The Great Smokies Piscatorial Shambhala

Fishing is not an escape from life, but often a deeper immersion into it.  

– Harry Middleton

My friend, Jonathan, is the best hiking buddy a person could ask for.  If not for some arm-twisting on his part, I would have missed out on adventures at remarkable places of the Southern Appalachians - the Black Mountain Crest, to name just one. And this week, he made the necessary arrangements to get us onto another memorable trail.  

Several years ago, I was trying to identify the most remote section of the Smokies.  I had a large map and a small saucer.  After sliding the saucer around on the map for a minute, I found one spot where it did not touch any roads.  And that was in the middle of Hazel Creek.  Park as close as you can to Hazel Creek, find a trailhead, and then...good luck hiking to Hazel Creek and returning to your car in one day. 

The alternative is to cross Fontana Lake by boat and proceed up the Hazel Creek arm of the lake.  I tried that in a kayak once and it took me a couple of hours to get there.  I had time enough to explore the remains of Proctor, a town built to handle the timber and copper ore extracted from the Hazel Creek watershed.  After construction of Fontana Dam during World War II, most of Proctor was inundated.  

On my prior visit, I had lunch near a hilltop cemetery and enjoyed the company of some other kayakers I'd met on the way.  But the day was not long enough for me to go past Proctor and hike any distance up Hazel Creek.  So, after lunch, I hurried to the lake shore at the mouth of Hazel Creek and paddled back to Cable Cove.  

This week brought a long-awaited return to Hazel Creek, a day-hike made feasible by taking a shuttle from Fontana Marina.  On a big motorized boat, the crossing takes less than 15 minutes.  We disembarked at 8:30 AM with the understanding that the shuttle would pick us up at 3:00 PM.  A lack of punctuality would have severe consequences.  There was no time to waste for the trek up Hazel and then to the end of the Bone Valley Trail followed by the return trip along the same route, about 15 miles in all.  That's not an unreasonable distance to cover in six and a half hours, but hourly water breaks, a leisurely lunch, and meanders to mysterious century-old structures were out of the question.  

The need for speed did nothing to lessen the excitement of exploring the area.  As soon as we jumped off the boat, we saw footprints, very large footprints, of bears that had been ambling along the water's edge not long before our arrival, and we wondered if there would be more ursine encounters along the way.

Most long hikes in the Smokies involve an arduous gain in elevation.  Hazel Creek is a notable exception.  The trail alongside the creek is smooth and wide with a very gradual climb.  Long ago, it accommodated a rail line for transporting timber and ore.  

The overall ambience of Hazel reminded me a bit of Noland Creek or Deep Creek.  But this was distinctly different.  The trail seemed bigger, the creek seemed bigger, the flat terrain bordering the creek seemed bigger.  And compared to Deep Creek, which attracts hundreds or even thousands of visitors daily, Hazel Creek was pristine and quiet.  We hiked all day without seeing another soul, which is unusual in the National Park.

Hazel Creek holds a certain mystique.  I knew that already, though I'd never experienced it myself.  The allure is especially powerful for fly fishing enthusiasts.  There might not be another trout stream in the Southeast that rivals the legendary draw of Hazel Creek.   Part of the credit goes to two outdoorsmen who could wield an ink pen as deftly as a fly rod.

Horace Kephart (1862-1931) was a St. Louis librarian with a passion for camping and hunting.  In 1904 he moved to Western North Carolina and began to explore the Smokies: 

When I went south into the mountains I was seeking a Back of Beyond.... I wanted to enjoy a free life in the open air, the thrill of exploring new ground, the joys of the chase, and the man’s game of matching my woodcraft against the forces of nature...

He was methodical in selecting a place to settle:

I took a topographic map and picked out on it, by means of the contour lines and the blank space showing no settlement, what seemed to be the wildest part of these regions; and there I went....I picked out the upper settlement of Hazel Creek, far up under the lee of those Smoky Mountains ...scant two miles from the post-office of Medlin, there was a copper mine, long disused on account of litigation, and I got permission to occupy one of its abandoned cabins....

From his base camp on Hazel Creek, Kephart got acquainted with the mountains and the mountaineers, wrote numerous articles for hunting and fishing magazines and collected stories for "Our Southern Highlanders" (1913), a classic volume of Smokies lore.

Harry Middleton (1949-1993) was an outdoors columnist for Southern Living magazine in the 1980s.  He had a passion for fly fishing and made frequent trips to Hazel Creek.  His 1991 book, "On the Spine of Time" recounts adventures in the Smokies and remains a book beloved by many anglers and other readers.

After many days fishing Hazel Creek, Middleton shared a lesson learned:

Trout are excellent company, creatures of noble and admirable and perplexing qualities, much like human beings only more honest and sincere.  They are totally unpredictable and therefore totally bewitching, at once brutal, beautiful, suspicious, graceful, and powerful, fastidious and wary, cautious and aggressive.  Raw instinct burns like electric current through their cold, wild flesh.  There is a charming snobbery about mountain trout, a stubbornness that is absolutely unbending.  Their needs are specific rather than arbitrary and capricious.  They know nothing of compromise.  Life means moving water, fast water, clean water, water rich in prey and with at least a measure of wildness, meaning a solitude free of the whirl of cities and civilization....

Our hike through the wildness became an even more immersive experience after turning up the Bone Valley Trail.  At one point, the trail led to the edge of the creek.  

Any possibilities to rock hop the 20 foot distance to the other side?  No, not at all. For the first crossing I took off my boots and socks.  The water was so cold on my feet that I could feel my sinuses open up.  After another stream crossing or two, I grew impatient with taking off and putting on my footwear, and remembered that leather and wool will dry out...eventually.

We had eight creek crossings, four up and the same four coming back.  But maybe it was even more, and I simply lost count. It was good to experience the water, either barefoot or in wet boots.  Harry Middleton insists that trout from Hazel Creek taste better than any others because of the water.  And I would defer to Harry on such matters.

I don't naturally have the temperament to be a fly fisherman, which is all the more reason to learn.  I wonder if I could find my proper place in the choreography of fly and fish, dancing on the water, casting and playing the line to bring it to life.  What a place for such reverie!

It is easy to recognize what Horace and Harry found here on Hazel Creek.  

From my backpack, I pulled out a paperback copy of "On a Spine of Time" and declaimed one of Harry's lyrical passages: 

It was a good day along the creek.  Just before noon, the sky turned black as wet coal and it snowed hard for hours, a great whirlwind of snow, and still I fished.  Snow was soon piled up on the backs of dark, smooth stones, and the sudden cold, the unexpected turn of weather, stirred me as much as it did the trout.  I had almost forgotten how much fun it is to fish the high country in a good snowstorm.

I don't think I'll ever forget how much fun it is to be on Hazel Creek, snowstorm or not.  After hiking past what remains of Proctor, we got back to the lake shore with time to spare.  And just a few minutes later, our shuttle appeared from far down the lake, a welcome sight!

Captain gave us the news that the weather had been blustery on the lake and at the marina, and that Newfound Gap Road was shut down because of high wind and falling temperatures ahead of the precipitation.  GSMNP officials were encouraging  visitors to leave the Park.

That was surprising news, considering how pleasant had been the weather along the creek all day - barely a breeze, mild temperatures, overcast skies and no rain.  Ideal hiking weather.  How could the weather be so agreeable on Hazel Creek, while conditions were deteriorating everywhere else? 

I came to the conclusion that it really is Shangri-la.  And I know that Horace Kephart and Harry Middleton and a host of dedicated fly fishermen would agree.