Post 900 Hike #18: Forney Creek to Lakeshore and Tunnel

I arrived at Cecil Rowe’s house ~7:45; I was 8 min. early. We waited for John Kennerly a few minutes and then proceeded to Bill Woodrick’s in hopes that John would be there. Bill was able finally able to contact John; because the latter overslept he decided to meet Bill and Mike Miller at SVC (theirs was a shorter hike from Noland Divide to Deep Creek & did not require as early a start as our hike did).

At SVC we met up with the rest of the Forney Creek hikers; there were a number of new faces, for although I have hiked most every Wednesday since completing all trails 4/4/07, this was only my second group hike. Cecil, Scott Collins, and I rode with Bob Bolinger to Clingmans Dome. The others that I had hiked with previously included Amy Howe, Janetta Baker, Dennis McAdams, Becky Brown, and Glen Howard; the new faces were Kim Cline, Jane Calfree, Emma Penson, Tom and Priscilla Siler.

We left Clingmans Come ~8:50; in ~ 1 mile Forney Creek split off from Forney Ridge and all but Dennis and Glen proceeded on it as they Glen continued on Forney Ridge; in retrospect I should have gone with them for even though they eventually took different trails, only one would have been alone instead of two. Our group of 12 split up temporarily as those in the rear took a sojourn in an attempt to locate a logging locomotive; those immediately behind me are in the first picture (first time I used my new camera--when I have time to figure out how, I will zoom in on that picture & identify others besides Emma and Kim). At lunch the "train-folks" caught up with us. Although the water levels on our Forney Creek Trail stream crossings were far lower than when I did this trail ~26 months ago, I donned my water shoes and kept them on for the 4 consecutive stream crossings. A few rock hopped and 1-2 of these folks fell in the water; although I am somewhat daring, I view some rock hopping as contraindicated.

We proceeded en masse and when we reached the junction of Whiteoak Branch, Cecil, Scott, Janetta, and Bob took it (sort of a hypotenuse) while the rest of us proceeded to Lakeshore Trail (leg of a triangle). That's Kim and Emma standing in front of a chimney (just before or just after our group split); the Brown Book does not identify its specific residence. It's in excellent shape and similar in size to the one at the Kress Lodge in Bone Valley. When we reached Lakeshore Trail our group had gone ~11.6 miles and we had 3.3 mi. remaining. Even though I typically time trail segments, I failed to note the time when we reached Lakeshore Trail. These few miles of Lakeshore have a bit of up to them. At first Emma and then Kim were leading; both are strong hikers and were setting a good pace. However, when they stopped to rest a moment, I decided to put it in a higher gear and get a good aerobic workout. Within 1-mile I caught and then passed those who had done the hypotenuse and I went on alone; even though I kept a pretty good pace, I never really got my HR much over 140 (although that’s 81 bpm higher than my noted low on the road to the Dome in Bob’s SUV). I reached the tunnel at 15:50; this was the 2nd time that I did the ~0.2 mi. tunnel totally alone. Although it was a bright day, when I reached the midway point I could not see the surface upon which I was treading.

When I reached the end I saw Glen; his hike was a shorter, non-tunnel route. Dennis arrived shortly (his was a longer, non-tunnel route) and then the remaining 11 of our group of 14 arrived. I endeavored to get input for hikes that I would be scheduling for the rest of September while we waited for a later than expected bus to take us back to the Dome (the 3 Deep Creek hikers were aboard when it arrived). With 17 passengers the individual fee was only $10 and that left a pretty nice tip for the driver. Believe that we arrived at the Dome ~6:30 and I arrived home ~8:30.