Post 900 Hike #98: Maddron Bald, Albright Grove Loop, Madron Bald (~6 mi.)

Last week Bob Bolinger, BZ Lane, and Richard Ryburn did Ramsey Cascades; because Bob knew that I wished to do more snow and/or ice hikes for Wilderness Wildlife Week pictures, he suggested that he and I do Ramsey Cascades again. In retrospect I should have put out word on this hike to the 227 members of our group; however, after Cecil Rowe contacted me about our planned hike, he recruited four more (John Kennerly, Elke Narten, Cecilia Rowe, & Eva Rather). Meanwhile Bob had gotten Charlie Woodward to join us too. Because Cecil’s home is in essence on my way to the GSMNP for the intended trail, that was our meet-up point. John and Elke left Cecil’s with me; Cecil went with his daughter Cecilia and Eva. At Sevierville I picked up Bob and Charlie; we then proceeded to Green Briar. However, as we entered Green Briar, Cecilia, Cecil, and Eva met us on the way out; the road was closed to Ramsey Cascades trailhead. After a few minutes discussion, Cecil suggested we hike a part of Madron Bald Trail; that sounded OK to me for Cecil has a good perception of most any trail in the Park without even looking at a map. Even though Bob and I had hiked this trail previously (think this was my 3rd time), we commented to each other that we really did not know what exactly we were doing. We shortly realized that Cecil picked a winner; the snow conditions made it one of the pretiest hikes that I had ever done.

The first picture is of Willis Baxter cabin; this 2-door cabin (with no windows) was built out of chestnut in 1889. It is hard to perceive that Willis, his wife, and 4 sons resided in this one-room cabin.



For the second picture I got ahead of most of our group and waited for the first to appear in what I thought was a very pretty setting; it was Eva.



We had one bridged-stream crossing; this is Bob executing it. Since the log was stacked with snow, it is a crossing that is not to be made nonchalantly.



For the last picture I lagged behind and got another picture of Bob after he had executed a switchback; the fact that he was wearing a red vest made it less likely that shots of him made it to the "cutting room floor."



Although Madron Bald was not the hike that we had planned to do, it is doubtful that I could have gotten any pictures of this quality had we hiked Ramsey Cascades as originally planned. Initially I was going to put six pictures in this blog; however, I decided to stay with my rule of thumb that I never include more than four. It was hard to decide what to include and what to omit for now; however, assuming that I present at the 2011 Wilderness Wildlife, many of the pictures taken today will be used.

After we finished I dropped Charlie off at his vehicle and then we both went to the adjacent McDonalds for take-out lunches (it was ~14:15). The others proceeded in Ciscelia's Highlander to the Arrowmount School to view Bob's photographs; both Charlie and I had seen them previously. You would have really been in for a treat in this blog if I were half as good of a photographer as Bob is.