one in the spring and one in the fall. Then we meet a couple of weeks or so before departure to consider our options. Bob as CEO of the Patio Boys (an unpaid position but possessed with considerable influence) brings options — typically three.
I was the host of the planning party, and prepared chili, wings, and an assortment of beverages for the occasion. Bob brought maps. The core of the group attended: Bob, Bill Ankenbauer, Mark McGinnis, John Hennessy, Paul Guenthner, and John Curtin. Joining us, too, was a neighbor, Dave Freytag, who had not backpacked since the 1970s, a decade in which the 20th Century was as old as most of us are now, plus or minus a few years. We are not young. As the Grateful Dead sing, “A touch of grey … I will get by, I will survive.”
Paul and John could not go on this trip, one because of forthcoming outpatient surgery and the other because of a family wedding. Not at the meeting but intending to go was Eric Krosnes, who would be coming from his home outside of Nashville. So we would number seven.
Bob had previously let it be known that he would be recommending an Appalachia Trail option that would take us from our last AT hike’s northernmost point to Damascus, a sort of hiker party town. We have been wanting to end up there at some point and enjoy a burger and a beer in this legendary town, where weekend hikers like us and real AT hikers, covering the trail’s full 2,200 miles and taking six or seven months to do so. We always get a kick out of interacting with that community. Hearing their stories. Getting the etymology of their trail names. Talking gear. Talking bears. Talking why and how. Etc.
Bob also had a Clingmans Dome option in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Appropriately given whose native lands the Smokies actually are, Clingmans Dome is now known by its Cherokee name, Kuwahi. This option also was an AT section.
There was a problem with both of those selections. Hurricane Helene, which hit the Florida coast on September 26 and was destined to become the most deadly hurricane since Katrina in 2005. Not content to only devastate Florida, its winds and rain moved north into the Appalachians and wrecked town after town after town. Nearly a third of the AT was closed, and disaster relief teams begged hikers not to head out, since rescues might be required and that would divert resources from the rescue of residents.
Indeed, Eric calls the Smokies rangers and learned that indeed a small group had ignored the request. One of their group had a medical emergency. Air rescue was not possible because of the downed trees and related destruction. It took 40 people to get this hiker to the hospital — a thoroughly unnecessary diversion of resources.
Those two options were off the table.
A third was to hike a section of the Sheltowee Trace Trail, starting on the Kentucky-Tennessee border at Divide Road and proceeding south to the Bandy Creek campground in the Big South Fork National Recreation Area. I was fond of this option because I’m participating in the Sheltowee Trace Hiker Challenge (https://sheltoweetrace.org/hiker-challenge) this year.
About 100 people are hiking the trail’s 343 miles one weekend at a time. About half hike one weekend and the other half the next, and the Sheltowee Trace Association provides support, including shuttle service to and from each sections start and finish. I needed to hike this piece, Section 11, as part of the overall challenge — and I looked forward to probably seeing some of my Challenge colleagues
However. “However” indeed. I should write the word in all caps.
Yes, that is a big however. Stick to the plan? We could not. We’d need to be firm but flexible. And avoid a fine mess and a Death March.
Bob offered two other options, both shorter. The one was a loop that would not require us to shuttle cars or hire a shuttle service. The other required a short shuttle. So now we had three options including the longer and shuttle-requiring Seciton 11.
I voted for Section 11. There was no second. Too long. No loop. The Bandy Creek loop along the Laurel Fork Creek of about 17 miles was selected. In absentia, Eric votes for any route that included a stream in which he and I could fish. Quick research suggested great fishing in Laurel Creek. Bass. Trout. Even muskie. Our fly rods would be in our packs.
We were scheduled to leave on Friday morning, Oct. 11 at 7 a.m. and get to Bandy Creek around noon. Eric drove there a day early and talked to rangers. One, the Laurel Creek Trail was closed due, apparently, to downed trees and other damage from a May storm that hit East Tennessee very hard. Two, there is a Laurel Creek in Tennessee with all these fish. This was not that Laurel Fork Creek. This one might have some fish. It might not. We would have to see for ourselves.
Day One, Friday
Just before lunch, we arrived at Bandy Creek and connected with Eric, who had camped there overnight — and by now had confirmed that Laurel Fork Creek was closed. We made a couple of calls and asked the campground attendant, too. Maybe, since the storm was in May, it would not be so bad now. Maybe. But after some discussion, we decided on another option that Bob identified on the map. We could hike out the Sheltowee Trace, heading north west to the Charit Creek backcountry lodge, then on along the Station Camp Creek Trail, which was still part of the Sheltowee, until we arrived at the Station Camp ford on the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River, where we would cross knee-deep water to East River Trail, which would take us to the Leatherwood Ford near Bandy Creek.
