I headed out later than I should have for a trek off the beaten path into Big South Fork Country Tuesday evening.

What resulted was quite an adventure that included just about every mishap possible . . . and yet I made it home in one piece.

I was seeking an old homesite at the edge of the gorge that encases the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River near the Angel Falls rapid. There are numerous old homesites in the park that date back to the time when Jonathan Blevins and his descendants first settled here in the late 1700s, and they can still be found — though they’re quickly fading into the regrowth of the forests.

This particular homesite is a bit different. It was a mid 20th Century homesite that was not abandoned until not too long before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began purchasing the lands for the new national park.

An abandoned field on the edge of the Big South Fork NRRA

My trek began at an old homesite on the edge of the 123,000-acre recreation area, adjoining what is today the farm owned by descendants of Bertha Terry (late owner of Terry & Terry Store at the Station Camp Road-Leatherwood Road-Coopertown Road intersection). Beyond the old house site and the surrounding pasture — which is quickly being reclaimed by nature — the road all but disappears into dense undergrowth. Mountain laurel, rhododendron and other plants are quickly reclaiming the land. And, as is so often the case with upland forests in this area that were logged in the 20th Century, the area along the old road contained large stands of yellow pines that were killed by the southern pine beetle infestation in 1999-2001. The skeletons of the resulting deadfalls remain, making even foot travel a chore in many of these areas. This is no exception.

Eventually, the road emerges onto a more recently traveled road. In fact, ATVs still occasionally (and illegally) travel the road.

Wild roses bloom at a homesite deep in the woods of the Big South Fork

Evidence of the old farm begins to emerge, in the form of wild roses and other perennial plants that were once planted here by homesteaders. Dozens of walnut trees are spread about as the forest becomes less dense. There is the rusted-out hulk of an old refrigerator near a cavity in the earth that was likely once a root cellar. The road peters out at the old homesite, which is situated near the point of a ridge on the edge of the bluffs that line the river gorge, 500 ft. above the river itself.

The old homesite is quickly being reclaimed by nature

The old road continues down the ridge beyond the homesite but becomes virtually impassible due to the fallen pines. There’s little evidence that anyone has trekked beyond the homesite in recent years.

What remains of an old refrigerator

A short distance down the ridge from the homesite, an old auto sets rusting in the undergrowth. There are several of the old cars that can be found throughout the BSF, rusting away to nothing. They were abandoned by folks who once made their home here and the Corps of Engineers did not attempt to remove them when the park was established. Similar auto shells can be found along the road to John Hawk Smith Place and on the west side of the BSF River crossing at Station Camp.

This old car is likely beyond restoring. 

It is beyond the end of the ridge that things became a lot more interesting in a hurry. The sun was preparing to set over the western edge of the gorge, but as the upland terrain gave way to the bluffs that line the top of the river gorge and the hemlock forests that lay beneath them, I just had to travel a little further. I’m a sucker for the rock shelters that are located along the bluff lines.

The gently sloping terrain gets rougher in a hurry as the land begins to tumble towards the Big South Fork River. I took a tumble of my own when I slipped over a ledge. Fortunately, the ground beneath me was covered by dirt and not rocks. My ankle was screaming in protest, but it wasn’t sprained and after a moment’s rest I was ready to go on, none the worse for wear. I couldn’t help thinking that I could’ve easily landed just a bit more awkwardly, spraining — or, worse still, breaking — my ankle. There is no cell reception in that part of the countryside, and it would have likely taken days for anyone to have found me if I were unable to walk — or crawl — back to an access point.

As dusk began to settle over the gorge, I found myself in trouble. The ledge was too steep and too tall to climb back up, and finding a gap to climb back up would have left me in the pitch-black dark. I never go into the woods without three things: a sidearm, a flashlight, and a source of carbs. But even with a flashlight, trying to pick my way back up through a gap in the bluff line in the dark would have been near suicidal.

So, I quickly made another decision: make the trek down the steep ravine to the bottom of the gorge, then pick an easier route back out. I roughly figured that I would emerge near John Hawk Smith Place, a mile below the Angel Falls rapid. From there, it would be a relatively easy walk out along a gravel administrative access road that descends into the gorge. Once at the top of the gorge, I could call my wife to come and pick me up, since I would be several miles from my vehicle. She would not be happy to do so, but it wouldn’t be the first time she got such a call at dark-thirty, and likely would not be the last.

