by Jeff Alt
“Shhhhh,” Papa Lewis whispered as everyone silently clustered together facing the direction of the sound.
The sound drew closer to us as we stood in front of the Derrick Knob Shelter.
Dad stepped in front of us and shouted, “Who goes there? Hello.”
CHAPTER 15
YOU CAN HIKE BUT YOU
CANNOT HIDE!
Suddenly, a man emerged from the thick entanglement of bushes and rhododendron, and stepped onto the trail, a short distance from where we all stood. He was dressed like an outdoorsman from the 1940s, wearing a button-down, long-sleeve Oxford shirt, and a pair of khaki military pants similar to Papa Lewis’. He had a World War II-era leather ammo pouch on his hip belt.
“Well, hello! I was nosing around the area and heard you call out,” the man said.
“Will? Wild Bill?” Papa Lewis asked, stepping towards the man.
“What? Fred? Is that you?! What are you doing out here?!” (Papa Lewis’ first name is Fred, although it is only seen on paper and pretty much never spoken.)
Papa Lewis walked up to the man, and they embraced each other in a bear hug and smacked each other on the back.
“It’s been forty years, Will. Look at you,” Papa Lewis said.
“I know. Where has all the time gone?” Wild Bill asked.
“This is my family,” Papa said to Wild Bill.
Papa pointed to each of us as he introduced us. “This is my son, Clark; my grandson, Bubba Jones; my grandson, Crockett; and my granddaughter, Hug-a-Bug.”
“Nice to meet all of you. I’ll bet you’ve had some great adventures with your grandfather,” Wild Bill said.
“Our current adventure has been finding you,” I said to Wild Bill.
“I’m impressed that you did. Right now, I’m retracing the steps of Horace Kephart,” Wild Bill said.
“We know. We’ve been tracking you since you left the Oconaluftee Visitor Center,” Hug-a-Bug said.
“Well, last night I stayed at Silers Bald, and the night before that, I camped down on the Little Fork, near an old copper mine where Kephart once lived. This shelter here is very close to the Hall Cabin, a herder’s cabin where, according to the records, Kephart spent the summer of 1907. I was looking off-trail for the original foundation when I heard you guys.”
“We’ve been retracing Kephart’s steps to find you. We split into two groups. The other half of our family rode down to the Little Fork area on horseback this morning, looking for you. I just spoke with them by satellite phone. We hiked to the Derrick Knob shelter, predicting that you would be at one of those locations,” Papa Lewis explained.
“A satellite phone? Wow, Fred, you’ve come a long way,” Wild Bill said.
“They work in the backcountry, and it helped us find you,” Papa Lewis responded, a bit defensively.
“Do you all want to camp here with me tonight at Derrick Knob Shelter?” Wild Bill asked.
“That would be great. We already have shelter reservations.”
We unfolded the park map and decided that tomorrow morning we would retrace our steps south on the AT, back to Cades Cove. Wild Bill agreed to hike back with us in the morning. Papa Lewis called Grandma on the satellite phone and shared the news about finding Wild Bill, and explained that we would see them tomorrow afternoon back at camp.
It was fascinating to meet Papa’s time-travel counterpart and to listen to the two of them interact. It was as if they had picked up their conversation where it left off the last time they saw each other forty years ago.
“They know all about our family time travel, Will. As a matter of fact, Bubba Jones has taken over my skill. I passed it off to him at campsite #24, the same place where you and I went with Grandpa,” Papa Lewis was saying to Will.
“Boy, it’s as if that happened yesterday. It is time to hand over the skills to the next in line, isn’t it? It’s been forty years. I don’t have any kids or grandkids, is the problem, though. I never married.”
After a short while of small talk and some lunch, we had all reenergized and were ready for some exploration.
“Let me show you where I think the Hall Cabin was,” Wild Bill suggested.
We secured our food and toiletries up onto the bear-proof cables, and then followed Wild Bill into the woods. Wild Bill stopped a short way in, and pointed out the foundation remnants of the Hall Cabin.
“Do you want to travel back and meet Kephart?” Wild Bill asked.
“That would be great!” I said.
