History resides on rocky Road Prong Trail

The newly revised "Hiking Trails of the Smokies," published by the Great Smoky Mountains Natural History Association, describes the Road Prong Trail as "wet, rocky, steep and beautiful" - a succinct but apt description. This is almost certainly the most historic trail in these mountains. I might add that it's slippery and includes a number of challenging stream crossings that require good balance, the help of a walking stick and, if possible, a strong hand to help you across.

Starting from Indian Gap on the Clingmans Dome Road, you'll soon find yourself lurching steeply downhill and crossing the beautiful, but currently low-water, Road Prong a half dozen times or so in the first mile.

I've rated the trail moderate because of the rock hops, several of which are quite challenging, and the boulder fields, sites of ancient landslides that tend to be a bit slippery.

The many obstructions along the trail make this hard to believe, but Road Prong was for several hundred years the main passage through what is now the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Known once as the Oconaluftee Turnpike, the route probably was first marked by the plentiful and enormous elk and bears that surveyed these mountains in quest for food.

The old wagon road, now obscured by second growth forest, became an Indian trace that was pointed out to early settlers by helpful Cherokee.

According to Ken Wise, author of "Hiking Trails of the Great Smoky Mountains," it's rumored that Hernando de Soto ventured into the Smokies along the Road Prong route. The evidence is not conclusive, he writes as he refers to the late Smokies historian Horace Kephart.

Kephart consulted documents in the Library of Congress that led him to write that it seems likely de Soto in 1540 "went up the Lufty, through Indian Gap and out through Tennessee ... long before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock."

During your hike you'll head down a steep and rocky path for 1.5 miles before arriving at the lovely "talking falls," seen from far above the creek at a point far too steep and dangerous to even consider approaching.

A half mile later, you'll approach Standing Rock Ford, the most challenging of the crossings and one that cries out for an eventual log bridge to be constructed. By crawling over several boulders to your right before crossing, you'll come to the easiest route, which provides several large and, at this time of year, well exposed boulders. Even so, you're likely to get your feet wet. Next, you've got only a little more than a mile to the Chimney Tops trailhead, most of it quite easy.

Just a short way beyond the ford, you'll see the inaccurately named "Trickling Falls," actually a series of cascades that foam beautifully and powerfully down the creek, even in low water.

This is also the site of Indian Grave Flats.

By the Civil War this Indian trace had become a well- established trail. It was converted into a road by 600 Cherokee under the direction of Confederate troops, led by Col. "Little Will" Thomas. Even so, soldiers had to remove cannons from their wagons and drag them by hand over the slick boulders.

After a skirmish near Cherokee, N.C., in 1864, Union troops retreated by this route. They conscripted local Indian guides, but left one of them dying on the trail, Wise writes. Confederates buried him along the route at a spot now known as Indian Grave Gap, writes Wise, whose exhaustively researched book was published by the University of Tennessee Press.

At the 2.4-mile mark of your hike, you'll come into Beech Gap, where Road Prong meets the Chimney Tops Trail, a wide, easy route that is one of the most popular trails in the Smokies.

Rather than returning up the steep and rocky Road Prong trail to your car, you may prefer to park your car at the Chimney Tops trailhead, then ride with friends or hire a car shuttle service to take you to Indian Gap to start your hike down the mountain.

Road Prong from Indian Gap to Chimney Tops Trailhead on Newfound Gap Road
Distance: 6.6 miles roundtrip
Difficulty: Moderate
Directions: Take U.S. 441 South to Newfound Gap and continue on the Clingmans Dome Road to the pull off at Indian Gap.