Mountain Report: Walking in Wild Places

The Upper Bald watershed is graced with subtle beauty, such as this white clintonia nestled among New York ferns.

At a mid-point about one and a half hours south of Knoxville, two hours northeast of Chattanooga and three hours north of Atlanta is a dark spot on the map. No cell phone towers. No roads or rushing traffic. No digital billboards.

But not empty. Deep in the Cherokee National Forest in east Tennessee lie more than 9,000 acres of towering poplars and oaks, mountain streams rushing headlong into waterfalls and the tiniest of wildflowers advertising nature's grandeur. On a warm Saturday in May, I left the trappings of civilization to join Jeff Hunter for a walk through this wild place.

Just 10 minutes down the quiet trail I started to unwind. With no voicemails to check, we were left with messages sent only by warblers and wind. Hunter is with Tennessee Wild, a coalition of eight organizations seeking wilderness designation for special places, like this one, in the Cherokee forest. Wilderness is the highest form of environmental protection for federal lands; roadbuilding, logging and mechanized travel are not allowed, while hiking, hunting, horseback riding and many other activities are. Only Congress can designate wilderness.

On June 9, senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker introduced the Tennessee Wilderness Act of 2010 (pdfhere), the first wilderness bill for Tennessee in 25 years. The proposal calls for almost 20,000 acres to be permanently protected, including the Upper Bald River watershed where Hunter and I hiked parts of the Brookshire Creek Trail and Benton MacKaye Trail.

"It's not like the wilderness out west, with huge landscapes," he says. "It's more of a subtle beauty, the understory, the wildflowers. When I take people out here and they see this, they get it. They say 'Of course, we have to protect this.'"

The U.S. Forest Service agrees the Upper Bald River area (pdf here) and additions to five of the Cherokee's 11 existing wilderness areas should be so designated, and has been managing these places as wilderness for years. The proposal is backed by a variety of people – sportsmen, business owners, local lawmakers and religious leaders.

"I grew up hiking in the mountains of East Tennessee and know firsthand that these beautiful landscapes should be preserved for generations to come," Senator Alexander said at a press conference. We must save some of the dark spots on the map where people can experience true wilderness "so that they're not afraid of bears and can enjoy sleeping under the stars."

For more on what McCue and Hunter saw in the proposed area, go here.