When I lived in east Tennessee, I backpacked year-round. In the summers I headed west to the high country, the but the rest of the year was fair game for the local trails. With Cherokee Forest, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Cumberland Gap all close by and the Nantahala and Pisgah Forests not much farther, there were literally thousands of miles of trails to choose from.

Since the majority of trail use in the Smokies is either on the Appalachian Trail (AT) or the trails leading to and from the AT, by staying away from the 60 miles of AT and working the 600 miles of non-AT trails in the park, it is possible to enjoy relative seclusion even in one of the most heavily visited parks in the east.

Further, since the majority of back country trail usage occurs during the summer, by going any other time of year, and staying away from the AT you can pretty much have the trails to yourself. But it gets better. The trail system extends north and south of the park into the adjacent national forests and they get even less usage. Now that I live in Texas and can only take off a week or two per year to walk in the woods, I concentrate on the Rockies - but a few years back there was a drought out west (similar to the one in the east now) and the Viveash fire in the Pecos Wilderness forced me to redirect my annual pilgrimage. We went to the Tellico Wilderness in Cherokee Forest and spent a week walking on the Tennessee - North Carolina boundary.

There were crowds in the Citico Creek Campground for the weekends, but the only person we saw on the trail was a day hiker on our last day on the trail as we headed out. It was summertime and we were on the Appalachian Trail and we didn't see anybody for a week. The story would have been different 25 miles further north inside the park boundary, but in the forest we had the place to ourselves.

Camping at Cherry Log Gap and the Old Crowder Place again after all these years was a nice change of pace. Blackberries were ripe all along the trail and this severely impeded our pace since I felt an obligation to help clear the trail of all ripe berries. Ultimately I was not up to the task, but I gave it best efforts. The quantity of berries available may have been affected by the lack of other trail users. The rewards of planning for seclusion are tremendous.