LRTC Hiking Series Q3 - Hike 2

Distance: 2.6 miles
Adventure: Camping and hiking (you are responsible for securing your own campsite. Details forthcoming)
Highlights: Open, northern hardwood forest, mountain vistas.
Cautions: Stream crossings
Use: Horse and hiking trail
RSVP Hike leader Dolphin Riggs at [email protected]
(If you are interested in making this a camping experience, please indicate this on your RSVP.)
Flat Creek Trail -
Few short trails in the Smokies are as memorable as the
Few large trees grow on this snaking ridge because the area was heavily logged after 1900 when a small lumber company established Flat Creek Trail. Built in 1934 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, this moderate 2.6 mile trail offers good views, an enchanting, grass-carpeted ridge forest, and a lush creek valley home to native brook trout.
On the short walk to the trailhead, good views of the Great Smokies range (with Mount Guyot prominent on the horizon) are visible to the right of the picnic area's waer-fountain. After 0.1 mile, a sign marks the trail, which veers right onto a 5,300-foot ridge. You enter an "elfin" forest comprised of American beech, red spruce, striped maple, red maple, Eastern hemlock, and yellow birch; red squirrels are often heard in the trees.
Few large trees grow on this snaking ridge because a small lumber company established a camp nearby after 1900, bringing a portable mill and heavily logging the area. The logs cut by this company were taken by wagon to nearby Whittier, North Carolina. This deforestation intensified during the 1920's when the Suncrest Lumber Company expanded its operations into the area. Suncrest extensively logged near Flat Creek right up to the day the property title was transferred to the park. Sucrest: "Cut everything they could before that date," remembered former logger Dave Wiggins. Wiggins and his fellow loggers lived at nearby Black Camp, where they and their families resided in shanty cars brought up by railroad. To rent a car for himself and his wife, Woggisn paid Suncrest $2 per month, a considerable portion of a logger's income in the 1920's.
The thick grass growing along the upper stretch of the trail is evidence of extensive logging; grass historically did not grow in the deep shade of Southern Appalachian virgin forests. Those plants that did take root in the shadows of uncut forest generally possessed wide leaves—the wider the better—to catch the minimal sunlight filtering through the dense canopy.
After several stream crossings on foot or by rock-hopping, the trail jogs away from Flat Creek; you enter a mixed second-growth forest of serviceberry, maple, hawthorn, cherry, birch, and American beech. At times, trees form thickets, creating good nesting habitat for a variety of birds, including the Brown Thrasher and the Rufous-sided Towhee.
Flat Creek Trail continues, traversing the ridge between Flat Creek and Bunches Creek. At one point, you may see partial views of the valley where Flat Creek flows. The trails thread through a dense mixed-hardwood forest—birch, American beech, and maple—where the Red-eyed Vireo's nasal whining can be heard. Wildflowers include white snakeroot, asters, and goldenrod. After crossing two forks of Bunches Creek by foot bridge, you reach Heintooga Ridge Road between Black Camp and Polls gaps.
Questions - email hike leader Dolphin Riggs
[email protected]
** You MUST RSVP to reserve your spot!!