We shuttled one car to Leatherwood Ford, a couple of miles away. Those logistics attended to, we headed to the Sheltowee and began to hike. The plan was to eat lunch soon after we got on the trail. Just after noon, I suggested we follow that plan — and eat lunch. No, most said, we just started. Let’s keep going. What happened to our motto: “Stick to the plan?” It was pretty much erased by now, including by the various rerouting required and now by this little mutiny over when to eat lunch. That would even out. Eric and I ate lunch, then caught up with Bob, Bill, Mark, Dave, and John, who were having a later lunch at a trail junction.
The weather was incredible. Clear, warm but with a cool and light breeze. Perfect for hiking. The trail was flat, or at least lightly rolling. The only challenge it presented was parts of the trail were sandy and so your feet sank like walking on a beach, which tires the legs a bit. Pretty minor problem. Horses were allowed on the trail, too, and some passed us. Unlike other shared trails that we have been on, this trail seemed to handle the horses, Their hooves hadn’t torn the trail up too badly,
Just short of the Charit Creek Lodge, we found a flat island where Middle Creek split on either side. It was roomy and felt like we were still backcountry, though Fork Ridge Road, a gravel, Forest Service road open to motored vehicles and bicycles. Several cyclists came past us, carrying camping gear to spend the night at Charit Creek. A handful of cars and trucks passed, too. But we were probably 500 yards below the road, and the primary sound was the rippling of the water.
Tents up, firewood collected, dinners made, we settled in for a peaceful night a couple of hundred miles from home and one another’s good company.
There were seven of us, a smaller group than on many trips past, but a nice sized group with good chemistry. Those who didn’t know Dave well had a chance to get to know him. He had borrowed much of his gear, and some of it was a bit old which means it was heavy. He carried a Thermarest self-inflating mattress that was nearly as big as his pack. He had it strapped onto the bottom, and though it wasn’t that heavy it did outweigh a more modern blow-up pad, and it made his overall load look tremendous. It was in fact too heavy by 2024 standards but would have been at home in 2007 or earlier. Should Dave return and hike with us again, as we hope he does, I’m guessing he’ll modernize.
I’ve been following a Facebook group called Vintage Backpacking, where people post selfies from the 1970s when they carried external frame Kelty and Jansport packs, as did I. They have flannel shirts on or, on a hot day, no shirt at all. They wear Levis or short shorts, big floppy wool locks, and bulky leather boots. I remember all of that and even the gear before that. I used to sleep in a canvas, shelter-half Army tent with wooden poles and no floor. Times change. I wonder what we’ll be hiking with in ten years or so, when we’ll be in our 80s and will welcome anything that cuts weight and adds comfort
The Forest Service had cut a fallen tree on the trail above, and we brought some of that down to the site for a fire. For some reason, the little pieces of wood here were very sparky, and we had to watch the floating sparks to be sure they didn’t ignite anything. They burned two pinholes in my sweater.
Having gotten up early to be here, we all went to bed early after a little bit of conversation on the usual topics. Family. Sports. Music. A small amount of politics. Come morning, we made breakfast then hit the trail.
Two coffee notes worth mentioning. One, I brought a Sea to Summit pour-over coffee filter that makes one cup of coffee from actual grounds. Pretty good. Eric found a Swedish coffee that comes in a tube like coal-black toothpaste. A dab or two of that with boiling water and you have it. Also pretty good.
It was a cold night, maybe in the 30s, and I slept irregularly and didn’t get warm until some adjustments, including Smart Wool long John’s and a tightly cinched collar on my sleeping bag.
Day Two, Saturday
Bob warned us that the Station Camp ford might be too deep to cross, and if so we would find another route back to Bandy Creek. We were on the trail by 10 a.m. and soon stopped at Charit Creek to chat with the owner and a few others. It’s an old place, once a farmhouse and then a hunting lodge and, once purchased by the Forest Service and its facilities expanded, a backcountry lodge that draws hikers to an overnight stay inside four solid walls rather than in a tent.
At Charit, you can order dinner, buy a beer, and use an indoor toilet. It’s rustic but, by backcountry standards, luxury. Later on this day, they are expecting 67 Sheltowee Trace Hiker Challenge guests, some of whom have rooms, some of whom will pitch tents on the grounds, and all of whom can buy a sit-down dinner of chicken and dumplings, or at least that was what was planned when we came through. More about the lodge at http://www.ccl-bsf.com/our-history-index-maple.
