A Long, Winding Road Through Great Smokies

At the top of Issaqueena Falls, a narrow path led to a misty nook behind the roaring cataract. We reached into the watery curtain with cupped hands, stealing a sip before the current cascaded over a dozen rocky ledges to a stream 200 feet below.

Outside the alcove, the trail veered toward stands of hickory and long-leafed pine, clinging to the mountainside before dropping abruptly to follow the falls.

I went first, picking my way carefully down the steep path that changed quickly from packed earth to slick, ochre-colored clay.

Suddenly I slipped. Sliding out of control, I lunged for a sapling and grabbed it a few feet before disappearing into a small ravine.

Scrambling to my feet, I skated the rest of the slippery descent. It was worth it.

The falls cut through the sun-dappled forest like a jagged scar of stone pummeled by crashing water. It was difficult to hear anything over the din.

Issaqueena Falls was a heart-stopping start to a weeklong journey that my wife and I took through the Great Smoky and southern Appalachian mountains.

Using back roads, we made a 170-mile loop through western South Carolina and North Carolina. The loop took us through a village on the Appalachian Trail, a hamlet renowned for its mountain crafts and several other places that were ideal jumping-off points for day-trips to secluded waterfalls, hiking trails brimming with wildflowers and rivers for white-water rafting.

Our route skirted the boundaries of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, until the end when we plunged into the popular federal reserve for two days of hikes.

Atop an observation tower at Clingmans Dome, a 6,642-foot summit, we admired the famous haze that hangs over the ancient peaks.

At Walhalla, a hamlet of 4,000 in South Carolina’s northwest corner, our guidebooks said the town is named after Valhalla, the legendary garden paradise of the gods in Norse mythology.

Walhalla’s real beauty, a service station attendant in town told us, was five miles up the road at Issaqueena Falls, named for a mythical Indian maiden.

An unobtrusive wooden sign on the right side of South Carolina 28, “Issaqueena Falls--Stumphouse Mountain Tunnel,” pointed us down a narrow, winding road to a picnic area and the top of the falls, where we started our precipitous hike.

Having survived the treacherous path (vowing never to be caught wearing tennis shoes on a clay trail again), we followed the gas station attendant’s second suggestion and walked up the paved road to the tunnel, a piece of the folklore in South Carolina’s Up Country.

The tunnel is a monument to a gallant but futile effort in the 1850s to burrow through a mile of granite. After six years of chipping and blasting, the Blue Ridge Railroad ran out of money for the project that was to link South Carolina to the Midwest. Despite revived attempts in 1876, 1900 and 1940, the tunnel remains unfinished but not abandoned.

The tunnel’s constant climate, 50 degrees and 90% humidity, was perfect for aging blue cheese. So for 15 years, until the mid-1950s, Clemson University aged its commercial brand of blue cheese in it.

Inside the 1,600-foot tunnel, dripping water from the blasted-rock ceiling had carved out permanent puddles. The drops echoed in tinny pings off the cavernous walls.

As we walked farther inside, the inky blackness sopped up light leaking from the entrance. Without a flashlight, we quit after our path dissolved into darkness.

Back on the road, driving up miles of switchbacks, we understood why a tunnel through Stumphouse Mountain made sense. The scenery helped soothe our queasy stomaches as we passed dozens of flowering dogwoods, peach and apple orchards and an occasional pasture with horses basking in the sun.

Crossing into North Carolina we entered Cullasaja River Gorge. Along the canyon on U.S. 64 are five waterfalls. Our favorite was Dry Falls, which was anything but. From the parking lot an easily traversed path curls behind the base of the 120-foot falls.

A friend recommended that we stay overnight in Dillsboro, N.C., a hamlet of 182 people known for its artisans, about an hour west of Ashevile, N.C., and due north of Walhalla.

Activity in the village revolves around about 50 weavers, silversmiths, potters, antique dealers, inns, restaurants and other merchants. Official business in Dillsboro is sparse: city hall is open from 8 a.m. to noon on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Walking down Dillsboro’s main thoroughfare, Haywood Street, an old-fashioned, red Texaco gasoline pump propped up outside Jones Country Store caught my attention.

Inside the store we discovered a Depression-era time capsule. Antique toy race cars, surveying instruments, wooden tennis racquets in their presses, dishware, pots and pans and assorted knickknacks hung from hooks, bulged from shelves and beckoned from barrels and bins arranged on the worn hardwood floor.

One of the few contemporary pieces in the store was its owner, Marion Jones, who greeted us from a rocking chair next to the pot-bellied stove where he was smoking a pipe and strumming a banjo.

Jones, a 52-year-old former investigator for North Carolina’s 30th Judicial District, regaled us with stories of cases he’d covered..

“Farmers around here are real nice people,” Jones said in his soft mountain drawl. “But you steal from them and you’re liable to get a britches full of lead.”

We steered clear of any gun-toting landowners, choosing instead to challenge the rapids on one of the region’s many mountain rivers.

One goal of our trip had been to canoe or raft some of the region’s famous rivers. So from Dillsboro we backtracked 25 miles west along U.S. 19 to the Nantahala Outdoor Center, one of several companies in the area that lead guided river-rafting trips.

Because workers were repairing the dam that controls the flow of the Nantahala River, our group of 15 people was shuttled by school bus to the nearby Little Tennessee River.

After a briefing that included a stern warning to point our feet up in the water if we capsized (to avoid lodging a foot between rocks on the river bottom or hitting our heads on rocks), we set out in one- and two-person “ducks,” 10-foot, banana-shaped boats made of reinforced rubber that were better suited to navigate the river’s rocky, narrow passages than larger rafts.

