Cabin Flats Backpack Day 1

Date: 7/25/15
Distance: 18.3

This weekend I went backpacking with the Meetup group to hike the trails above the Smokemont Campground.  We started on Saturday morning on the Smokemont Loop Trail.  This trail leaves the campground near the waste dump station.   It begins with an old bridge which crosses the creek.  The trail begins on a gravel road, but within the 1st 1/2 mile it turns up the mountain on a normal Smokies trail.  It does have a bit of a climb as it goes up and over a ridge.

 After climbing 1400' and then losing about 1000', you arrive at a very long log bridge which connects to Bradley Fork.

 Once on Bradley, we turned left and headed for Cabin Flats.  Bradley is an old gravel road.  In this section it had a very moderate rise over 2.3 miles.  It is right next to the creek most of the way.

Bradley turns up the mountain at the Cabin Flats intersection.  I continued on Cabin Flats all of the way to the end where it terminates at campsite 49 (our home for the night).  I setup the hammock and unloaded most of the stuff in my pack before continuing my hike.  Once I had lightened the load, I headed back down Cabin Flats to Dry Sluice Gap.

Dry Sluice heads straight up the mountain climbing 2600' up to the AT.  It was a really tough trudge up the mountain.  The day was hot and the trail was very steep. Up at the AT, I turned left and walked 0.5 miles over to Charlies Bunion.

 This patch of Carolina Lilies was on Dry Sluice.

 There were some really nice views along the AT today.

 The Bunion was packed with people today.

 After a short time at the Bunion, I backtracked down Dry Sluice to the campsite.

There was a huge tree just off  Dry Sluice not far from Cabin Flats.

I was hoping that I might sleep better in the Hammock, but no luck.  I least I was pretty comfortable while I laid awake.