The trail from Charit Creek cuts due east and follows Station Camp Creek, at first at creek level and so flat but soon uphill as the trail parallels the creek but high above it. It is about three miles to the ford, and there the Sheltowee Trace turns sharply north. At the ford, we would have a decision to make, which we thought would turn on the depth of the river. But it was not that in the end.
Big South Fork was barely knee-deep and, though wide, easy enough to cross, as we could see as a young man who was deer hunting with a crossbow demonstrated as he crossed from the other side to us. He had driven a Forest Service road to the opposite shore, and now was coming over to look for prey. We told him we planned to cross and then hike south along the river on the East River Trail to Leatherwood Ford. Forget it, he said, that trail is impassable. It had collapsed into the river at some places and covered in trees almost everywhere.
We found tents sites a couple of hundred yards from the ford and set up for the night. It was early afternoon. Eric wanted to hit the river to fish. The deer hunter said it had been good to him on past canoe trips, where smallmouth were abundant at every riffle. Bob planned a day hike on the Sheltowee toward Maude’s Crack though not all the way there as it was 5 miles off, making for a 10 miles round trip
I wanted to do both but decided on the Maude’s Crack trek, hoping to make it all the way there with others or alone. I left 15 or so minutes ahead of Bob, Bill, and John to get started. I hoped to run into some of my Challenge friends. They were coming south on the Sheltowee, and some already had arrived at the turn toward Charit Creek, about 4 miles west of this point. I in fact did see a few, and we exchanged hellos and a little chitchat. I moved on, taken a wrong turn at one point and ending up as a dead-end that happened to be the grave of Helen Blevins, who was born in 1832 and died in 1913. http://files.usgwarchives.net/tn/scott/cemeteries/helenc.txt
Realizing my error, I turned back, connected with Bob, Bill, and John, and hiked with them. This stretch of trail is a shared route of Sheltowee and Tennessee’s John Muir Trail. About 2 1/2 miles from Maude’s Creek, Bob was ready to turn back, having hiked about an hour to this point. I decided to go on to Maude’s Crack, which is huge geological formation. It’s big ol’ rock with crack through it that you can twist through. We went there on a day hike a few years ago, 2011 to be precise. https://patioboys.com/hikes/43-maudescrack.
It is one of our most read stories, we speculate that is because it was the word “crack” in the title. Maybe we should put that word in every title. “Hikers crack some jokes.” “Hikers crack a book on the trail.” “Hikers crack 10-mile mark.” “Hikers crack open a bottle of bourbon.” “Hikers crack their noggins when they trip on a root.” “Hikers discuss criminal justice system’s inequity in dealing with the crack epidemic.” And so on.
I made it to Maude’s Crack but with daylight beginning to fade did not crawl though. I passed three through hikers on the way there and chatted a little. They were closing in on the finish after 18 days on the trail, and were in a jolly mood. They’d had, they told me, an uneventful hike. One bad storm (during Helene’s aftermath) but no injuries and mean people.
On the way back, I heard someone call out: “Hiker! Male!” It was peculiar, said with some alarm as if sounding warning. I was a little offended. It was a woman who hollered this out, and I suppose she was just being cautious. A woman on the trail faces more risks that a man. She was with another woman and a man. Santa Claus, we’ll call him. He had a bushy white beard.
By now, he had decided it was his role to get out front and confront me first. I wasn’t carrying a backpank or anything other than a small water bottle. He inquired immediately: “Just out to get water?” Not that it was any of his business, but no. And if I were doing that, I was carrying an awfully small bottle for the task at just 14 ounces and at this point only half full. “No,” I told him, “just out for a day hike,” and then moved along, a little pissed that they thought I was a threat they needed to avert. “Hiker! Male!” Well, ok, it was late in the day and the kind of the middle of nowhere and loan hiker is shorts and a tech shirt and trail shoes and a water bottle might seem like the Raymond Burr character in “Rear Window,” ready to chop someone up and bury them in the dirt.
And that’s want passed for drama on this trip. Until later.
Back at camp, Eric was having trouble speaking and was in pain. Shining a flashlight into his throat, you could clearly see serious swelling on one side. We had little on hand to treat this but made him some tea and provided some Tylenol. He went to bed early, feeling ill and with a fever. Meanwhile, Dave was having intestinal troubles, as if he’d drank some bad water although we all drank the same water. We were sharing a filter, and no one else was ill at this point.
Eric had gone fishing while I was on the Maude’s Crack hike but had no luck. He had a Tenkara rod, which is ideal for a small backcountry, mountain stream but not enough rod for a wide river like the South Fork.
