Local lore accompanies hikers on West Prong Trail

Autumn's colors have come unusually late this fall, so even if you missed hiking in October you can still get more than a glimpse of nature's glory in the Smokies.

The West Prong Trail leads to one of the nicest back country campgrounds and picnicking spots in the national park and is ideal for late fall and winter hiking.

Just after you start up the trail you'll see a new, unpainted trail sign at a trail junction. If you turn to the right, you'll find a well-maintained family cemetery that is populated by many Stinnetts, McCarters and Walkers. This cemetery is still used by the families who once lived here and should be treated accordingly, with great respect.

"Black Bill" Walker, the patriarch who settled here in 1859, was no doubt related in some way to many of those buried here. Though generally called Tremont today, the nearby lowlands are still known to locals as "Walker Valley" or "Walker Fields."

That formidable old bear hunter is believed to have sired more than 20 children in his lifetime, though only three of them by his first wife, Nancy. He was one of the last to sell out to the lumber companies that eventually clear-cut the mountainsides.

It was the Walker cabin to which 10-year-old Vannie Cook was taken after being badly burned in a forest fire in 1910. A flaming limb fell on Vannie as she joined the other neighborhood children who were spotting slow burns while their elders fought the hotter fires, all set off by a neighborhood feud. Legend has it that a dove lighted on the windowsill when Vannie was brought to the cabin and stayed for two days, departing heavenward with the child's spirit just after she drew her last breath.

After visiting the cemetery, you can follow your steps back to the trail sign or take a fairly steep, rough S-shaped trail from the upper left corner of the cemetery and across a dry creek bed to yet another trail marker that directs you toward Campsite 18.

From here you'll be hiking steadily upward in a southwesterly direction along the face of Fodderstack Mountain, named for its resemblance to an old fashioned haystack piled around a pole to provide livestock with winter feed.

American Holly trees you see along the way were planted by those same families who populate the cemetery. The holly was commonly used as a Christmas tree around the turn of the century and was also valued for carved, hardwood farm implements.

After a mile of steady climbing, the trail evens out and you have some fairly nice views of Walker Valley below.

Your descent starts at about a mile in and is never steep. It is eroded in some places, a testament to its heavy use by thousands of schoolchildren, educators and naturalists who use the trail while attending the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont.

Once the temperature falls below freezing it's best to avoid the exposed tree roots, which are the first to freeze.

Shortly after heading downhill, you'll begin to hear the sound of water. This is the West Prong of the Little River for which the trail is named, and is one of the most pristine waterways left in the eastern United States.

As you reach the bottom of the long descent, you'll cross two very easy rock hops across tributaries of the West Prong and come into a wide, flat open campground, which is surrounded on three sides by water.

There are several spots from which to choose, almost all equally pleasant, or you may choose to cross the split log bridge across the West Prong and use the campsite on the opposite side.

The bridge is still sound but is showing signs of age and will probably need to be replaced within the next year or two. The handrail is already listing pretty hard to the outside. Just use common sense about how many hikers to pile on the bridge at one time. Children will love the way it bounces and sways a bit with every step.

If you're just taking a day hike, you might want to carry along six or eight briquettes of self lighting charcoal, a few hot dogs, marshmallows and a thermos of coffee or hot chocolate.

This, along with the addition of a few sticks of wood gathered from the nearby woods, will make a cozy picnic. Be sure to douse and stir your fire until it's cold before you leave. The many windfalls and brush piles alongside the West Prong Trail are exactly the stuff of which out-of-control forest fires are made.

If you want to hike on after campground 18, you can follow the West Prong Trail across that split log bridge and back uphill again on a trail that heads through a tunnel of waxy rhododendron.

It's mushy in a few places where it's been cut up by horses' hooves.

After .6 of a mile, you'll meet up with Bote Mountain Trail. This is a major trail intersection in the Little River Gorge of the Smokies, leading to Cades Cove, Turkeypen Ridge and any number of other popular spots. All of these trails make for good fall and winter hiking as they're not far from the Townsend Y and are often reachable even when the Newfound Gap and Little River roads are closed due to snow.

Since the Tremont Institute has a year-round staff on site, the road to West Prong is usually open, though it's always a good idea to telephone the park and check before leaving.

The Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont maintains a restroom and small bookstore near the parking lot just across the main Tremont Road from the West Prong trailhead. Maps and hiking books can be purchased here. For information about the institute's camps and other educational programs, visit its web site as www.gsmit.org

West Prong Trail
Distance: 5.4 miles round trip
Difficulty: Easy to Moderate
Directions: After entering the park at Townsend, turn right towards Cades Cove, then immediately left at the sign leading to the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont. Travel two miles to the parking area on the right, just across the road from a bridge that leads left to the Tremont Institute offices.
The well-marked trailhead is just past a maintenance building at the end of a paved drive