“Let me do the honors, Bubba Jones,” Wild Bill said as he opened up the leather ammo pouch on his hip belt and removed a small waterproof map case.
“We need to be very careful when we go back. Kephart documented everything. We don’t want to stand out to him, or we could alter history,” Wild Bill cautioned.
We circled around Wild Bill.
He clutched his map case in his hand and said, “Take us back to the summer of 1907.”
Seconds later, the trees were gone, replaced by a meadow on top of the mountain. A log cabin with a wood-shingled roof appeared on the nearby foundation. It had two stone chimneys, one at either end. The door was front and center with a window to the right of the door. The sky was overcast and we were being pelted with a cold hard rain.
“Kephart is here for the summer,” Wild Bill whispered.
No sooner had Wild Bill spoken when a man emerged from the cabin. He wore a wide-brimmed fedora, a long-sleeve shirt, long pants, and a handkerchief tied around his neck. He had a pistol in a leather shoulder holster strapped to his side, and he was smoking a tobacco pipe.
It was rainy and cold, so Kephart stuck close to the front door of the cabin.
Wild Bill led us out of sight from Kephart and into the tree line.
“I’m afraid to risk altering history by interacting with Kephart. He wrote about literally every single person he met up here. We’d better get back to the present,” Wild Bill said, placing his hand on his map case.
In seconds we were once again surrounded by woods, the cabin was gone, and I could see the modern Derrick Knob shelter. We all walked back to it.
Wild Bill asked Papa Lewis if they could have a private conversation. They two of them walked away from the shelter and out of our earshot. After a few minutes, we saw Papa Lewis pull out his satellite phone, dial a number, and converse with someone. Then they turned and came back to the shelter.
“Crockett, I would be honored to pass my time-travel ability on to you. Your Papa Lewis checked with your parents just now on the satellite phone, and we all agree that you would be a great choice. Would you like to receive this privilege?” Wild Bill asked.
Crockett’s eyes opened wide, and a big smile spread across his face. “Boy, would I! It would be an honor.”
Wild Bill removed the leather ammo pouch from his belt and handed it over to Crockett.
“I hereby bestow my time-travel skills to you. Since you already know that this skill is to be used only for outdoor exploration in our parks and wild lands, I won’t bore you with all the details,” Wild Bill said to Crockett.
“Thank you!” Crockett said as he clenched the ammo pouch with both hands, gazing down at it.
Crockett unbuckled the flap on the ammo pouch and pulled out the map. Crockett examined the ammo pouch a moment before pulling out the map case and unfolding it. His facial expression turned from a smile to a wideeyed look of surprise.
“Hey, Bubba Jones, Hug-a-Bug, look what’s in here!”
Inside the waterproof cover was the missing half of the cipher code.
“Wild Bill, did you ever wonder where the other half of this coded message was?” I asked, pointing at the weathered half piece of paper in the map case.
In my excitement, I didn’t even give Wild Bill time to respond as I continued, “We have the other half of this coded message!”
Crockett carefully removed the torn piece of paper from the map case and unfolded it. I did the same with the half-sheet from our family jou
rnal. We laid them together on a shelter bunk. The pieces were a perfect match. I pulled out my camera and snapped a picture of the complete message.
“When your Papa Lewis and I inherited our time-travel skills from our grandfather forty years ago, he gave me this map along with this torn piece of paper. I figured he must have given your Papa Lewis the other half. I think he wanted us to work together to decipher this message,” Wild Bill explained.
“What could be so secret that it was written in code?” I asked.
“Imagine if our time-travel skills got into the hands of someone with bad intentions. You could really mess up history with these skills. I believe Grandpa separated this message as a precaution, and he figured that one day we would bring the pieces together and decipher it,” Papa Lewis said.
“Now that we have the full message, we need to decipher it,” I said.
“We need a key or a cipher wheel to decode it, Bubba Jones,” Crockett said.
“That’s our next hurdle—cracking the code,” I said.
