Above: if you want to see Sweet White trillium Rush Branch is a good place to look
Believer Falls on Rush Branch
Dana Koogler solo hike
1/2 mile round trip
March 23, 2023 Thursday
Photos are here: Rush Branch
I had a long list of things to do Wednesday and Thursday. One of the errands was to go on over to the visitor center in Townsend for my parking pass for the Smokies. I finally bit the bullet and did it. The lady at the visitor center was super helpful. The process was simple and easy. Living close I like to be able to pick up and go on a whim. I decided I did not want the worry of trying to purchase and print a day pass each trip. I got it and put it on the windshield and went my way.
At the end of this blog entry I will include simple instructions on the process.
It was 3:30 p.m. already, but I wanted to get out and hike a little while I could. It had been a few years since I hiked up Rush Branch to Believer Falls. I figured that was as good a place as any for a short hike. I parked by the sign for the GSMNP at the end of Townsend and set off.
Above: Long spurred violets on the mossy rocks on the far side of the stream.
Above: Rue anemone was out today as well. It is an early bloomer.
Below: Another pretty spot in the creek at the second crossing of the day.
Below: I am looking up the slope because I feel like I should be moving along up high, but the way is so obstructed with downed trees either high or low doesn't make much difference.
Beautiful sunshine sparkling down into the holler at 3:45 in the afternoon. Shown above.
Below: I looked down and saw this pretty slide in the stream that I had not noticed before.
There is no official "trail" to Believer Falls. It is a narrow holler in Townsend and you just have to make your way up through it the best way you can. The trek is 95% on the far side of the stream so once you cross you stay over there. There is one other spot where you find the terrain pinches you so you have to re-cross briefly and once over that is it for crossings.
I found the stream flowing decently. I saw a few early wildflowers such as bloodroot, rue anemone, sweet white violet, yellow trillium, blue violet, hepatica and sweet white trillium in bloom. The day was unusually hot especially for March and at 3:30 in the afternoon. It was a full, sweltering 80 degrees! Honestly it was too hot and snakey for me to be out hiking off trail, but I was watching closely the whole time. It is hard to do when you are plowing through dog hobble and going over and under trees.
I checked out the pretty spots in the stream along the way and enjoyed the blue skies.
I had not much of a breeze down in that hole. I remember the first time I ever went on that hike. Gretchen and Annie and myself went. I think it was us three anyhow. We stayed up high on the bank and once within sight of the falls worked our way down to them. I have watched over the years as the way changed. Trees falling have altered the track. Now the path of least resistance is down low. I had brought my water shoes with me thinking warm as it was I might just get in the creek and wade upstream. Downed trees presented a problem in that regard as well. That plan wasn't going to be carried out.
Below is a video of the hike from the start. I narrate it starting at 25 seconds describing the difficulties and the changes and showing how it was.
Immediately above: My first full look at Believer Falls is from up high.
I made it up to the falls ever so slowly. I doubted myself several times along the way, but a look around let me know that I was going the best way available to me. I would catch a break now and then with a slightly more open patch of ground.
Being down in a deep cleft in the earth with towering hills around me and blue skies above me is a powerful reminder of my place in the universe. It is very humbling. The stream murmuring past amid all that green moss was so nice. It felt good to be out today even if it was plowing through underbrush. I was very careful on the way TO the falls. Remember I said that. It will count on the test later.
I finally made it up to the falls and once I was looking down upon it I had to figure how I was to get down there. I checked out a couple spots, but they both looked risky. I decided to stick with the slightly more circuitous, but safer way down. I could still see the cut in the ground where the faint path leads down from the old "road" or manway or whatever you want to call it.
It takes a long time to get from point A to point B when you are having to consider each step carefully. Finally I got down there and decided to cross back over the creek. That terrain looked more manageable than the side I was on. It was, but only just. Once again, there is no good way or easy way. Just bad and worse. I had to watch out also for poison ivy and oak all around. I figured I stood a fair chance of ending up with a case by the way I was wallowing in the brush.
The falls was pretty and it was worth the effort to arrive. I stuck around and enjoyed it for awhile. The death of the hemlocks and their corpses are playing hell with the forest. How I wish we'd done something to fend this off much earlier.
Once I got going on my way back with that first crossing done I got to feeling pretty good about life. I had the worst over with. I always get in trouble when I get turkey-fied and start loping about the woods. I get careless. I got to the second crossing and went stupid. I tried walking down a sloped rock that was dry as a bone. I figured it would be ok. I figured wrong! I fell and hard! I busted my butt and about halfway knocked the wind out of me. I knew I was going to have a massive bruise from this. (That's gonna leave a mark!) I picked myself up, dusted myself off and much more carefully proceeded toward the jeep. I was glad to see flat ground and the vehicle. It took a good while to hike that short distance. It was worth it though.
Even a rough day in the woods is better than a day stuck indoors or on the couch.
Parking Pass Info:
You can pick them up at any visitor center. You can buy them online.
They are non transferrable from person to person or vehicle to vehicle.
My jeep tag is not ok to use on my truck.
I heard it was not going to be enforced, but that is not true. The park service may not be able to enforce it 100% of the time. Just like the law may not catch each and every speeder... they will still get some. They are going to cite offenders. . They have put a lot of time, energy, and money into improving the parking situation. A drive home from Cherokee NC through the park showed Kenny and I how this is going to work and why it is needed. We had got to where we dreaded driving Newfound Gap Road. Like the frog in the pot of water where the temperature is gradually increased... we did not realize how bad the situation had gotten. We were petrified and annoyed trying to get through areas like Laurel Falls, but especially near Alum Cave trailhead.
People milling about in the road which is the ONLY place we have to drive. I was just sure someone was going to get hit. That day on the way home from visiting family we passed through those areas and it was magnificient! No huge crowds. No people in the road. Is it worth the price? It is to me.
Get your parking pass. Write your license plate number on it. Display it on your right side of your windshield whenever you park in the Smokies. The volunteer who helped me had a good piece of advice I am heeding. I kept the original paper it came on. It is a window cling. It stays via static. The problem with those is they can bake onto the glass in the hot sun. You have to take them off with a razor blade then. They get brittle. I do as she suggested and put mine on, then when I am done I remove it and put it back in the glove box. I don't want to have to scrape it off my windshield.
Gene Johnson put things in perspective for me in a good way. I leave you with his take on it here. It is a good thing to ponder. This is from his quote on Gosmokies.
"These discussions about the new parking fees in the Smokies inspired me to revisit how this great National Park came to be. Unlike many of the National Parks out west the land that makes up the GSMNP had to be purchased from six thousand landowners, many of whom were resistant to selling their land, especially the large timber companies. Donations to buy land for the park came from every strata of society and included the pennies of school children, the dollar bills of hotel bellhops, and the hundreds and thousands of dollars pledged by regional elites.
No one individual, group or governmental agency could have overcome all of the obstacles that park supporters faced in the seventeen-year struggle to bring a national park to the Smokies. The successful establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park serves as a testament to what can be accomplished through the combined and cooperative efforts of private citizens and local, state, and federal government.
Why shouldn’t We the People who use the Park that has been given to us not help preserve and maintain this great gift from the People?"~~Gene Johnson 1/27/23
Below: a cell phone snapshot of parking at Laurel Falls the same day driving back home from Cherokee.
