Monday, April 1, 2019

Pickett & Pogue (Melo-transcendentalism)

Do you ever get envious of some of the adventure pictures and stories you see on the web?
 
I know I do. "What a life!" I always think. "Must be nice to do that for a living instead of being a slave to the establishment." I can admittedly be a bit melo-transcendental at times (and yes, I did just make that word up). To travel - to experience and inspire!

"What if that was me?"

If you aren't careful, seeing folks that have somehow managed to live that lifestyle can force you into a rut.

 
Don't you let it.

Amanda and I have been hiking Tennessee trails since before we ever met. We've also been lucky enough to hike in some incredible places across the Southwest, and even across the world (though we haven't been out of the country together, yet). We may not live in a van or a modified school bus featuring a composting commode or solar shower, but we do escape on occasion to sleep in a tent for a few months, as long as there's a nearby bathhouse so we can still look presentable at work.

And even with all the time we've spent in the woods locally, we still come across treasures we couldn't have imagined in this part of the country. We came across one such treasure yesterday, which this blog's title eludes to.

Pickett State Park and Pogue Creek Canyon. Within an hour and a half of Knoxville, Oak Ridge, and Harriman, and yet we (as avid outdoors enthusiasts) had never even heard of it. In one place, you get the largest canyon I've ever seen in this state, natural arches and bridges, caves, and even waterfalls. The difficulty of the trails ranges from super flat and relaxing to walk on, to challenging even for the most experienced. It was a place with so many options to explore that we'd have had to camp there for a week to even put a dent in them. We fully intend to.

Our first trail (below) led us to Hazard Cave.


The trail was pretty mild most of the way, with a few steps and stones to traverse during the final descent.


Of course we had to play with silhouettes and lighting once we'd arrived.



And I never miss an opportunity to kiss my perfect wife.


The cave is to the left of this photograph. I tried to run and climb to join Amanda for the picture, but couldn't do it in the ten seconds my phone would allow before snapping the shot. 

...It would have taken me at least 14 seconds. 



After the cave, we decided to head over to the park's Natural Bridge. On the way, we saw the amazing root system below growing over a stone ledge.


And then we saw actual arches! In Tennessee! There are several throughout the park which we are intent on returning to find. Some of our favorite memories are at Arches National Park in Utah, where we cowboy camped and listened to a Native American man play a flute during a melancholic sunset. Arches are much more rare in our neck of the woods, and especially ones of this magnitude!




There was a staircase to the top of the bridge, which seemed to condone crossing it. In the Southwest, this is often a no-no.



 Amanda wanted to blend in with all the trees, so she pulled this one out of her yoga-repertoire.



If you want to see us in our element, you'll never get closer than the picture below. We walk our own individual trail in a lot of ways (I'm the idealist, she's the rationalist; I'm emotional and empathetic and she's a walking calculator who only shows her truest soul to yours truly). 

Hiking together is a great metaphor. Sometimes the trail is easy, sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's literally impossible to do alone. But you still hike the damned thing, no matter what. And more often than not, you'll find us with honest smiles like the ones beneath this text.




As we continued our hike, I was so happy to see (but mostly to smell) so much pine, which is very nostalgic for me as a South GA native in my childhood years. If you want, Amanda has managed to capture the fragrance astoundingly with her Pine or Cedar scented candles, which you can learn more about at The Gypsy's Store.




Pickett State Park featured super nice bathhouses and campsites, some of which were right on the water.


 There was a bouncy bridge that, while well constructed, made me feel a bit odd.



Both Pickett and Pogue are participants in the International Dark-Sky Association, which you can read more about in the photographs below.






To help support the many efforts of the State Park, we purchased a couple of t-shirts from the clearance rack in the visitor's center. I'm especially fond of mine, which features John Muir. If you haven't heard of him, you should definitely do some research on the guy. He's right up there with John Wesley Powell as an inspiration and a hero, but to be honest I need to do a lot more research myself as well. Essentially, all I know is that he had an amazing journey, advocated for the outdoors, and had one hell of a beard.



It was funny how it happened; While we were at Hazard Cave with no cell signal, our mutual best friend and hiking pal messaged us about an amazing place he'd found that he needed to show us. He sent a picture of one of the rock faces he was looking at, and Amanda and I had only seen one place like it in TN. The one we were at! No prior discussion, no planning at all, and we both selected the same park to hike on the same day, coming from different directions that were over an hour from Pickett. Once we returned to cell service, we managed to link up (it took all of five minutes - we actually found his car before any of the texts went through).

He then took us to Pogue, where I got the shot below.


She's so stunning.


Background isn't bad either.

 Our buddy (Steven) said that the view paled in comparison to the final overlook, but we were sadly losing light and had a long drive home.





The point, though, is this. If you can find places like that on short day trips (which you always can), it makes returning to work the next week a lot easier. I still get disillusioned, no doubt. All we want is a few acres to ourselves. A log home, some chickens, and a garden. Rain water and solar power and a German Shepherd. Space. Peace and quiet, to truly focus on the things I need to write and the messages I need to leave the world. To just focus on each other.

Those things will all happen in time though, and being inspired by places like Pickett and Pogue will ensure that it does.

You know what's funny? Sometimes, when I point people toward the blog they didn't know we had, they ask me if hiking is my job. When I tell them it isn't, they ask "How do you do it, with work and all?"

And that answer is one of the simplest of all.

I do it because I must.

Love ya'll. More to come.