Looking for a day-hike to a sensational spot that also embodies quite a bit of the region’s history?
Here’s one possibility.

Murlless and Stallings in Hiker’s Guide to the Smokies (1973) designate Charlies Bunion to be “probably the most spectacular view in the park. Almost sheer cliffs drop more than 1,000 ft. into Greenbriar section.” (By the way, before any grammarians start complaining, apostrophes are not used in federally designated geographic place names.)

Located along the Appalachian Trial on the Tennessee-North Carolina border 4.0-miles north of Newfound Gap, the bare rock outcrop situated at 5,375-feet with its three-foot-wide cliff-hugging trail certainly affords breathtaking views not only down into an abyss but far west beyond Mt. Le Conte into Tennessee. It’s not the Grand Canyon by any means; still, the place can give you a touch of vertigo in a heartbeat.

Getting to Charlies Bunion is pretty much a cinch. Head north on the AT from the Newfound Gap parking lot, follow the trail signs, and before long — say, 2 to 4 hours, depending on whether you’re a backcountry saunterer or a full-steam-ahead hiker — you’re there. Leave early enough on a day that promises to be fair, pack trail snacks and a lunch, binoculars, the field guides of your choice, and you’ve got the makings of a nice day-hike. But remember: (1) it’s always cooler this time of the year in the high country than you ever think it’ll be; and (2) a squall will blow up if you don’t carry rain gear. (Pack a poncho and it won’t rain, guaranteed.)

As exciting as the views from Charlies Bunion are, the walk out from the gap up over Mt. Kephart and down around Masa Knob is equally interesting. It’s a 4-mile stroll through the early history of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Newfound Gap (5,040-feet) — situated 16 miles from the Oconaluftee Visitor Center — came by its name when it was discovered (perhaps as early as the 1850s) by surveyors to be a lower pass through the high Smokies than Indian Gap two miles west. In 1928, when funds to acquire park lands were proving hard to come by, John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) donated over $5 million as a memorial to his mother. In 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) dedicated the GSMNP — which had been officially founded in 1934 — in ceremonies at the gap.

Moving north along a portion of the AT laid out in the fall of 1932, one quickly leaves the hubbub of the parking lot area. Swinging up through metamorphic outcroppings, the trail is fairly strenuous for the first 1.5-miles. But it’s also very beautiful.

At 1.7 miles, the AT leads to a gap and an intersection with Sweat Heifer Creek Trail. According to Allen R. Coggins in Place Names of the Smokies (1999), this name “goes back to a time when cattle (including young, virgin female cows called heifers) were driven up the strenuous pathway along this stream to summer pasture.” One supposes that this made the heifers sweat.

At 2.7 miles the AT reaches the intersection with the Boulevard Trail, which leads 5.3 miles to Mt. Le Conte (named for John Le Conte, a scientist, not for his older brother, Joseph Le Conte, as is often supposed).

About 100 yards from the AT a spur trail off the Boulevard Trail leads 0.8 miles to Mt. Kephart (6,217 feet) and the Jump-Off (6,100 feet), which has truly spectacular views. The mountain is named for Bryson City writer Horace Kephart (1862-1931), author of the classics Camping and Woodcraft (1906) and Our Southern Highlanders (1913). Kephart was a force in the movement that helped establish the GSMNP and was nominated to have a mountain named after him in the late 1920s while still living.

In 1928, the U.S. Geographic Board first named a mountain located between Newfound Gap and Clingmans Dome for Kephart. But this raised a furor as the mountain was already locally known as Mt. Collins, having been so-designated by famous 19th century explorer Arnold Guyot (1807-1888) in honor of his mountain guide Robert Collins (1806-1863).

Kephart preferred Mt. Collins as a namesake, but he wrote the USGB saying, “I assure you that to me personally the whole matter is a bore, and I hope to have no more of it.” Well, what he got two months before his death in an automobile accident in 1931 was this splendid mountain north of Newfound Gap along the AT. (Getting a mountain officially named for you by the USGB is sort of like sainthood — generally speaking your chances are infinitely better if you’re dead. This was an unprecedented honor.) On a clear day — if you know just where to look — you can see Mt. Kephart from a spot near Kephart’s grave in the cemetery overlooking downtown Bryson City.

At 2.9 miles along the AT you reach Icewater Spring and shelter (5,900 feet) after swinging around the North Carolina side of Mt. Kephart. The higher in elevation a spring is located the colder its water. Icewater Spring isn’t the highest spring in the Smokies by any means, but it is surely cold.
Nevertheless, treat all water that you drink in Smokies.

From Icewater Springs, the trail drops down through slate outcrops and across Masa Knob. Shards of slate lining the trail make a pleasant tinkling sound when scuffed against one another by passing boots. High country music.

George Masa (1881-1933) was the well-known Japanese photographer. (His Japanese name was Masahara Iisuka.) Masa had a commercial studio in Asheville, but he spent as much time in the Smokies with his dearest friend, Horace Kephart, as he could. His magnificent photographs of the Smokies often illustrated the articles Kephart wrote in support of the park movement.

Masa was distraught when Kephart was killed in the automobile accident. He petitioned the government with a barrage of letters requesting that he be buried with “Kep” at a site in the Smokies.
This was not to be, but it’s fitting that their names be linked in this way via natural monuments in the high Smokies.

One of the many Kephart-Masa stories has several versions, all true. The two friends were coming out of the Smokies one evening after a long camping trip. The short, wiry Japanese man was — as was his custom — dog-trotting along at a good clip, sporting a red bandanna, a huge backpack stuffed with camera equipment, and a tripod balanced on one shoulder. In addition, he was pushing a bicycle wheel with a long handle that functioned as an odometer. (He was the first person to measure many of the trails in the Smokies.) Kephart and Masa passed a mountaineer on the trail. This gentleman stood aside and said nothing but eyed the pair curiously as they passed on out of sight. The following day he sidled up to Kephart in the post office in Bryson City and, after awhile, observed, “Kep, let me say to you, that was the damdest-looking Indian I ever seen.”

That gets us to Charlies Bunion (formerly called Fodderstack), where rocky outcrops along the ridge were exposed in the mid-1920s when a fire swept over the crest exposing the humus, which was washed completely away shortly after in a deluge. The curious place name resulted in 1929 when Smokemont native Charlie Conner was hiking with Kephart, Masa, and others along the high divide.
When they paused for a rest on the rocks, Conner took his boots and socks off, exposing a bunion or two that rivaled the surrounding stones. Eying Conner’s feet, Kephart remarked, “Charlie, I’m going to get this place put on a government map for you.” This happened. (There are also several versions of this story, all true.)

The views from Charlies Bunion are special. To the west are Jump-Off and Mt. Kephart. To the northwest is Mt. Le Conte. To the north are deep gorges along the headwaters of Porters Creek. Off to the northeast is Greenbrier Pinnacle, while off to the east lies the jagged knife-edged region known as the Sawteeth Range. On a clear day you can almost see forever.

(Note: For this hike, use the “Mt. Le Conte” USGS quad; “Hiking Trails of the Smokies”; and “Appalachian Trail Guide to Tennessee-North Carolina.”)

(George Ellison is a writer who lives in Bryson City. He wrote the biographical introductions for the reissues of two Appalachian classics: Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders and James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. Readers can contact him at P.O. Box 1262, Bryson City, N.C., 287713, or at ellisongeorge@cs.com

 

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