Word from the Smokies: All hands on deck to rehab a rugged Appalachian Trail section
Smoky Mountains Hiking Club volunteers Rick Waggener (left) and Brian Woods install new steps near Icewater Spring.
Photo by Franklin LaFond
Somewhere after 2 p.m. on a sunny Wednesday in mid-March, the chaotic wind of a descending helicopter whipped the calm skies above the Appalachian Trail near Icewater Spring Shelter. Four people — two Smoky Mountains Hiking Club volunteers and two Appalachian Trail Conservancy employees — waited at the intersection of the Boulevard and Appalachian trails, watching the bundle of black locust logs suspended below the chopper come to a gentle rest in the small forest opening.
It was a “joyous occasion,” said Franklin LaFond, one of the two SMHC representatives present that afternoon and chairman of the club’s Appalachian Trail Maintainers Committee. It took only about 20 minutes to complete two drops delivering 80 locust logs to the remote site, but LaFond and his companions had been on standby at Newfound Gap for three days, waiting for the signal to book it three miles up the trail to meet the helicopter. That vigil followed a year’s worth of planning.
“I think sometimes, in the Smokies in particular, people don't realize how remote that part of the AT is and how many logistics go into keeping the trail in good shape for hikers,” said Anne Sentz, regional manager for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. “So I think stories like this are really important because it provides that perspective.”
The locust logs were intended for a heavily eroded half-mile stretch of the Appalachian Trail that’s been on SMHC’s project list for at least six years. In addition to the approximately 1,500 Appalachian Trail thru-hikers who pass through each spring, the trail is popular with day hikers headed to Charlies Bunion and overnight backpackers staying at nearby Icewater Spring Shelter. It’s also built along a steep slope in an area of the park prone to heavy rainfall. Much of the trail has been washed down to bare rock. Park weather monitoring stations show that Newfound Gap averages nearly 74 inches of precipitation each year, while park headquarters near Gatlinburg sees 58 inches and Oconaluftee Visitor Center near Cherokee typically gets 23.
“It’s a much different situation up there,” said Dick Ketelle, who serves as SMHC’s district supervisor for the AT between Newfound and Davenport gaps. “So what this project is about is trying to stabilize the trail tread by putting in better drainage features that we're going to build with these locust logs, building steps and putting in features to try to retain soil and keep it from all washing away.”
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Trail maintainers prefer to work with locust logs due to their resistance to decay, but this species doesn’t grow near the work site and therefore had to be delivered from elsewhere. However, there was no easy way to transport them. The site is three miles from the nearest trailhead and inaccessible to the pack mules the park typically uses to deliver heavy materials to difficult-to-reach trail sections. The delivery would require a helicopter airdrop.
Unlike the rest of Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s 850-mile trail network, the 72-mile stretch of the Appalachian Trail within its boundary is primarily managed and maintained by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy via the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club, the local trail club responsible for the Smokies section. SMHC and ATC first began discussing the operation at Icewater Spring in 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic derailed that conversation. The organizations renewed their planning efforts about a year ago.
“It all came together in January,” LaFond said.
SMHC received a $6,200 grant from the ATC’s Tennessee license plate program to cover the cost of purchasing and transporting the materials, and a partnership with LeConte Lodge drastically decreased the project cost. The lodge sits atop the park’s third-highest peak, and each year as it prepares for opening day it organizes a helicopter airlift to deliver the non-perishable supplies it will need for the season. LeConte Lodge allowed the ATC to add its locust log transport onto this airlift operation, absolving the nonprofit of the significant overhead fees and higher cost per load it would have incurred had it organized its own flight. The ATC was asked only to pay for the airtime to deliver two loads of logs.
“I don’t know if we could afford to do that without working with LeConte, because those helicopter operations are really expensive,” Sentz said. “We’re really thankful to them for letting us piggyback onto their operation.”
But as the flight date drew closer, the project hit another snag. SMHC learned that all the bark had to be removed from the logs before they entered the park, a measure intended to prevent the introduction of invasive species. The lumber supplier wouldn’t debark the logs, and because the company was located in the Balsam Grove area of Transylvania County, North Carolina, it would be extremely difficult for SMHC’s largely Knoxville-based volunteer force to complete the task.
For help, LaFond reached out to the Carolina Mountain Club, which maintains 94 miles of the Appalachian Trail north of the park. Most CMC members reside in the Asheville area, much closer to the lumberyard. The email request for help debarking the logs found its way to Don Cooper, who leads CMC’s Pisgah Friday Crew and lives in Hendersonville, North Carolina.
“It was in our neck of the woods, and I said, ‘Sure, we can jump in,’” Cooper recalled.
He quickly asked what kind of machine SMHC had to help with the task, only to learn that the only tools were draw knives and elbow grease. On the day of the debarking, Cooper and his crew — along with LaFond, who had traveled to North Carolina to help — met outside of Brevard, carpooled about 15 minutes up to the lumberyard, and split into pairs. One person would use the draw knife, a tool with a blade running between its two handles, to scrape off the bark while the other held the log down.
“You took turns so you didn’t wear yourself out,” Cooper said. “That’s not to say there weren’t some sore shoulders the next day.”
After about four hours of work, the ten volunteers headed back to the truck, 45 of the 80 logs scraped clean. The next morning, the Saturday crew led by Jan Onan returned to the site to finish up. The supplier then transported the logs to the park in time for the airdrop a few days later. Without CMC’s help, LaFond said, the project “wouldn’t have gotten off the ground.”
In the months since, SMHC volunteers have begun to install some of the logs, but it’s slow going. Reaching the worksite requires a six-mile roundtrip walk — for most hikers, that means three or four hours on the trail in addition to any time spent working. A larger volume of volunteers is needed to get the job done, and that’s what SMHC hopes to get on National Trails Day, this year observed Saturday, June 7. Though the club will put participants to work on other Appalachian Trail projects in the Smokies, getting as many of those 80 logs in the ground as possible will be the day’s priority.
“National parks historically have not had the resources to be able to do everything that’s needed on trails in the parks,” LaFond said. “They just don’t have the workforce, and even more so now with the federal cuts. The volunteers that we have in the park—and not just with the trails—are instrumental in keeping the park operational.”
National Trails Day gives people across the country a chance to be part of that effort, with more than 400 events planned. When it comes to keeping landscapes healthy, trails clear, and erosion in check, partnerships are key—a truth exemplified by the Icewater Spring project.
“There are so many miles of trail to maintain, and they don’t maintain themselves,” Cooper said. “Mother Nature doesn’t just wait for someone to come prune a bush back.”
To find a National Trails Day event near you, visit AmericanHiking.org/national-trails-day/find-an-event. Registration for the SMHC event closes May 24 and is available at SMHClub.org. CMC will host an event on the AT near Hot Springs, North Carolina, with registration at CarolinaMtnClub.org/eventform.cfm?eventid=30. Both clubs provide ample volunteer opportunities outside of National Trails Day as well.
Holly Kays is the lead writer for the 29,000-member Smokies Life, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the scientific, historical, and interpretive activities of Great Smoky Mountains National Park by providing educational products and services such as this column. Learn more at SmokiesLife.org or reach the author at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
