6 of us went up to Walnut Bottoms in the GSMNP (Big Creek Trail) On Friday March 28 to Sunday March 30. We stayed at campsite #37 on both Friday and Saturday night after hiking in Big Creek Trail on Friday evening. On Friday night after we got in the tents, it rained a little and then early on Saturday morning we had a thunderstorm and about 45 minutes of really hard rain that was pretty well over by 7 AM. We hiked up Swallow Fork Trail to the gap at Mt. Sterling. Its about a 4 mile hike up a pretty steep/strenous trail with a few overlooks but mostly in pretty deep cover with old growth trees. We then did about 1.4 miles to the top of Mt. Sterling and climbed up the fire tower for a really cool view of 30+ miles in every direction. It looked like it was going to pour on us so we started back to the gap. At the gap a few of us were thinking about going up and over the Mt. Sterling Ridge trail and back to #37 via Gunter Fork. But we decided it would be well after dark before we reached our camp so we bagged that and walked back to camp to work on a fire with wet wood. Jim and I tried to start a fire "survivorman" style with a magnesium stick and tinder. We would probably have done it but we needed fire. So we used the conventional method of a lighter. We had a great dinner and swapped a few lies around the fire. After dinner we listened to UNC play Louisville on an AM radio. Well Robert listened on headphones and gave us play by play. Sunday, 3 of the guys needed to get back to Mooresville so the other 3 of us hiked up Low Gap to the AT. Then North on the AT to Crammerer for another great view of the Smokies. Then on to Chestnut Branch and a major decent back to Big Creek. The total hiking for the 3 of us for the weekend was about 27 miles. 14 on Saturday and 13 on Sunday. Its still one of my favorite places to camp. If you love large forests and remote camping, its the place to go. We probably saw 20 other folks during the weekend which is a lot for the backcountry. The Smokies is overused as a camping area but is still a nice place to go. This group had a great time and we were all pretty whipped Saturday.