As I emerged on a maintained hiking trail at the bottom of the gorge, alongside the BSF River, the last remaining light was fading from the sky. I heard a strange popping noise, followed by a cry and a whooshing sound as something dive-bombed at my head. I whirled around too late to see what it was, but it didn’t take long for the creature to reload and come diving at my head again, popping and hissing and crying as it swooped in, passing just inches from my noggin.

After the second pass, I was able to make out a screech owl. The smallest member of the owl family in these parts, screech owls are only about 8 inches in length, with a wingspan of less than 2 feet. But they’re also the most ferocious of the owl family — if any owl can be called ferocious. They’ve been known to take down large chickens twice their size for food.

Screech owls are also known to be ferocious defenders of their nests when they have young. I had apparently gotten too close to the nest and was now the recipient of the ire of one ticked off female screech owl.

I made haste down the trail, making a mental note to let anyone know that they might want to use caution if hiking the Angel Falls trail a half-mile upstream of the rapid.

Did I mention upstream? Yes, I did. At the time, I assumed I had emerged between Angel Falls and John Hawk Smith, so I began traveling north along the river. The trail looked too familiar; I’ve hiked the route to Angel Falls dozens of times. But I chalked it up to the near-darkness messing with my eyes and continued walking. Soon, I heard the roar of rapids echoing off the gorge walls and realized that I was arriving at Angel Falls.

It wasn’t all bad; Angel Falls is one of the only places along the river where enough of a cell signal is available to send a text message. I messaged my wife and told her to meet me at the Leatherwood Ford parking lot, then began my trek back upstream.

By the time I made it back to the screech owl nest, it was totally dark. I was glad that I knew what was coming; hearing the screech owl’s haunting cry — which isn’t distinctively different from that of a screaming woman somewhere in the distance — in the dead of night is eery enough. Hearing the strange pop-hiss-cry from a swooping critter that I could not see would have been even worse.

Sure enough, I heard the tell-tale popping, followed by a hiss and a cry, as I got close. I ducked my head, put my hands up in defense, and threw caution to the wind as I raced to get far enough away that the owl wouldn’t bother me. I probably looked foolish — and would’ve looked even more foolish had I walked back to civilization with bloodied knees after falling on the sharp rocks that line the hiking trail — but even that would have been better than being smacked in the side of the head by a sharp-taloned owl. Screech owls — which make the popping sound by clicking their beak in warning — primarily try to intimidate larger threats to their nests, but have been known to engage in full-on attacks of humans who stumble too close.

Once I was safely beyond the mad momma owl, I slowed down and turned on my flashlight, concentrating on the trail in front of me. As I said, I’ve walked the Angel Falls trail dozens of times over the years. And I have yet to hike the trail near dusk or after dark that I have not encountered at least one copperhead — and sometimes more than one — lying along the path. A couple of times I have had very close encounters with them.

Copperheads are more docile and less venomous than the other poisonous snake found in the BSF — the timber rattler — but I consider them more dangerous in some ways because unlike the rattler, which will provide ample warning unless you stumble upon his location too suddenly for him to do so, copperheads remain silent until they strike, even if they are reluctant to do so.

I’m not sure why there are so many copperheads along the Angel Falls Trail, but my experience says that there is more of an abundance of the snakes there than in any other commonly used portion of the park.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long until I nearly stumbled over a good-sized copperhead slowly sliding across the pathway. We had a standoff for a while before it became apparent that he had no intentions of moving on. I backed off to search for a branch along the trail that I could use to knock him out of my way. When I returned, he had moved off the road. Snakes being snakes (which means you can’t trust ‘em), I eased forward slowly, scanning the path with my flashlight. As it turned out, he had coiled up in the weeds along the path’s edge, in preparation to defend himself. As it further turned out, he’s a poor aim. There’s that to be thankful for, anyway. He didn’t get a second chance, as I used the stick to knock him as far off the path as I could before heading on towards the trailhead.

At 10 p.m., I finally made it back to my vehicle, about two hours later than I had expected. Getting off the beaten path can be fun, but there’s also a lesson to be had here: always make sure someone knows where you are at all times. I didn’t break a leg and I didn’t get snake-bit . . . but things could have easily turned out differently.

Note: We’ll have continuing coverage of the Scott County Hospital situation in this week’s and next week’s editions of the Independent Herald, but in the meantime these are my two cents on the situation.