That disappointment aside, let me tell you about the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River, in the back country. The river is picturesque when you cross over a bridge above it. But here, it is more natural element, it is how rivers once looked to Native Americans and even their aboriginal predecessors, who inhabited these woodlands — many of them living under the rock overhangs deeper in the forests. Here, they advanced from foragers to farmers, domesticating weeds into crops. A civilization was being born, only to be disrupted by an invasion of undocumented and unwanted immigrants from Europe. We might wish to remember these facts given our current national preoccupation with the right of “Americans” to be here without sharing this continent with new waves of immigrants, whose own time on this continent predates ours.
This magnificent river pools and ripples through these old forests of hardwoods and pines — or what’s left of them, because the Europeans also brought blights and the like to kill off some species. Here, there are a few signs of modern life. Some flags on limber metal poles mark the suggested crossing for people and horses. On the opposite shore, you can sometimes hear an SUV making its way on the gravel road above. And there’s some concrete over there at the river’s edge, apparently a canoe launch below a picnic ground,
But mostly, you can come here and see what people have seen for probably 10,000 years, which is roughly how long people have been known to be in these mountains. Under the stars, more visible here than in the city, a thoughtful person is invited to contemplate all this, as well as the eternity of the universe above and the infinity of time, paused on this night in this moment.
Day Three, Sunday
Next morning, both patients were worse off and we could offer little. Someone had a couple of Imodium tablets for Dave but they weren’t enough to do much good. But we had to hike on.
The morning’s first decision was where to go and once again Bob presented options. We were near a junction with the Laurel Fork Creek Trail, the route he had first wanted to take but that was officially closed because of storm damage. We came a very cool swinging bridge over Laurel Creek Fork. Eric and I got our fishing gear out. This was a more Tenkara-sized stream. Also, I was going to baptize my new collapsible 4-weight fly rod.
Bob, Bill, John, Mark, and Dave hiked on, deciding to try the Laurel Fork Creek. There was no sign at this point saying “closed” or other officious warning. So they went that way, thinking maybe there would be just a few downed trees easily walked around.
Eric and I rigged and headed to the creek to fish.
After about 20 minutes, Bob, Bill, John, Mark, and Dave returned. The Laurel Fork Creek Trail was a tangle of trees. Impassable. If that was the plan, we could not stick to it. Time again to be firm but flexible. Bob presented two new options. One involved going up a Forest Service road, which another hiker warned us was straight uphill will no switchbacks. Jeeps, for which such roads are made, don’t require switchbacks. Hikers do. The other climbed the same mountainside but would be a little longer. However, it had switchbacks. Being flexible, we picked that one.
Eric and I fished a little more and the minnows (probably darters and the like) were tearing up our flies, hitting them repeatedly on every cast. And the stream was flat out beautiful, alternating between pools and riffles and disappearing around forested bends. A swinging bridge over the stream added to the feel of the place. It was in the 70s, with the sun’s warmth in evidence but enough cool in the air to create a perfect temperature. We could get to the spots without getting our feet wet and cast easily,
We did see a handful of full-sized fish but none took a fly. They minnows made it lively but couldn’t get their mouths around even our smallest flies so nothing was caught. Still, it was a great break in the hike.
Eric and I packed up and headed up the mountainside to try and catch up with the others. His throat was still pounding in pain, and between that and his fever he had not slept much the night before. So he was tired. We paused for lunch. I boiled some water quickly, and dissolved a bouillon cube to make his an easy to swallow soup. It was spirit lifting, and we carried on — eventually catching up. Dave was moving slowly because his intestinal affliction was weakening his body, and his overweight and off-balanced pack added to his difficulties. Soon, he was requiring rest every quarter mile or so. He needed rest, not an uphill climb.
Mark hung back with Dave, and we caught them first. Eric went on, needing to get to camp and get some rest himself. Eventually, I told Mark I’d stay back with Dave while he went ahead. We kept on keeping on with more frequent breaks. I gave him my walking sticks; he had none and when you are weary they are especially helpful.
He and I arrived at a campsite where the others already were set up. It was on a side trail to an overlook, and was tight for seven tents — or more precisely, six tents and one hammock, Eric’s. But we squeezed in, got a fire going, and settled in for dinner. Eric finished quickly, unable really to eat anything and went off to bed.
We had near perfect weather this trip, and Bill, our weatherman, had checked and any threat of rain was no passed. But from the overlook, we could see a lot of sky. Off in the distance, heat lightning flashed. “There’s no such thing as heat lightning,” Bill informed us. “There’s just lightning.” And there it was again. “Heat lightning,” someone said. “There’s no such thing as heat lightning,” Bill said. Mark looked it up on the web since at this high spot we had two or three bars. The National Weather Service website informed us:
“The term heat lightning is commonly used to describe lightning from a distant thunderstorm just too far away to see the actual cloud-to-ground flash or to hear the accompanying thunder.