Dinner time came fast, and we all worked together to prepare a freeze-dried meal. As the sun set behind the mountains, we all sat up and listened to Papa Lewis and Wild Bill share their adventures. But even with all the excitement of wild adventures, time-traveling, and unsolved ciphers, everyone was bone-tired, and we soon crawled into our sleeping bags and drifted off to sleep.
Everyone was up at the crack of dawn. I knew, from the sound of Dad’s one-burner stove hissing, that Dad was up and preparing his morning coffee. After a granola bar breakfast, we packed up and hit the trail, backtracking towards Cades Cove with Wild Bill in tow. The hike along the AT went surprisingly fast, and we reached the Bote Mountain Trail junction to Cades Cove in a couple of hours.
Wild Bill was fun to hike with. He knew loads of facts and trivia, just like Papa Lewis. He’d spent much of his life in the Great Smoky Mountains, though he’d had plenty of other adventures. He had hiked all the trails in the park, which made him known in those parts as a “900-miler.”
On the descent down the mountain, Crockett was leading the pack, and I was lost in thought behind him, when all of the sudden Wild Bill hollered out,
“Crockett! Stop! Don’t take another step.” Wild Bill ran up to Crockett, who had followed instructions and was frozen in place. Wild Bill pointed down at the ground a few feet in front of him and said, “We are the luckiest hikers on the trail today. The Great Smoky Mountains have twenty-three types of snakes, according to the National Park service. Only two are poisonous. The one coiled up right there next to the trail is one of the poisonous ones, a timber rattlesnake. They are aggressive, and they will bite.”
We stepped back slowly from the snake and waited to see if it would leave the side of trail.
“The only other poisonous snake in this area is the copperhead. Those are usually found at lower elevations near streams,” Wild Bill explained.
“I’m genuinely interested in most reptiles. I like turtles and lizards. But for some reason, I don’t feel so lucky about meeting one of the two poisonous snakes here in the park,” Hug-a-Bug said.
“Can I just say that I hate snakes?” I said.
“Don’t knock them. They play an important part in the ecosystem and it’s rare to see them,” Wild Bill replied.
The timber rattler slithered off into the brush, and we continued our descent to Cades Cove. We turned off of the Bote Mountain Trail and started down the Anthony Creek Trail, and soon the trail began to follow Anthony Creek.
“Did you know that this park is considered the salamander capital of the world? It’s true; look it up. There are over thirty species in the park,” Wild Bill explained with excitement. “Let me show you. Follow me and watch your step.” He led us off the trail to the stream.
Wild Bill showed us how to look under rocks near the stream by pulling the rock up so the gap faced away, giving snakes or other creatures a safe escape. He taught us to use a plastic bag or container to pick up the salamanders. Touching a salamander with our bare hands can dry out their skin, and he instructed us to gently return the overturned rock to its original position. I pulled up a rock, and a red flash darted out from underneath it.
“That’s a black-chinned red salamander,” Wild Bill said.
We didn’t find any other creatures, and got back on the trail after exploring a short while. We made good time, reaching the campground by lunchtime. Papa Lewis introduced Wild Bill to Boone, Aunt Walks-a-Lot, Petunia, and Grandma.
As we ate lunch, Wild Bill explained how following in the footsteps of some of the early Great Smoky Mountains residents and park creators helped him appreciate the land and the people even more. He shared his latest adventure: the pursuit of Horace Kephart. He explained that Kephart served as a spokesperson for preserving and protecting the park. What he admired most about Kephart was how he went from city slicker to outdoorsman. He took up life in the Smokies, living among the mountain folk, and recorded how they lived, how they talked, and pretty much everything else about their culture. He explained that Kephart’s writings preserved a culture that no longer exists in the park, because when the Great Smoky Mountain National Park was created, the thousands of residents that called the Smokies home had to leave.
“It makes me sad to think that all those people lost their homes to make this a park,” Hug-a-Bug said.
“Everyone was paid for their land. There were two deals offered to the residents. You were offered 100% market value for your property or fifty percent of the value and a lifetime lease to continue living on your land. Some of the residents were happy to sell and move, and were given market value for their property, while others were deeply saddened to leave their homes. It was a difficult time for many, but it was an exciting time for many others. Lots had to be done to make this into a national park. Let’s take a ride into Cades Cove. I want to show you something,” Wild Bill said.
