The day started out misty, humid and rather cool. We pulled into the old Ranger Station part way up the road to the summit. Hiking along an old road, we occasionally got limited views of the valley below. Lunch was a grassy spot with again, limited views due to the mist.
Shortly after lunch the climb up to Big Tom Gap was very steep and slick. At the gap we met members of the Wolf Pack, a hiking group from Wolf Laurel. Then it was up another steep and slick climb to the top of Big Tom.
Big Tom is named for Tom Wilson a hunter and mountaineer of considerable fame. George Ellison recounts some Big Tom Wilson stories in the publication Smoky Mountain News. Below he quotes from
a book in 1888 by Charles Dudley Warner titled On Horseback : A Tour in Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee (Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Company). “... Professor Mitchell (then in his sixty-fourth year) made a third ascent in June 1857. He was alone, and went up from the Swannanoa side. He did not return. No anxiety was felt for two or three days, as he was a good mountaineer, and it was supposed he had crossed the mountain and made his way out by the Caney River. But when several days passed without tidings of him, a search party was formed. Big Tom Wilson was with it. They explored the mountain in all directions unsuccessfully. At length Big Tom separated himself from his companions and took a course in accordance with his notion, of that which would be pursued by a man lost in the clouds or the darkness. He soon struck the trail of the wanderer, and, following it, discovered Mitchell’s body lying in a pool at the foot of a rocky precipice some thirty feet high. It was evident that Mitchell, making his way along the ridge in darkness or fog, had fallen off. It was the ninth (or the eleventh) day of his disappearance, but in the spare mountain air the body had suffered no change. Big Tom brought his companions to the place, and on consultation it was decided to leave the body undisturbed till Mitchell’s friends could be present. There was some talk of burying him on the mountain, but the friends decided otherwise, and the remains, with much difficulty, were got down to Asheville and there interred. Some years afterwards, I believe at the instence of a society of scientists, it was resolved to transport the body to the summit of Mt. Mitchell; for the tragic death of the explorer had forever settled in the popular mind the name of the mountain.
“In the centre of the stony plot on the summit lie the remains of Mitchell. To dig a grave in the rock was impracticable, but the loose stones were scooped away to the depth of a foot or so, the body was deposited, and the stones were replaced over it. It was the original intention to erect a monument, but the enterprise of the projectors of this royal entombment failed at that point. The grave is surrounded by a low wall of loose stones, to which each visitor adds one, and in the course of ages the cairn may grow to a good size. The explorer lies there without name or headstone to mark his awful resting-place. The mountain is his monument. He is alone with its majesty. He is there in the clouds, in the tempests, where the lightnings play, and thunders leap, amid the elemental tumult, in the occasional great calm and silence and the pale sunlight. It is the most majestic, the most lonesome grave on earth.”
From the top of Big Tom, there was just one more climb, Mt Craig and then we were at the summit parking area. We took a short trip up to the spiral observation platform and then it was down the old Mt Mitchell trail to our starting point.
I led a short hike around Mt Shepherd and up to the observation tower for a group of seven. It was disappointing to see more vandalism in the tower. Earlier this year, some vandals entered the top cabin with a paint gun and spattered paint on almost every pane of glass. This time it appears they have broken a dozen or so panes and kicked out part of the railing in the cabin
