June 8, 2012. The sun had set and we were standing at the top of the bluff with no obvious path down to the river and our campsite. We (JPD, PR, WvH and SSD) had left from what we hoped was the trailhead at 6:45 pm,
figuring that we could easily cover the approximately 2 miles to our campsite
in the 2 hrs before total darkness set in.
We knew that this end of the trail system was poorly marked and
infrequently used, but we had figured with a GPS we should be able to make our
way reasonably well. Now the sun had gone below the horizon and the afterglow
was the only light to guide us. Only
half an hour into our journey, whatever trail we had been following had petered
out into an open meadow which we could find no obvious trail leading from.
Crossing through the forest, we had
eventually struck a gravel road that based on the GPS seemed to be leading in
the right general direction. Over the next hour, we had found several potential
trails crossing this road, but each time had found that these trails quickly
died out within a few hundred yards of the road. So we had given up on trying
each of the many openings into the forest. Unfortunately for us, we had just
discovered that the gravel road was the one marked as a dead end on our
map. Still based on our GPS we were only
about half a mile from the river, which based on our map, we could follow to
our campsite, so we remained optimistic.
Turning on our headlamps, we found a faint trail leading
beyond the chained off end of the gravel road, and figured this was our best
hope. Then in the narrow glow of my headlamp, we realized that the open space
we were walking towards was the edge of the cliff. The view was spectacular, as we could see
across the valley to where the last rim of red fiery light beautifully outlined
the hills in the distance and could see 500 feet below us the dark ribbon that
clearly must be the river we needed to reach. We could even see where they
black shadow split to surely form the island that was near where our campsite
was. The only problem was that in the
quickly fading light, we could see no way down the bluff to the river from
where we were, and our map clearly indicated we were at a dead end with no
connection to the actual trail. From our
bluff overlook, we could see a ridge well off to our left that clearly sloped
down in the general direction of the island, but how to get there we did not
know.
With no other real options, we started back up the gravel
road, deciding that we would have to go back and try each the little trails
again, hoping to find one that would lead us to the sloping ridge. After a five minute hike, we found the first
one and there our headlamps caught the first real sign in two hours that we
were on a trail that lead to our campground, Amber’s Den. The sign was high up in the trees, which is
probably why we had missed it in the fading light originally. Heartened by this finding, we hurried
on. The trail was split in several
places, with no signs or other indication of the direction we should go, so we
chose based on the GPS and on which trail seemed to be headed downhill. Eventually, the trail became a sunken road,
making it easier to follow in the darkness as it steadily dropped
downhill. The overgrowth of plants and
tree branches on this sunken road made it obvious that no one had passed over
the trail for a long time. In one
particular section, at the end of a steep descent, an enormous spider web spanned
the trail. PR and JPD tried to trick WVH
into walking through, but he spotted the web and found a way through it.
After about two hours of hiking in the dark, the trail began
to be very flat and we could hear the sound of bullfrogs. We still could not see the river, but
Jonathan spied a campfire ring in a elevated flat patch three or four feet
above the trail and to the right of us. Although a single campfire ring seemed
unlikely to be the actual Amber’s Den campground, it seemed a reasonable spot
if we could just find the river nearby.
At that moment, PR said, “I think I know where the river is and picked
up a rock and threw it into the dark space about 20 feet beyond the campfire
ring. Sure enough, we heard a kerplunk
as it landed in the water. We climbed to
the flat area and investigated. The drop
to the water line from the campsite was too steep to comfortably try to filter
water, so we decided to investigate the nearby area. We dropped our packs and WVH led the way
through some brush and such and we found a place a little further up the trail
where the slope was much more gentle down to the water. Deciding that even if this wasn’t Amber’s Den
campground, it was a good enough spot for us, we set up camp. There were some glass whiskey bottles and a
bizaree looking collection of stalks placed next to a flat rock near the fire
ring. At some point, JPD realized they
stalks and rock were an improvised chair back.
Happy to finally reached our destination we settled in for the night. PR and WVH ate their squished sub sandwiches and regaled us with stories
of the Tim Tebow loving women at the local store who had made them for
them. PR had lashed his sandwich to the
top of his pack and we had joked the whole time about it having fallen off or
one of us having eaten it. JPD and I had
had the foresight (thanks to a loving wife and mom) to have a delicious dinner
to eat on the drive down, so we just topped off on some snacks. After about an hour of discussion on guns, soda bans in
school, and other political topics, and watching giant beetles come to our head
light, we settled down for the night.
JPD and I had only brought our sleeping bag liners, since after all, it
was June in Tennessee, but by the middle of the night we were pretty cold. I put on my rain coat and such and felt
tolerably warm after that, but JPD was apparently cold all night.