Armed with double-bladed paddles, our chain of rafts snaked down the gorge. From the high-water mark on the banks we could tell that the river was down about three feet from its normal level, a stark reminder of the severe drought that has gripped much of the Southeast for as long as three years.

Wildlife was abundant. A water snake slithered across our bow. A few minutes later an osprey angled across the sky.

We floated lazily through calm waters for parts of the two-hour trip, but more often we zigzagged through minefields of rocks, many hidden except for a telltale riffle.

My wife and I developed our own comic routine: Scream at each other to avoid the rocks, get stuck on the rocks, push off the rocks with our paddles, and get ready for the next assault. What a team.

Our group finally pulled up on the river bank to survey the final run, a raging current coursing through a V-shaped narrows. “Just aim for the white water and you’ll be fine,” said our guide, speaking from years of experience to a group of nervous novices.

My wife and I shoved off, snagged briefly on a rock, then shot through the churning white water to the cheers of our fellow rafters. We paddled into a calm pool, soaked and sitting in eight inches of water, but exhilarated.

If we found the spirit of adventure on the Little Tennessee, we discovered the timeless soul of the Smokies at a small inn in Hot Springs, N.C., a strong recommendation from a friend who attended Duke University but sought solace in the Smokies.

A 19th-Century tourist mecca whose mineral springs attracted thousands of visitors a year, Hot Springs is a sleepy village of 500 that straddles the border of North Carolina and Tennessee, 60 miles east of Knoxville.

The hub of Hot Springs is Elmer Hall’s rambling, two-story Victorian inn just off Main Street.

For nearly a dozen years the inn has been a popular stop for 2,000 hikers a year off the Appalachian Trail, which runs down Main Street. It is also a haven for students, poets, artists, writers and anyone else seeking the tranquillity of the mountains.

Hall, a bearded 51-year-old retired Methodist minister, describes the inn as “an alternative place for an alternative kind of people.” Most guests we met were hiking the 2,100-mile trail, including a few college students, a computer programmer and a retired businessman.

In the inn’s common rooms, guests sink into overstuffed couches or rockers to swap stories from the trail or browse through bookshelves loaded with bird and wildflower guides, histories of the Appalachian Trail and books on Oriental philosophy.

All meals are vegetarian and served family-style. Dinner one night was a delicious homemade vegetable soup, a huge tossed salad and whole-wheat pasta with pesto and fresh chopped tomatoes.

From the inn there were several day-hikes that varied in length and difficulty. We chose a 10-miler along nearby Laurel Creek, and were rewarded with a creekside path fringed with wild geraniums, silverbells, trilliums, iris and sweet clover.

Somehow we missed the cutoff back to the inn, and our three-hour nature walk turned into an adventure. With the French Broad River on our left, we followed the railroad tracks we knew took us back to town. Walking on railroad ties was boring but bearable, until we came to a bridge that spanned the river.

We had a problem. The 400-foot-long railroad bridge had no pedestrian walk and nowhere to go if a train came, except the swiftly moving river 25 feet below.

We stepped gingerly out onto the tracks. The trick was to avoid looking down at the river through the two-foot gaps in the ties (causing instant vertigo) or stepping on one of the rotting beams.

We both took deep breaths. The wind whistled through the bridge girders in an eerie aria. We were supposed to head back to Greenville the next morning. Would we make it? We started out across the bridge. I walked. My wife crawled. No trains came. We made it back to the inn just in time for supper.

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The best times of year to visit the Great Smoky Mountains are spring and fall. The fall foliage colors rival those of New England.

Nowhere is the burst of wildflowers more exuberant than in the Smokies at springtime. Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s annual wildflower pilgrimage, when blooms should be at their peak for photographers and nature lovers, is scheduled for April 26-28, 1990.

Travelers to the Smokies can fly into Asheville, N.C., or Greenville, S.C., both of which are served by USAir, American and Delta Airlines. Rent a car and explore.

From Asheville, a good route is to drive north on South Carolina 25 to Hot Springs. Follow 25 and then U.S. 321 to Gatlinburg, Tenn. Drive south through Walhalla and head east to Greenville and the airport there, or continue north back to Asheville on back roads or on Interstate 26. Arriving in Greenville, follow the route in reverse.

Accommodations in the region:

Highlands Inn, P.O. Box 1030, Highlands, N.C. 28741, (704) 526-9380. It’s 25 miles north of Walhalla. It has 16 rooms, $65 to $75, including breakfast. Open April through November.

Squire Watkins Inn, P.O. Box 430, Dillsboro, N.C. 28725, (704) 586-5244. Five rooms, $60-$70. Open all year.

Jarrett House, Haywood Street, Dillsboro, N.C. 28725, (704) 586-9964. Twenty-two rooms, $25-$34. Open mid-April through October.

Smoky Shadows Lodge, Maggie Valley, N.C. 28751, (704) 926-0001. Twelve rooms, $45-$60, including breakfast. Open all year.

Buckhorn Inn, Route 3, Gatlinburg, Tenn. 37738, (615) 436-4668. This one has six rooms plus four cottages: $75 for inn rooms, $95 for cottages, including breakfast. Open all year.

The Inn at Hot Springs, P.O. Box 233, Hot Springs, N.C. 28743, (714) 622-7206. Seven rooms for $30. Breakfast is $3, dinner $8. All meals are vegetarian. Open all year.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park draws more visitors annually than any other national park (about 8.7 million in 1988), so travelers to the area should make hotel reservations during peak spring and fall months.

For more information, contact Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Superintendent, Gatlinburg, Tenn. 37738, (615) 436-5615.