“While many people incorrectly think that heat lightning is a specific type of lightning, it is simply the light produced by a distant thunderstorm.
“Often, mountains, hills, trees or just the curvature of the earth prevent the observer from seeing the actual lightning flash. Instead, the faint flash seen by the observer is light being reflected off higher-level clouds. Also, the sound of thunder can only be heard for about 10 miles from a flash.”
So, we tell Bill, “You’re right.” To which he probably replies, “I know I am.”
Bill Ankenbauer worked in the morning newsroom of a television station, where accurate and up-to-the-minute weather is the morning’s main business. We call his updates “Ank -U-weather” and count on their accuracy. So how had he missed this? Because now we head heat thunder. “There’s no such thing as heat thunder,” a frustrated Bill exclaimed. OK, now we’re just toying with him. But really, how did he get this wrong?
“It popped up, It wasn’t there 10 minutes ago. But it is now. It will be here in 10 minutes and hit hard and not last long—and then it will be done,” he informed us.
That is exactly what happened. We hurried to our tents to stay dry, then came back out to enjoy the fire, which survived the brief downpour, and a clear evening that soon had magnificent stars and a three-quarter moon,
Day Four, Monday
We made a plan and stuck to it: Get up, get packed, hit the trail by 8 a.m
This stretch of the John Muir Trail is stunning. It follows a cliff’s edge, with vast overlooks spanning the forested valley and, in places, giving a glimpse of the river below. At the halfway point, more or less, back to Bandy Creek, it crosses over the Alfred Smith Road, a Forest Service road that connects with another and then back to Bandy Creek. A mountain biker was loading his bike in his truck. Eric and Dave, both exhausted, sat down on the road bank to rest.
Hmm. Might the cyclist be going back to Bandy Creek? Would he consider giving Eric and Dave a ride back? Eric offered him $30. “I’ll give you a ride. No charge,” he said without ever once shouting: “Hiker! Male!” Honestly, this was a well-timed and great kindness on his part.
Here the John Muir Trail went off in a clockwise loop to the east called Grand Gap Loop. At that junction, near a place called Angel Arch, the Muir trail rejoined the Sheltowee and we could skip the loop and just hit the Sheltowee for the walk back to Bandy Creek, some six or so miles away at this point.
This is an early part of the Section 12 hike for the Challenge hikers next month. It is their final section as they wrap up their year and the trail. They are in for a treat. This section rivals the Red River Gorge (an earlier section) for big rock structures, including overhangs and waterfalls. And the trail is easy and quickly walked. I kept a sub 20-minute pace without taxing myself.
When we got back to the parking lot at the swimming pool at Bandy Creek, Dave was waiting. He’d been the camp store and had a Coke. Eric was already on the way back to Nashville and had called his doctor, who said his ailment sounded like an abscess. The doc called in a penicillin prescription for him and told him to get to an urgent care to be assessed no later than Tuesday. At home, the pain was unsubsided, and Eric went to an urgent care where he was diagnosed with peritonsillar abscess, which the Cleveland Clinic https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22817-peritonsillar-abscess-quinsy warns can be serious “especially if it grows so large that it blocks your throat. This can make it difficult to speak, swallow or breathe. Left untreated, the infection can even spread to your mouth, neck, chest or lungs.”
Eric already was having trouble speaking and swallowing, so urgent care was in order. He hates needles but welcomed this one. But Tuesday morning, he was at work on the mend.
As he headed back to Nashville on Monday afternoon, we headed to Sonic for food. In the early days of our hiking group, some 20 years ago for some of us, Sonic was part of the experience. We never went anywhere else. We had gotten away from that, trying some local diners and laying aside the Sonic tradition, bowing to the flexible part of “firm but flexible.” But this time, Bob was insisting on Sonic. Mark McGinnis was saying, “Not me.” “Well, there’s a Hardee’s next door. You can go there.” Not sure in what universe Hardee’s is better than Sonic. Or vice versa.
We stuck to the plan. Everyone ordered and ate at Sonic.
Burgers. Fries. Sodas. At least one milkshake. And home. Our total mileage was about 34 miles, twice as long as originally conceived and slightly longer than Section 11 would have been had we elected that option. With the Maude’s Crack addition, I had about 40 miles. What to say about that? We had to be firm but flexible, even if it meant a fine mess and something like a Death March.
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Thank you for reading. We hope you enjoyed this account of our hike and encourage you to read the accounts of other trips on www.patioboys.com. You can comment on these accounts via email to