November 1999

by Bill Rogers

Suppose we had a workday and the trail didn’t show up? That’s not exactly what happened , but it’s close. On the last scheduled workday at Chilhowee, we were supposed to work on the new connector trail between Clear Creek and Azalea, but we couldn’t find it! Seriously, we couldn’t find the end of the new trail to connect it to the Azalea Trail. Somehow we took a wrong turn on one of those gravel service roads (they all look alike anyway) and we just couldn’t find the trail. Even though we didn’t get any actual work done, it was still an interesting day.

To begin with, we came across some kind of Native American religious ceremony. As we got deep into the service road area, we came upon a group of tents and tee-pees. A crowd of people was gathered around a fire while in the background we could hear the constant pounding of drums. To say we were not welcome there is a bit of an understatement. As we found out, this drumming was a religious ceremony, and the participants were under the impression that they had this whole section of the park to themselves. After explanations and apologies we were on our (wrong) way again. I should point out here that we tried to find the trail by hiking through the woods; towards what we thought was the right place. After about 2 ½ hours of chopping, scratching and clawing our way through briars and branches, we pretty much gave up on getting any work done. We did find a couple of interesting looking trails for future reference, so all was not in vain.

So that the day was not a total loss, Chris, Brent and I decided to go for a ride. We rode Azalea to Clear Creek. At the top of the first steep climb on Clear Creek, we finally found the trail we had been looking for. After verifying that it was the right place, we turned around and rode down Clear Creek to Rim-Rock, then back to the parking lot. It was a satisfying end to a very strange day.

We have another work day scheduled (the 20th) to try and finish this project. This time we hope to get it right. Come join us. By the way, I’m leading a club ride at Iron Mt. Saturday the 6th. Hope to see you there.

Happy Trails, Bill

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