Charlies Bunion, Great Smoky Mountains (Richard Bernabe)

Earlier in the week, my brother Danny and I hiked out to a dramatic rock outcrop along the Appalachian Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The four-mile hike to the rock formation, Charlies Bunion, was for the purpose of photographing the rock and it’s vistas for an upcoming book authored by Jerry Greer and myself, 50 Amazing Things You Must See and Do in the Smoky Mountains, due to be released Spring 2010 by Mountain Trail Press.

Our plans were to hike out in the afternoon to catch the evening light before spending the night at the Icewater Spings shelter on the A.T., which is about a mile from Charlies Bunion. In the morning, we would catch sunrise and hike back out.

This hike on the A.T. starts at the busy Newfound Gap parking lot and heads north. After gaining about 1000 feet in elevation over the first 2 miles, it’s a relatively easy walk to our destination. Where the trail traverses the northern slopes of Mount Kephart and Masa Knob, there was packed ice and snow from last week’s wintery weather. We even passed a snowman that was built by some hikers a day or two ahead of us.

Charlies Bunion is a rocky precipice that allows some outstanding views to the north and west, with limited visibility to the east and south. The exposed, craggy rock formation is the result of series of events that took place during the early part of last century. First, the area was extensively logged before the Smokies became a National Park. In their haste to harvest as much lumber as possible before the Park was created, the loggers left acres of  slash and brush piles behind. A resulting slash fire in 1925 left the soil bare. When a torrential cloudburst hit the area in 1929, most of that soil was washed away, exposing a series of  jagged, rocky ridges – the most prominent being Charlies Bunion.

Of course you are wondering about the name – Charlies Bunion. There’s got to be a story there, right? Well there is, of course. Shortly after the events described above, Horace Kephart, an early proponent for a national park in the Smokies region, noted photographer George Masa, and Charles Conner hiked out to the area to survey the damage. During the hike, Charles often complained about an ailment to his two companions and he must have shown them the bunion on his foot at some point. When they arrived at the newly-exposed rock formation, Horace commented that it looked very much like the formation on Charlie’s foot. So there ya go.

The shelter was crowded and the night skies were clear, so we decided to spread our sleeping bags out on the ground near the bunion and sleep under the stars. Sunrise bathed the rock with warm light as we sipped our coffee in the morning silence. After a few images were taken, we hit the trail and started the four-mile trek back to the parking lot. Charlies Bunion certainly is an amazing place to visit in the Smokies.

~ by mountaintrailphoto on October 23, 2009.