Hazel Beeler
Columnist
The thin last crescent was still visible above Sinking Creek Mountain through a broken layer of altocumulus clouds, sunrise was blushing on Kelly Knob and the temperature was in the low 40’s as I collected my gear. Bodyguards and I were going to walk on Larkin Line Road (F.S. Rd. 5048), on the Johns Creek side of Johns Creek Mountain, and it isn’t far from where I live, so I wasn’t in a hurry to get going.
Michael and I walked that road back in June 1989, through lovely stands of mountain laurels in bloom, when the area had been newly clearcut. I wanted to see what it’s like now, as one of the last places I wanted to check out before finishing up the next section of my trail guide.
Johns Creek Mountain and Kelly Knob loomed ahead as Old Blue swayed around the curves on Johns Creek Mountain Road. Over the crest of the mountain we went, and down, down the other side; Larkin Line Road turned out to be farther down the mountain than I remembered, just above Black Diamond and a house with red roof. Crows called as I shrugged into my pack and took the bodyguards along the road a few tens of feet before letting them off leash. They bounded and danced ahead, happy to be in the woods, and we headed out, over a culvert carrying a rushing, rhododendron-shrouded stream, and past weathered piles of horse manure, stumps and slash left by firewood cutters, and desiccated ferns, mosses and lycopodium. It’s been a dry month; barely an inch of rain has fallen at my house. The road margins must have brush-hogged last summer; bushy sprouts had grown out of the shredded stumps. A titmouse sang his spring song, peter-peter-peter. Here was a campsite with fire pit and cross-bar tied to trees, surrounded by scraggly laurels. Signs warned that the last inspection for compliance with firewood-cutting rules was 29 September 2015 and that cutters must take only felled trees.
My recollection was that the road didn’t go all that far, but I wanted to check out all the possible branches, so when we reached a gated side road heading towards the mountain on our right, we took it. It climbed steadily, following a spur of Johns Creek Mountain, partly obstructed by small fallen trees and completely blocked by a large one we had to scramble over. Addie waded into a black, stagnant puddle. Diagonal blue marks on trees delineated firewood-cutting areas. We reached a fork, the lower of which descended into a barrier of fallen trash. The upper fork continued to climb, and we found our way over a couple of fallen pines and into a thicket of small pines. No vehicle could get through that, but a foot-trodden trace continued, so we did too. This had once been a road; the old bank of the cut was still visible to our left, and as long as that was there I knew we couldn’t get lost. Another titmouse sang, and the vegetation opened out; there was a double track ahead and sign denoting the area as crop tree release, meaning less-valuable trees had been cut to lessen competition for more desirable ones. Lots of small trees had been cut and left lying. The rotting logs all across the road made for hazardous walking. The road leveled out and contoured along through a low, squishy section, climbed a bit and became rocky, then turned left and went up, through more downed trees. We weren’t far from the crest of Johns Creek Mountain in terms of horizontal distance. Then we reached a berm and the road ended in another tangle of felled trees. We went back down, over leaf-choked gullies with standing water in them, and I retrieved my wool jacket, which I’d left draped on a bush, bundled it up and tied it to my pack. On the last descending pitch, the crest of Potts Mountain and the lower mass of Sevenmile Mountain stood before us. The bobbing tail of a phoebe caught my eye.
So we continued on out Larkin Line Road, which is well-graveled and good walking, and it seems to be open year-round—the gate at its entrance wasn’t closed. The road descended, past numerous downed trees, shaggy, uneven carpets of Lycopodium, and another campsite with two cross bars on trees, one of them a landscape timber. The road skirted a headland-like, pine-clad side spur, and something small, maybe a squirrel, bounded off in the fallen leaves, sending Addie in pursuit. Around another headland, the areas below the road thick with small pines, I caught a glimpse of two high places on Potts Mountain, one of which is Arnold’s Knob. Shale layers made diagonal lines on the road as it climbed gently, winding past banks of dry mosses. A chipping sparrow or junco trilled, something I didn’t recognize went peet-seet, and a pileated woodpecker took wing, with the ever-optomistic Addie running after its fading calls. Early dandelion-like yellow flowers, maybe coltsfoot, were in bloom.
We were maybe a mile and a half from Johns Creek Mountain Road when we reached a gate preventing further vehicle access. Beyond that point, the road wasn’t well-maintained, but it did go on, so we went too. I left my jacket on a tree, knowing no one could drive past and see it, and we followed a well-trodden trace and soon reached a fork. First we explored the left/lower one, passing another crop tree release sign, to descend a visible, but rocky and leaf-strewn, path. At the bottom a huge gully had been eroded across the road, exposing much of a culvert that must be inadequate or blocked. Addie headed down into the stream and emerged dripping, scrambling up the chippy, dark gray shale. I took a break to eat some of my sandwich, the crumbly venison meatloaf on crumbly homemade bread shedding lots of fragments to attract the bodyguards. The season’s first red-eyed vireo piped up as we got moving again, startling two deer that ran of into posted private property to our left. Past another crop tree release sign, the road became increasingly obstructed and finally petered out in windrows of felled trees. So much for that.
We retraced our steps. The sun was out, sky almost clear, and I didn’t miss my jacket at all. The laurels seemed a lot sparser than I remembered. When we reached the gully, Addie plunged into the water again. Norfolk Terriers, despite their small size, are often enthusiastic swimmers. I used to joke that Addie’s predecessor Ace had been a Labrador Retriever in a previous incarnation. Reaching the fork, we tried the right/upper branch, which headed up and to the right, over mosses soft underfoot. It kept turning, until we were headed towards the sun, essentially parallel to the main road. A breeze sighed in the trees, and a few fallen branches formed minor obstacles. After heading left, the road leveled out, and we crossed low, marshy spots fed by little rills. Blue blazes marked the trees, and we now had the sun to our backs. We found our way through the limbs of downed trees and over a berm, climbed some, followed a bank to our right that indicated a former road, and went under leaning pines of Damocles that looked like they could fall any minute. Then we reached what appeared to be another fork, and neither of the choices looked very promising. We went right and up, but the trace disappeared almost immediately.
Back down we went, and I got a glimpse of the clearcut area on the crest of Johns Creek Mountain, on the other side of Johns Creek Mountain Road. Down over the trees and the mosses, we returned to the graveled road, the gate, and my jacket. After a break to finish my sandwich and give us all a drink, I fished out a trash bag from Trey’s pack and picked up aluminum cans as we headed back. A nuthatch’s comment of “snark” was surely an expression of approval. Deer tracks were clustered around a nearly-dry puddle. I tucked the bag of cans in my belt, trying to minimize the clanking. There was the mountain crest with clearcut dead ahead, indicating we weren’t far from the paved road. We crossed the culvert, a robin ran across the road, and several more robins flew up into the rhododendrons, making bipping sounds of alarm. There was the house with red roof, and good Old Blue. With all the side excursions we’d made, I figured we’d walked at least eight miles and maybe as much as nine.
As I was preparing to write this blurb, I got out the slides taken on that long-ago walk in 1989 and had a look at them for comparison. There was Johns Creek Mountain crest, pre-clearcut. The fresh clearcut on Larkin Line Road once afforded expansive views out across Johns Creek Valley; it’s all grown up in early-succession pines now. The shoulders of the road, formerly green with mountain laurels, have been brush-hogged back ruthlessly. There was Michael with his walking stick and scraggly beard, and our good companions Ace and Blue who walked hundreds of miles of trails with us back in the day. It was quite a nostalgia trip, and Larkin Line Road isn’t as nice a walk as it was 27 years ago.
