Not in the fields, God’s wilds, will you ever hear the sad moan of disappointment, ‘all is vanity’.
John Muir from “Meditations of John Muir” by Chris Highland
Perhaps the only thing I dread about going to the mountains is the drive. Driving, like social media and commercial flying, tends to bring out some of the lesser attributes of humanity and has become a necessary evil. Evil enough that I had been putting off this trip for no other good reason. But I have found a bit of a cure; getting up really early before the roads fill up with mean ugly nasty humans. Empty roads, like trail solitude, can be somewhat contemplative and so was this trip. Traveling east on Interstate 40, you are welcomed into the Smoky Mountains and the drive through Maggie Valley toward Cherokee was surprisingly delightful. I arrived at the visitor center at about 8:00 as a herd of elk were grazing through the open meadow at the southeast entry to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The southern terminus of the Blue Ridge Parkway is near the gate way to the park and I drove north to find Heintooga Road and my trailhead for the day. Driving into the Park on the parkway gave me that old familiar feeling that I normally get once I don my pack and leave the trailhead. It’s that calm feeling you get when you realize that after a long time away, you are finally home.
I have a flaw in character normally associated with male drivers in that I tend to wait until I get somewhat confused before I decide to consult bona fide directions to my destination. Heintooga road is not marked at all and turned out to be a nondescript side road off the main parkway. Having driven 5 or 6 miles past it, I decided to check the map and sure enough, it was the only option. No worries, just a u-turn at an overlook and all was good.
Hemphill Bald is one of my favorite places in the GSMNP. It looks out due east across Maggie Valley and Waynesboro. At the top is a beautiful patch of grass fenced in around a lone tree and a few half hewn log benches. There is a stone slab on small rock pedestals reminiscent of an altar or communion table. There are two easy approaches, one from the west on Hemphill Bald Trail (4.7 miles), the other from the east on Cataloochee Divide Trail (7.2 miles). Both trails follow the ridge on which Hemphill Bald summit stands at 5,540 feet. One day I hope to find a way to camp and witness the glorious sunrise that must be visible from the summit.
Easy level trails are best for contemplation. Climbing up involves keeping up with your breath that always manages to be just in front of you. Going down requires concentration to avoid stumbling on rocks and roots. Hiking on level ground lets the lizard brain take over the walking. I have been reading a lot of John Polkinghorne lately and something he mentioned in the radio podcast “On Being” came to my mind that morning. It was something about how creation is an improvisation.
“Creation is more like an improvisation than the performance of a fixed score
that God wrote in eternity.”
John Polkinghorn from an interview with Krista Tippett on “On Being”
March 10, 2005
I am a musician who aspires to play jazz and this thought stuck with me as the morning sun began filtering through the trees. I thought about how the Creator established a framework of natural laws that made it possible for a certain tiny blue planet in an infinite universe to develop just the right conditions for a diversity of life and yet those laws leave room for choice and freewill, both on the part of the Creator, and the part of Creation that was given the gift of freewill and consciousness. Much like a master jazz musician can tell a unique story over a basic framework of chords, tempo, melody and groove, we are never sure how the song is going to go, but it is always new, authentic and very personal. (The result of this contemplation found its way in an essay, God Is A Jazz Composer.
An hour and a half of easy hiking in the cool mountain breeze found me on the summit of Hemphill Bald. I am usually blessed to have a bit of a private moment when I arrive. Hemphill Bald is off the beaten path and most tourist hikers are not even aware of it. But this morning was not the case. A family of rambunctious boys, little girls and an impatient father occupied the small grassy pasture and my hope of stillness was obliterated as I sat on a bench eating my lunch amid a wrestling match between two brothers. But patience is a virtue and before too long the father had had enough and suggested the clan head back down the mountain. Hearing no dissent, the party moved along and stillness returned to Hemphill Bald.
The sky was clear save for a few puffy clouds. Although the temperatures in the city were going to be in the 90’s, my small thermometer read 72 degrees and the wind blew a slight but constant breeze. This is when human time stops for me. Abraham Heschel talks of Sabbath being the sanctification of time, when humans can enter into the realm of eternity for a moment and when God’s very presence is real in time, not space. This makes our need to designate and build our sacred spaces rather absurd. God is found in moments, not places. But I do find that being in Creation in a moment of stillness can suspend time as we know it and perhaps this is what it means to sanctify time; to keep it holy.
Beldon Lane, in Backpacking with the Saints, said that he always takes some written volume of scripture, a saint, or theologian along when he enters the wilderness. It is a way to contemplate spiritual matters with the benefit of stillness. My constant companion is a small book of John Muir’s writings compiled by Chis Highland in the Meditations of John Muir. This particular passage was from John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir. Muir spoke of the rich blessings of just being in the wilderness among the “divine atmosphere of beauty and love,” such that immortal life beyond the grave is not essential to perfect happiness. That days among the wild beauty had no sense of time, no beginning nor ending. He described it as a sense of “terrestrial immortality.” Man, I wish I could write like that…
I’m not sure how it is that I become aware that it is time to go when I am at such a place in such a moment. Sometimes it is a peel of thunder in the distance. Perhaps it is the thought of much distance to cover before I get to my destination. Sometimes it is the awareness of others coming toward the place and so it was time for me to leave Hemphill Bald for those who followed me there. The loop continued with a 2,600 ft decent over 2.5 miles. Hemphill Bald ended at Rough Creek Trail where the path back to the trailhead continued with a 2,000 ft. climb over another 3 miles or so. The last two miles were very pleasant as the trail leveled off back to the trailhead at Heintooga Road.
For a link to a map of the Hemphill Bald Loop, follow this LINK.
I am that I am not.
Copyright 2019 Shawn A. Carson
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