On a cool November morning in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 14 hikers set out along Porters Creek Trail, winding their way uphill past an old cemetery and several abandoned home sites, with a lazy river running alongside.
Along the way, one of the hikers, Ed Fleming, stops and points to where homes used to stand, and relays some of the history surrounding the land around Porters Creek:
“A lot of these later houses here were frame houses, and they cut their lumber on a water-powered sawmill,” he said.
The hike was hosted by the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club, which was founded in 1924 by 60 hikers in East Tennessee who wanted to promote the creation of a national park in the Smokies.
This year, as part of their centennial celebration, the club is hosting a series of “centennial challenge” hikes, which total up to 100 miles and allow hikers to retrace the steps of club members from days past.
This particular hike on Porters Creek leads up to the club’s old cabin, which was built to serve as a clubhouse and hiking shelter in 1935.
“The club got permission from the park to take logs out of some of the surrounding cabins here and build this,” Fleming said.
The cabin was entirely built from old logs and wooden beams pulled from other structures near Porters Creek which had been originally constructed in the 1800s. For 40 years, club members would spend nights in cots mounted to the walls, before the cabin was ultimately turned over to the park service in 1976.
“We think it’s neat,” one hiker said. “Almost 90 years old, and you could live in it.”
Another hiker, Rick Mulholland, is a retired IT specialist from Mountain City, and is working to complete the club’s centennial challenge.
“I figured I’d go ahead and give it a try,” Mulholland said. “This is the fourth hike for the centennial challenge in about two weeks for me.”
Mulholland says he started hiking with the club after Tropical Storm Helene moved through the region in September, wiping out local trails and portions of the Appalachian Trail (AT) near his home.
He’s hiking with the club to prepare himself for the AT next year:
“You can say you’ve got plenty of time, but you never know,” Mulholland said.
100 years later, the club is still bringing the community together, and adhering to a mission laid out by its founders.
“The early people that were involved in the hiking club were the same people that were involved in the promotion of the national park from the very beginning,” said Brian Worley, the club’s historian. “We were one of the first clubs that started working actively to have the Appalachian Trail in the southern half of the United States, as well.”
Worley has been hiking with the club since the 1960s, and also served as its president for a time. He says the club had five founding principles to guide its members which are still championed today:
- To promote people getting outdoors and enjoying hiking and natural beauty.
- To educate people about the outdoors.
- To promote conservation in the Smoky Mountains and surrounding areas.
- To promote the beauty of the Smoky Mountains.
- To promote and maintain the Appalachian Trail.
The club’s original 60 members have expanded to over 800, and they still hold weekly hikes.
“If you really enjoy history, and if you really enjoy challenging yourself by hiking off trail, and if you want to give back to the park and help them maintain the AT and some of the natural forest areas, then this is a good place to be,” Worley said.
And Worley says the club’s history is far from over – it’s pushing forward into a new century, eager to continue its work to preserve the Smokies.
