Spur on Chasteen Creek Tr

[HooKooDooKu]

On the current park map, there appears to be a short spur trail just uphill from CS48 denoted by three dots. What is this?

I camped at CS48 this weekend and did not notice a trail as I passed by this spot.

When I reviewed maps, I first thought this spur might simply be denoting the Chasteen Creek / Hughes Ridge intersection. This used to be a true intersection with a third trail that lead around Becks Bald, and became a pair of trails that crossed the Indian Reservation and down toward Towstring. But when I was at this intersection, I could see the old trail towards Backs Bald is totally overgrown now that there is no way these three dots indicate anything of this long abandoned trail. Additionally, this old intersection is located 0.4 miles down hill from the Hughes Ridge / Enloe Creek intersection. The unnamed spur appears to be located about 1.3 or 1.5 miles down hill from the Hughues Ridge / Enloe Creek intersection. When I look at old topo maps from the 60's, the only thing I can find anywhere near this spur seems to be located is a tiny unnamed loop trail.

[TNhiker]

do you have a scan of the old map? i'd like to see this loop.....

on the first dollar map i got, back in 97, it still had hughes ridge on it..............

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and thats what the intersection looked like........

i looked on my last dollar may i have (maybe 2012 edition) and i see that little spur that you're talking about...

to me----its a misprint of some sort.......

ive never heard about a trail in that area nor have seen it in the times ive been there....


as for hughes ridge trail------since it was on the dollar map i got when i started hiking the park-----and it closed shortly after that back in 97 or 98-----i went ahead and hiked it..........

did a loop by going up chasteen and down hughes ridge trail back to smokemont.........

it was the only time in the park where i have been scared of humans and wish i had brought a gun (i dont own one).......

i knew it crossed private property but was counting on nobody to be that far back in the woods.........

so what happens it-----follow the trail (and it was in decent shape about 4 or 5 years ago)-------come down to an intersection with a dirt road............i wasnt sure where the trail went at this point and kinda looked around........

that's when i heard voices and an atv coming towards me.......

not sure if they saw me or what but it scared me........

they never got close to me except for me hearing their voices before i bolted outta the area.......

and what happens----the trail went on a side hill right above where these people had some kinda camp going.......

not sure if they were cooking meth or growing pot or what-----i didnt care what they did----i just wanted outta there.....

so for a few minutes as the trail paralleled the road, i was tense but some was past them.....

like i says---i didnt have any interaction with them as i didnt want to get that far in the process but it gave me a good scare...

the rest of the way was easy and came down to the smokemont area...

and, fwiw, back in the tow string area and around the bottom intersection with hughes ridge----there's a few trails in that area that arent on the map..........there's signs and what not (i think one was queen's bald trail) and at least a couple of trails made a loop....

also a few cemeteries back in that area..........

[TNhiker]

and speaking of spur trails-----there is one spur trail that is on the map for a reason...

and that's ollie cove trail......

if ya look at the map real hard, just to the right of 86 on the next cove over----you'll see that little spur...

that's the alternative pickup point for the boat shuttle if it cant land at hazel creek...........

[HooKooDooKu]

I've noticed the Ollie Cove Trail spur... two dots ending at the lake. I've manually added it to my Google Earth trails I originally got from TNLandforms (formerly the UTK web site). I show the trail to be about 0.3 miles long.


As for the "loop"... I found an old style topo map http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/nphtml/gsmhome.html (navigating the map is difficult). It is located in the general vicinity of CS48 (which doesn't appear on the topo). When I look at the TNLandform data for Chasteen Creek Trail, this circle seems to be right about where there is a small "dimple" to the right (when climbing) just before the trail turns to the left to begin the switch backs near the top of Chasteen Creek. It's at that first switch back where the errant spur trail seems to be drawn... and the circle now looks to be an errant attempt at drawing this "dimple" in the trail just just before the switch backs.


Oh... and while hiking Towstring Trail, I saw lots of signs for "unmaintained trail".

For those that don't see it... the way I "knocked out" hiking Towstring Trail was to park at the bridge that crosses the creek to access Smokemont Campgrounds. While it's not on the map, there is a road (some paved, some dirt) that leads all the way from this parking lot to Towstring. I hiked down that road and then backtracked on TowString trail to access Bradley Fork. On the return, I hiked the Smokemont horse concession trail from the Towstring trail back to the car (this is the 1 mile trail shown on the insert of the current $1 map and is marked as the BMT to connect Newton Bald Trail to Bradley Fork trail without having to hike thru the Smokemont camp ground.

[TNhiker]

that map is pissing me off..............i cant get it to zoom in where i want it.....

ill have to look at a printed map.............

[HooKooDooKu]

that map is pissing me off..............i cant get it to zoom in where i want it.....

ill have to look at a printed map.............

It's really goofy...

First click on a quadrangle from the over-all view of GSMNP.
Second, since we have bigger screens today, click on the radio button for largest available "Window size" (640 x 480).
Third, select a zoom level from the Zoom In/Zoom Out radio buttons.
Forth, navigate by clicking on the map in the upper right side of the screen labeled "Navigator View".

[gollwoods]

here is the area on cal topo, http://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=35.55335,-83.28583&z=15&b=t