Post 900 Hike #58: Old Sugarlands, horse trails, Gatlinburg Trail

At 21:30 on Tues. Bob Bolinger and I decided to do Wednesday's schedule hike; this was a relatively short one but we decided it would be nice to go with some of the hikers whom we seldom see. I advised John Hutenspiler of my plan; he was game for it. Met John at 07:35 at Lakeside Market. After I advised him of a storm warning, we decided to go via John Sevier Hwy and approach the GSMNP from the North rather than from the South via Food Lion and U.S. 321 in Maryville because of my concern of icy curves on the latter. Moments after we arrived at Sugarlands Visitor Center Bill Broome and Cecil Rowe arrived in separate vehicles, and then Bob Bolinger and Emily (friend of Bob & Judy from Sevierville) arrived.

At 08:00 we set out and walked the ~0.5 mi. to the Old Sugarlands trailhead; for the up-hill part of this trail John and I chugged. (The picture of this trail was taken by Dick Ledyard on the following day.) We went ~3.2 of this 3.9 mi. trail since we decided to take horse trails (unused in Winter but not part of the 900) to work our way towards Gatlinburg. Once in Gatlinburg we proceeded to the Smokey Mountain Brewery; on my new Omron pedometer was 7.3 mi. Bob Hutchens and John Kennerly met us there and the eight of us had a delightful lunch.

We then walked through downtown Gatlinburg to the Gatlinburg Trail at the edge of town; by the time we had reached the Sugarlands Visitor Center and our vehicles, we had walked a total of 9.4 mi. (0.2 mi. in Gatlinburg & 1.9 mi. on the G-trail.

All in all it was a fun afternoon. It was nice to have a chance to talk with Bill Broome a bit and to touch bases with John K., Bob H., and our new hiker, Emily. Although I did not talk with Cecil much, I have done countless hikes with him and I am sure I will be doing many more as he finishes his geezer map (i.e., all trails after age 75). (Neglected to take my camera; hopefully will receive a picture or two from my cohorts because some of the snow views were quite good.)