A local shares his biggest mistakes when visiting the National Park
It’s easy to take it for granted when the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is in your backyard. I wake up every morning with immense natural beauty as the backdrop. I run up to the mountains on the weekends or summer afternoons and it becomes old hat. It’s easy to forget that the mountains – even with their rangers and visitors – remain a wild place. So, it’s easy to forget that the mountains will find a way to remind you they are worthy of your respect. Most of the time these reminders serve as life lessons. Hopefully, you can learn from my mistakes. Here are some of my biggest mistakes in the Smoky Mountains:
1. Go hiking while underprepared
When I was a younger man, my uncles would come to town and we’d go trailblazing. We’d find a random pull-off and race to the top of the nearest mountain whether it had a trail or not. Or we’d pick a trail and just go. Would we bring water? Did we wear the right shoes? Would we remember giving ourselves enough time to return before the sunset? Sometimes. But it doesn’t take many times dragging back to the trailhead, desperate for water and trying to beat the falling shadows with blistering feet before you learn your lesson.
I’m certainly wiser now. I remember that the sun had set earlier in the mountains. I know the value of a good pair of hiking shoes – with ankle support. I’m the old guy driving the young ones crazy reminding them to be careful and be smart.
2. Forget to fill the tank
When I was a senior in high school, my friend Joseph was dating one of the Caughron girls, descendants of the last people to live in the Cove. But as we traveled the Cove, Joseph’s Volkswagen Cabriolet broke down near the trailhead to the Abrams Falls Trail. It was late in the afternoon. Jody and her friend caught a ride with a ranger back to her family’s place and Joseph and I waited for AAA to get a tow truck into the Loop. I don’t remember how long we were there, but it was a while. I remember being in the Cove on a clear night with the mountain sky as full of stars as you might imagine, so close it felt like you could reach up and scoop them out of the darkness by the handful. It was well after dark before they got there. I also remember I slept in the cab on the way back home.
That said, being broken down in the Cove once was enough for one lifetime. Now, I do my best to make sure the car is ready to go. Even so, I have occasionally forgotten to fill up on my way into the Loop, gotten stuck in traffic and wondered if I had enough gas to make it back out. Fill the tank before you go into the park.
3. Leave the child locks off
For years, bear sightings in the mountains were somewhat rare. In recent years, however, we spot bears on almost every trip. On a trip this summer we saw a lot of bears, like a lot of bears, in several spots. And a couple of times the rangers had to come and keep people from getting too close.
There was even an incident in which a gathering crowd essentially treed a mama bear and her cubs. Then, as we approached the back end of the Loop, we saw a bear in the woods near our car – on the passenger side. Before I knew what was going on my wife Leslie, who has what we’ll call an impetuous streak, was out of the car trying to get a better picture. Friends, words were exchanged. Feelings may have been hurt. I’ve spent a large part of my professional career trying to get people to NOT act like the bears in the mountains are stuffed, and here we had a member of Team Gullion going rogue.
4. Forget to buy the parking pass
Full disclosure, I am not a fan of the parking pass. I think all parks should be fully funded in such a way that people don’t have to pay for admission. If I’m being honest, growing up next to the Smokies – which are free due to the State of Tennessee demanding free access as part of the agreement to provide land to make the park – I thought all National Parks were free for the longest time. The parking pass plan seems to me a way to sidestep the agreement between the federal government and Tennessee, charging people not to enter the park but only if they want to stop their cars get out and look around.
However, as much as I don’t like the fee, I’m not trying to protest it or be an intentional scofflaw. But I have forgotten that I’m supposed to buy one. I mean, I was going to the park for nearly 30 years before they instituted the policy. Sometimes I forget. I do not like that feeling of being in the park, deciding to pull over for a few minutes, and wondering if John Q. Law is going roll up like I forgot to put change in the parking meter. Even though I do not like them, it will be parking passes for me from here on out.
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