The Appalachian Trail splits the states of North Carolina and Tennessee through most of the breadth of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Hugging the state line as it traverses the rugged and remote ridges, the AT is a favorite destination for day hikers and thru hikers alike. There is a three and a half mile stretch from Newfound Gap to the summit of Mt. Kephart, and beyond to a magnificent overlook known simply as The Jumpoff, that provides an excellent example of what high country Smoky Mountains terrain is all about.

I’ve written a trail report for this hike and the eventual destination of Charlies Bunion from a previous occasion. Here, I merely wanted to share some new photographs from a recent winter visit to this picturesque mountain backcountry.

My friend Dave and I climbed the nearly 1,200 feet from Newfound Gap to Mt. Kephart’s summit on Sunday, February 28, 2016. Only a couple days had passed since the last snowfall. The 3-4″ ground cover was packed down from the boots of many hikers who had made the same trek in the preceding days. Ice traction on the feet was the order of the day.

The mixed spruce and fir krummholz forest with a fresh coating of snow. This poor tree succumbed to the constant beating of winter storms at 6,000 feet in the Great Smoky Mountains.

At the 3-mile mark the Appalachian Trail meets the Boulevard Trail. To get to Mt. Kephart and The Jumpoff you need to turn left onto the Boulevard, and then almost immediately take a right on The Jumpoff Trail. It’s then a pretty strenuous climb of a couple hundred feet to the summit of Mt. Kephart, named for a famous author who was quite instrumental in the creation of the Smokies national park.

From the summit there is an absolutely breathtaking view of the massive shoulders of Mt. LeConte off to the west. On this particular day, the sky was cloudless, perhaps the most crystal clear viewing of LeConte I have seen in several visits to this spot. Just a few hundred yards more down the other side of the summit leads to the perilous overlook called The Jumpoff.

From there, you are peering down into the Lester Prong basin, following the Appalachian Trail on its journey east past the craggy outcroppings of Charlies Bunion and onward toward Mt. Guyot. On the north side of The Jumpoff is a view of the rock face known as The Gorilla, and the ridge below called Horseshoe Lead. Far in the distance is the Tennessee community of Sevierville. Directly below is Masa Knob, named for the faithful photographer George Masa who was Horace Kephart’s constant companion.

I hope you enjoy these new photos from this visit to the high country along the Appalachian Trail as much as we enjoyed the day. Please feel free to leave your comments below the gallery.

This post was created by Jeff Clark. Please feel free to use the sharing icons below, or add your thoughts to the comments. Pack it in, pack it out. Preserve the past. Respect other hikers. Let nature prevail. Leave no trace.

Jenny Bennett first crossed my radar when I happened upon her website Endless Streams and Forests. She writes about many things, but among them are trail and hiking reports for areas of Great Smoky Mountains National Park that were very familiar to me. What intrigued me about Jenny’s reports was the type of hiking she does. Jenny is what is known as an off-trail hiker or bushwhacker. She hikes the less-traveled manways and unofficial trails to the Smokies famous landmarks.

Off-trail hiking isn’t for everyone. It requires precision skill with topographic maps, a compass, and altimeter. Frankly, it is physically demanding. That is one of the reasons the practitioners like it so much. The pathways are usually significantly steeper than official trails. You will find yourself hiking through and under rhododendron and laurel thickets. Quite frequently it means crawling on your belly under scrub or scrambling on all fours up steep and slippery rock ledges. For the small cadre of bushwhack hikers in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee, Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the mother lode of off-trail terrain.

Reading about Jenny Bennett’s off-trail adventures was my introduction to her. One day recently I noticed Jenny was selling a book she had written on another of her websites, JennyBennett.net. It is a murder mystery set in and around the Smokies. I thought to myself that it might be interesting, so I ordered a copy and received it post haste. I spent my Christmas holiday reading Murder at the Jumpoff.

Murder at The Jumpoff

When Donald MacIntyre, an avid off-trail hiker, fails to return from a quest to bushwhack through difficult terrain up to the top of the Jumpoff, a dramatic cliff in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the good-natured backcountry ranger Hector Jones leads a search and rescue team into the remotest depths of the Greenbrier section of the park and discovers the body. From the nature of MacIntyre’s injuries, it’s clear that he had fallen — or been pushed — from the top.

The job of investigating the suspicious death goes to Sally Connolly, a 31-year-old detective with the Sevier County, Tennessee, sheriff’s office. Due to Hector’s expert knowledge of the terrain, Sally enlists his help in the investigation. She follows several leads. One reveals a feud between MacIntyre, who was a professor at U.T., and a rival professor at Emory. The second concerns the illegal digging of plants in the park, and a third pursues a complicated relationship with an older female hiking friend.

That is the synopsis for Murder at The Jumpoff. For me, the setting is very cool because I thoroughly enjoyed a hike on the Appalachian Trail this past May to Charlies Bunion and the Jumpoff. What I learned about in the first chapter of the book is the myriad of creeks and drainages that are beneath and between Charlies Bunion and the Jumpoff… the off-trail wilderness.

The Jumpoff – Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Bennett weaves a tale of relationships, old and new, of the most despicable scum in the national parks, the rare wildflower poachers, and of mystery and deceit. But because of my passion for hiking, I found the most fascinating and compelling sections of the book to be the detailed descriptions of the off-trail hiking found particularly in the Greenbrier area of the Smokies.

I have hiked to Ramsey Cascades, but I haven’t really hiked to Ramsey Cascades like Bennett has.

She described a search and rescue for some clueless hikers who set out for Andrews Bald from Clingmans Dome, but instead ended up lost down Forney Creek. Hey, I was there just this past summer… not lost, but down Forney Creek. It is fun to read about places you have been and enjoyed, especially from another’s perspective, and in the context of engaging fiction.

Jenny’s descriptions of the landmark places in the Smokies are genuine and authentic, plus she adds the insider’s knowledge of getting there off the well-traveled tread. For me, documenting these locations that used to be trails a hundred years ago is a valuable service, because each year these non-maintained tracks become harder and harder to find and follow as the native vegetation consumes the pathways.

Ramsey Cascades – Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Murder at The Jumpoff is an easy read. I’m not an especially fast reader, but I was able to knock off this 213-page mystery in two half-day sessions. The characters and the places enticed me to keep reading. The topographic details and descriptions about some of my favorite places to hike encouraged me to take notes, and make plans. While I’m not likely to be as bold and daring as Jenny Bennett herself, she has enlightened me to an entirely different aspect of the Great Smoky Mountains.

You can purchase Murder at The Jumpoff from Jenny’s website or from Amazon.

Jenny Bennett has worked as a journalist, editor, and landscape designer. She reported on international energy markets for 18 years for the London Financial Times and other news organizations. She currently has a freelance editing business called Summer Afternoon Editing. She received a B.A. in Philosophy at New College in Sarasota, Florida, and an M.A. in Creative Writing from Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts.

Her major enthusiasm is off-trail hiking, or bushwhacking, a subject she explores in her book, Murder at the Jumpoff. She also writes about hiking and other subjects in her blog, Endless Streams and Forests. More biographical details may be found at http://www.jennybennett.net.

This post was created by Jeff Clark. Please feel free to use the sharing icons below, or add your thoughts to the comments. Pack it in, pack it out. Preserve the past. Respect other hikers. Let nature prevail. Leave no trace.