We all hopped into the vehicles and drove out of the campground and onto the loop road. Most of us were too exhausted from the hike to even think about walking anymore today, but that wasn’t what Wild Bill had in mind. Dad drove for a few miles until Wild Bill instructed us to pull off the road near the Missionary Baptist Church. We stepped out of our vehicles and Wild Bill led us over to a large circle of stones.
“This is all that remains of a Civilian Conservation Corps—or CCC, as it came to be known—camp that was once here in Cades cove. This was one of several CCC camps throughout the park. The CCC was known as ‘Roosevelt’s Tree Army.’ The CCC built this park. It was one of their biggest operations. In 1932, the country was in a deep depression. Many people had lost their jobs. President Roosevelt created the CCC to put people back to work. Crockett, it’s time to try out your time-travel skills. Take us back to 1933, at 0600.”
Crocket clutched the map case and said, “Let’s go to 1933, at exactly 0600.”
A second later, our ears were blasted by the reveille blaring from a nearby trumpet. Men dressed in military uniforms were barking out orders. Lights flickered on inside wooden barracks and hundreds of men wearing the same khaki uniforms emerged and lined up in formation.
“Where are we?” Crockett whispered.
“We are in a CCC camp. The CCC had to follow military rules in camp, but they would leave camp each day to go to various work sites throughout the park. The Park Service supervised the CCC at the worksites. They built roads, trails, bridges, the shelters along the AT, and they restored the historic buildings here in Cades Cove,” Wild Bill explained. “Hey, Crockett, take us back to the present before we’re discovered. They’re about to do morning calisthenics and I’m too tired for that today.”
“Take us back to the present,” Crocket said, holding the map case.
The barracks, the formation of CCC enrollees, and the camp commanders barking out orders were gone; just the stone circle remained against the tranquil backdrop of Cades Cove.
“The CCC brought together young men from all walks of life together to bu
ild this park. The jobs they did in the park gave them career skills. They learned to farm, plant trees, build roads and bridges, construct buildings, and build fish hatcheries. Some of them even learned to read and write,” Wild Bill explained.
Near where we stood was a stone maker with a bronze plaque attached to it that read, “In Honor of the Civilian Conservation Corps 1933–1942, whose hands built the roads, trails, bridges, campgrounds, and picnic areas in Great Smoky Mountains National Park for the benefit and enjoyment of the people. If you seek their monument, look about you. Dedicated September 27, 2008.”
We drove back to camp and rested up for our next park adventure.
CHAPTER 16
TOTALLY WORTH THE TRIP!
We stayed in the park for another week. Wild Bill fit right in with our family, and between him and Papa Lewis, we continued to get the insider’s take on exploring the Smokies. Wild Bill taught us how to cast a fly rod to catch trout in the mountain streams. We all hiked to Abrams Falls and took a refreshing swim in the stream, in view of a magnificent waterfall. Dad rented tubes and we spent a day lazily floating on the Little River.
Aunt Walks-a-Lot got her wish—we all took an eleven-mile round-trip day hike up to Mt. Le Conte via the Alum Cave Trail. What a spectacular hike it was! The trail followed along Alum Cave Creek, through rhododendron, and up a set of stone steps under a huge arched rock called, quite simply, Arch Rock. We stopped to enjoy a view from Alum Cave, which is really a bluff. Alum Cave served as a mine for Epsom Salts, and was mined for saltpeter during the Civil War. Further up the trail, we had to grip cables placed by the Park Service, to navigate along some precarious cliff edges. On our final approach to the summit we passed through a spruce forest once again, filling our noses with that wonderful Christmas tree fragrance. We stopped at the Le Conte Lodge, a rustic historic mountain lodge with small cabins nestled along the mountainside and a main dining hall. We continued on until we reached the summit marked by a pile of rocks, called a cairn. The stunning views, the bluffs, and dramatic changes in landscape made this my favorite hike of the trip. We all found out why Aunt- Walks-a-Lot was so keen to hike this trail, and I’m glad she insisted we do it with her.