In the summer of 2009 my buddy Dylan and I went on a road trip with my father. We brought our bicycles and every morning we would wake up, hop on the bicycles, and ride 30 or so miles into a nearby town for breakfast. Our destination was my family's beach house in Emerald Isle, NC and the day before we arrived we wanted to go on one final bicycle expedition so we mapped out a nice luscious one through the Smoky Mountains. We got out a map and plotted our assault: We would start by riding about five miles from an area by a creek where we had camped that night, succeeded by a ten mile stretch on a bike path called Cade's Cove, followed by a righteous charge up a road called Rich Mountain that would theoretically take us up and over the mountain range and into a nearby town, Townsend, for breakfast.
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| Creek-side camp site the previous night |
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| The last shot my father got of us before we were swallowed |
We arrived at Cade's Cove and bid my father farewell with the expectation of seeing him in Townsend relatively soon. We agreed that, considering we didn't have cell phones on us, my father would go back and forth between the Park and Ride of Cade's Cove and Townsend in case we were to wimp out. Cade's cove was one of the most gorgeous rides of my life. The sun was just peeking over the mountains casting a glowing, golden hue to the landscape which looked irresistibly rustic and beautiful and it was a nice, rolling terrain that made for a pleasant, relaxing little cruise. Before long we arrived at the end of the path which was bad because we knew that we must have missed our turn to Rich Mountain so we turned around and started heading backwards. Before long we were stopped by a park ranger. He rolled down the tinted window of his white pickup truck to reveal the fancy pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses stylishly protecting his eyes (how he afforded them on a ranger's salary is a mystery to me to this day) and told us that Cade's Cove is a one way road and that we couldn't go backwards but we explained to him that we needed to get to Rich Mountain so he directed us there and left us alone.
We finally found the opening to Rich Mountain and just stood there, gazing on in horror. We were, keep in mind, on road bikes that were not at all equipped for off-roading and as we looked upon the fiery demon on a trail known as Rich Mountain we were deeply disturbed by the fact that it was loose gravel. It wasn't even small pebble gravel but large, jagged, savage gravel. Dylan and I exchanged a quick glance and decided that it was probably under construction and that after a bit the road would return to pavement so, with a shrug, we removed our shoes (we were wearing cycling shoes and would much rather have destroyed our feet than our shoes), we shouldered our bicycles, and we trekked on.
Four hours had passed. The pavement never came. With bleeding feet we trudged on, distracting ourself with story-telling. We were famished, fatigued, and beginning to hallucinate but we continued to walk until finally we heard the roar of a motor getting louder from behind us. We looked back and saw a middle aged man on a dirt bike fast approaching. We beckoned to the man and he stopped. He was a nice, southern hick type of man with his "southern hospitality" skills down to a science. We told him our situation and so he offered to ride up ahead, try to find my father, and tell him we were okay and what the situation was. We thanked him profusely and then, with a cloud of dust, we were once again alone.
After perhaps another half hour we finally reached the climax of the mountain. This was a bitter-sweet sensation considering we were done climbing and we had made some clear progress now but that also meant we were only approximately half way done with the trek. We exchanged another quick glance and thrust our fists into the air, bellowed a righteous war cry, put our shoes back on, mounted our bike and just decided to suck it up. We began to descent but immediately found this option to be only slightly superior to the one previously practiced because the entire trail consisted of tight switchbacks which, when on loose gravel, makes for very difficult and dangerous corners as we would inadvertently whip our tails out with each one. Also, riding on the gravel was not much more comfortable due to the harsh vibrations destroying our wrists, shoulders, bottoms, and lower backs so the only real advantage was that riding down was considerably faster. The speed, mind you, made the whole thing worth it because before long we slipped onto pavement. Keep in mind, this pavement was probably in terrible condition considering it was just a sketchy Appalachian back road but it felt incredible, pleasurable even.
We soon found our way to Townsend but could find neither my father nor Dirt Bike Dan and we didn't have our cell phones with us but we found an innkeeper who let us borrow his phone so we attempted to call my father. No signal. At this point we just wanted to sit down so we deicided to cross the freeway to an Econo Lodge with some benches outside. We stood, still mounted on our bicycles, waiting for a clearing in the freeway so we could cross. Meanwhile a blue Volkswagen Beetle with rafting tubes tied to the top drove past, the ropes broke and the tubes fell to the ground so the Beetle pulled over and a bafflingly large number of bikini-clad, bouncy beach girls skipped out to retrieve them at which point Dylan toppled to the ground. I laughed at him.
Eventually we made it to the Econo Lodge, sat down, and gratefully welcomed out immanent death but before we could even reach the light a white pickup drove up. Down rolled the windows as the hot afternoon sun gleamed off of the drivers shiny, black Ray-Ban sunglasses.
"Are you Noble and Dylan?" He asked us.
With hesitation we replied, "... As far as we know."
The Ray-Ban Ranger radioed back to base and said he had found us and then he told us that our father had been informed of our location and would be here in about an hour. We sat back down, no longer feeling the cold grip of death closing around our throats. We felt absolutely nothing but sheer triumph. When my father arrived he told us the story from his side. Apparently, while he was still in the Park and Ride for Cade's Cove, he got to talking with a ranger who told him that Rich Mountain is a gravel trail so, knowing that we were on road bikes, he stayed at Cade's Cove under the assumption that we would turn back as soon as we saw that (psh). When we didn't return he got worried so he went to the ranger base and told them he had lost two young boys.
Afterwards we went to lunch at a small diner in Townsend. Dylan and I had been craving french toast all morning so we were really excited to go at a diner that would undoubtedly be serving french toast, right? However, it was three PM at this point and they stopped serving breakfast at three. We got our food and a man walked up to us. It took us a second but we soon recognized the man to be Dirt Bike Dan who we had assumed to have abandoned us. He told us that he had spent the last couple hours driving up and down the town searching for my father's truck to no avail so he had stopped to take a break in this diner, hoping to catch the two of us as we passed through. We thanked him again and asked him to sit with us. I don't remember his name other than Dirt Bike Dan but I do know that I will remember he and the Ray-Ban Ranger for the rest of my life. Moral of the story: sometimes, some people really don't suck.
~Noley-Boy