For more than a year, the Scott County Hospital has dominated the day-to-day decision-making process of local government. The hospital has been a front-page story in the weekly newspaper as often as not over the past several months. As a May 24 deadline has drawn nearer, county leaders have undertaken various approaches to keeping the hospital open, only to reach an apparent stalemate with current hospital operator HMA just nine days before that deadline arrives.

To fully grasp the work that has gone into keeping the hospital open, you really have to go back to 2010. It was in early 2010 that St. Mary’s, which was leasing the hospital at a cost of nearly $1 million per year, announced that it would terminate its relationship with Scott County unless it was given a long-term, rent-free lease of the facility.

There were many who felt that “giving up” the hospital was a mistake, and that number has grown even larger with the benefit of hindsight. But there were also many who felt it was the right move to make if that was what it took to keep St. Mary’s in the hospital.

Scott County commissioners voted at the time to give St. Mary’s the long-term, rent-free lease it wanted in the interest of keeping the hospital open. Essentially, keeping the hospital open came at a cost of $1 million per year to the taxpayers of Scott County, since that $1 million in revenue had to come from somewhere else.

But even as St. Mary’s entered into its new lease agreement with Scott County, the beginning of the end was at hand. St. Mary’s had merged with Baptist to form Mercy Health Partners, in the process apparently taking on more than it could handle. Within months, the beleaguered health care firm was negotiating a buyout by HMA.

When HMA acquired Mercy, it informed Scott County that it was not interested in continuing its lease of the local hospital, setting in motion the chain of events that have led us to today.

The county’s first step was to issue an RFP — request for proposals — to firms interested in leasing the facility. By June 2011, there were red flags. As HMA was officially acquiring Mercy’s assets, the June 24 deadline for proposals to lease the Scott County facility was rapidly approaching — with no firm stepping forward to express solid interest in leasing the hospital.

Ultimately, two firms did step forward — Mississippi-based Pioneer Health Systems and Cookeville-based Downey Enterprises, LLC. Based on the proposals submitted by each, the county chose Pioneer by mid-summer, and entered into negotiations with the firm.

As summer turned to fall and fall to winter, negotiations with Pioneer continued. The May 24, 2012, deadline was looming closer on the horizon and county leaders expressed frustration with the slow process as Pioneer amended its proposed lease agreement, substituting new language into the proposed contract.

As most Scott Countians were preparing to celebrate the holidays, county leaders at the forefront of the hospital transition process were frantically working with Pioneer in an effort to reach a final agreement. Privately, at least, there was some concern that Pioneer was more or less stringing the county along.

By early February, the inevitable finally happened: Pioneer withdrew from negotiations. The back-breaking issue was indemnification. Pioneer insisted that the county be liable for any over-billing of Medicare that may have been done by Mercy or HMA, and demanded that the county cosign a note of $4.5 million to cover that over-billing.

With Scott County and Pioneer unable to come to terms on indemnification, the county was back to square one. Additional firms stepped forward to express preliminary interest in leasing the hospital, but those talks never advanced beyond the preliminary stages.

When it finally became apparent that the county was going to be unable to lease the hospital, commissioners opted to resort to something of a worst-case scenario: getting back into the hospital business.

The county brought Alliant Management Services to the table in March as a potential manager of day-to-day operations at the hospital. The Louisville-based hospital management firm was contracted to begin the preliminary process of transferring the hospital operations to Scott County, with an ultimate plan of establishing a non-profit and county-appointed board of directors to oversee the hospital.

It was a move that would extend a great deal of liability to taxpayers; should the hospital continue losing money at the rate the records of Mercy and HMA showed that it was losing money, that money would have to be repaid through tax revenues. But in the face of losing the county’s health care facility and the nearly 200 jobs associated with it, public opinion of the move was favorable.

It was known from the beginning that Scott County would have to secure a line of credit — somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 million — to cover operational costs associated with the hospital until revenues began to flow and the hospital was back on its feet, financially.

The state comptroller’s office initially said “no” to the proposal of the county obtaining a loan to float the hospital, but ultimately presented a plan that would require a 37-cent (16%) property tax increase for at least two years to help amortize that debt.

Public opinion on the possibility of a tax increase to keep the hospital open appeared to be split nearly 50/50. Still, county officials appeared to be ready to move forward with a tax increase when an anonymous citizen stepped forward to loan the county $1 million — interest-free — in order to render moot the possibility of a tax increase.

Even as a tax increase was being discussed, it was very much in doubt whether the county would be able to obtain the line of credit it needed to keep the hospital open beyond May 24. Local banks — First Trust & Savings Bank and First National Bank — were willing to work with the county on the matter but were unable to loan that much money, and the bigger banks were not interested.

