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There's nothing quite like standing on top of the Smoky Mountains and
enjoying the beautiful view that surrounds you.
Hi, I'm Valerie with the Great Smoky Mountains Association.
We're up here at Newfound Gap today and we're going to take a hike
on the Appalachian Trail. We're going to go out to Charlies Bunion.
It's been raining a little bit this morning, but hopefully the rain will
hold off while we're on our hike.
Come on, come with us.
Charlies Bunion lies 4 miles northeast of Newfound Gap
on the Appalachian Trail.
It's an unusual spot in the Smokies--a bare rock summit--the perfect
place to get a truly expansive view of these gorgeous mountains.
Our hike starts by finding the Appalachian Trail just next to the
Rockefeller Memorial at Newfound Gap.
The trail takes us swiftly up and away from the parking area and the road
and into the forest--a spruce-fir forest that is.
These forest types thrive in northern climates like Maine and Canada,
but they also exist here in the high altitudes of the southern Appalachians.
But spruce-fir forests have seen the impact of a non-native insect pest
called the balsam wooly adelgid.
The adelgid feeds on the sap of fir trees and leaves them standing
dead and gray.
You'll see these ghost trees along the way.
After about a mile and a half of climbing, we encounter some thoroughly
pleasant stretches of fairly level trail and the intersection with the
Sweat Heifer Creek Trail.
At this point, and further along the way, clearings provide wide views
into North Carolina and a chance to stop and breathe it all in.
After the intersection with the Boulevard Trail, the AT descends to
Icewater Spring Shelter, then its about a mile to Charlies Bunion.
Well, this spectacular view was certainly worth it.
We're here. This is Charlies Bunion right behind me.
If Charlies Bunion looks unlike anything you've seen in the Smokies,
it's for a good reason.
It was a strange series of catastrophes that created this landmark.
Before the establishment of the park, logging operations left
slash piles of waste timber and brush on these slopes.
These piles fueled a fire in 1925, leaving the slopes void of
vegetation.
A cloudburst was the final stroke.
Without vegetation, the soil was washed away, exposing the
bare Anakeesta rock beneath.
The story goes that Horace Kephart, writer and early park advocate,
named this place for a local mountaineer named Charlie Conner.
The two, along with the photographer George Masa, had trekked out to
survey the storm damage and, as the story goes,
Conner's foot ailment must have seemed a fitting and amusing name
for this peculiar landscape.
Today, brave little colonies of sand myrtle cling to rocky crevices
and soften the sheer face of the cliffs.
The lack of trees makes for great views of Mount Kephart, Mount Leconte,
the valley of Porters Creek, and Greenbrier Cove.
This is a place to linger and absorb the Smokies opening up before you.
One of the truly magnificent panoramas that the Smokies has to offer
and worth every single footstep.
You can find out more about hikes here in the park in
Day Hikes of the Smokies, available at our website
and at visitor centers throughout the park.