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Appalachian Trail Club bulletin

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  • wcu_great_smoky_mtns-11432.jp2
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Item’s are ‘child’ level descriptions to ‘parent’ objects, (e.g. one page of a whole book).

  • 106 I am confident he was reading me, as 1 was him. Soon afterward we saw a small opening ahead of us in the timber, about the size of an ordinary living room. We made for it, thinking to sit for a moment and rest. What do you suppose we found there? A big pile of rocks, and axe marks on the trees—the first signs of mankind since we had left you on Deep Creek in North Carolina. We were puzzled, but it gradually dawned on us that this was the top of Clingmans Dome—the Ultima Thule for which we had been striving for two days. The pile of rocks is at the crest of the Dome and is intended as a marker to indicate the line between the two states. A few steps northward and the "Godforsaken" Gulch comprising the big basin drained by the headwaters of Little River lay several thousand feet below. How glad we were to reach this point, although apparently the next fifteen miles to the first house would he as hard, or harder going, than the jungle we had traversed. Ice of Glacial Origin We did not tarry long on top, as we were almost famishing for water. We had been told that we could not descend Clingmans northward, but we decided to try it, as we thought it could not be worse than the southern side, and we calculated the abrupt descent would soon bring us to water. The drop down was almost perpendicular, through overhanging cliffs, covered with dense undergrowth, mosses, and ferns. Soon we heard water trickling between the boulders under our feet. Will swung his weight over a cliff and calling to me above, said: "I have struck it rich down here, come ahead." I went over a little more cautiously, and what a sight met my eyes! A great strata of purest ice. Tons of it, frozen in layers in the clefts of the rocks, and seemingly of glacial origin. We were at that point on the 9th day of June, and I am wondering if this great deposit of ice does not remain there from year to year. We stopped on that ledge of rock and prepared a little bite to eat, for it was the middle of the afternoon, and we had not tasted food since daylight. The scene northward from this point, just a short distance from the Dome, is indescribable. Standing nearly a mile and a half perpendicularly above sea level, nearly 7,000 feet, and probably the highest point cast of the Rockies, with a glacier for a footstool, the panorama that opens in front and below, that vast verdant amphitheatre can never be forgotten. For the time being it would seem to repay one for the arduous labor necessitated in reaching it, and to place a mantle of charity over the tortuous trail that one must initiate and plan to his own liking in order to get out. There was no sign of even an Indian ever having traversed this course, and no trail whatever, except now and then a zigzag path, crossing and recrossing our own, with the footprints of Madam Bruin and her young, going from cove to cove. There's no end of bear signs in this section, and every cave shows their footprints. In some places the going was so bad that we had to use our hatchet in making headway. Our next camp was in equally as wild a spot as the one on the North Carolina side of the night previous, being under dense timber, with the rhododendron so thick that the sun seems to never get through it. In making our way northward we tried several times to make short cuts through this dense growth, but our efforts were futile, and the greater part of the way we had to follow the bed of the stream, which was a series of rapids, cataracts, and falls—the latter applying to both water and men. After a third day of this hard traveling, we realized we were nearing the abode of our old hunter friend, Ben Parton, who is living at the very farthest outskirts of civilization, at the foot of the Great Smokies. As the stream was getting to the size that looked propitious for fishing, we took our rods and soon had a fine string of speckled trout, not quite so large as the beauties on your side of the mountain, but whose salmon- colored flesh possess equal royalty and delicate flavor. We missed the intoxicating thrills occasioned by the strike of the big fellows—the rain-
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).