So while the anonymous lender was being celebrated, county officials attempted to temper the optimism by warning that the issue was far from a done deal.

With the May 24 deadline growing closer and still no credit line obtained, Scott County approached HMA — which had previously declined to extend its lease of the hospital — about the possibility of sticking around a little longer. This time, the firm relented . . . but not without several stipulations.

Chief among them was a $1.7 million “deductible” for which the taxpayers of Scott County would be potentially responsible. After last night’s special called meeting of County Commission, it was described as a potential liability for the county to cover any fines that might be incurred by HMA in relation to its operation for the hospital. Commissioners gave tentative approval to HMA’s proposal, but hinged that approval on County Mayor Jeff Tibbals, County Attorney John Beaty and Hospital Committee Chairman Paul Strunk being able to iron out differences with HMA.

When the trio were unable to come to terms with HMA on that matter this morning, the county declined HMA’s proposal, and HMA subsequently informed employees of the hospital that they will be terminated May 24.

There are laws governing the closure of the facility, not the least of which is the WARN Act, requiring employers to give a 60-day notice before a mass layoff. But HMA apparently intends to circumvent that requirement by citing the county’s decision to “change direction in the middle of the stream,” allowing it to close the doors of the hospital on May 24.

Since news of the hospital’s pending closure broke this afternoon, some frustrated citizens have blamed county officials for “letting the hospital go,” or for failing to raise taxes to keep the facility open.

Perhaps there were things county officials could have done differently to keep the hospital open. None of us are privileged to the details of meetings between the county and HMA frontman Jack Bryan, nor to those of meetings between the county and firms interested in leasing the hospital.

But there are a couple of things that are for certain, and it needs to be said in order to avert an unfair perception: the county did not sit back and watch the hospital slip towards closure. The news that the hospital will likely close didn’t just happen; this has been looming for more than a year. In fact, news that the county did not come to an agreement with HMA only sets us back to about 6 p.m. Monday, just before Mayor Tibbals announced that HMA had agreed to extend its lease of the hospital through July 23. The hospital’s future has been a daily topic of discussion around the Scott County Office Building, and county officials — particularly Tibbals, Strunk and Beaty — have spent countless hours on the hospital over the past several months. The future of the facility has been a subject of discussion and/or action at every regular meeting and work session of County Commission for more than eight months.

And, in the end, a property tax increase would have done nothing to save the hospital, since a line of credit sufficient to cover operational costs at the hospital will apparently prove unobtainable for the county.

Perhaps county officials could have agreed to HMA’s stipulation regarding the $1.7 million “deductible,” but what hasn’t been said — at least not publicly — is that it was still doubtful that a line of credit could be obtained even in the next 60 days. As one official said today, “It was either everyone be mad at us today, or everyone be mad at us in 60 days and we would be $1.7 million further in debt.”

Back in 2010, county leaders were willing to give up $1 million per year to keep the hospital open. In 2012, they were apparently ready to raise property taxes 16% to keep the facility open. But $1.7 million to buy an extra 60 days — with the prospects of obtaining a loan to keep the facility open beyond 60 days still slim — proved to be too much of a cost to keep the facility open.

Which means that if a minor miracle doesn’t occur between now and next Thursday, the hospital will apparently close. And while there will be some interest from investors in reopening the hospital, complicated processes regarding the opening of hospital facilities places the future of the facility very much in doubt.

Maybe there is something that could have been done differently. But it can’t be said that Scott County didn’t try to save its hospital.

Barring a miracle, it appears that one of the northern Cumberland Plateau’s two hospitals will close in nine days.

Scott County Hospital, which has been open since the 1950s, is slated for closure May 24, when HMA’s lease agreement with Scott County is terminated.

The latest move in a months-long saga revolving around the hospital’s fate came this morning, when Scott County leaders rejected a proposal from HMA that would have kept the hospital open through July 23 as the county continued to seek funding — around $5 million to $7 million — to keep the facility going after HMA ceased operations.

Last night, Scott County Commission voted unanimously to give its tentative approval to HMA’s proposal, which came at the request of Scott County for more time to put together a plan to save the hospital. However, that agreement was made pending a final review of HMA’s last-minute proposal by Scott County Mayor Jeff Tibbals, County Attorney John Beaty and Hospital Committee Chairman Paul Strunk.

After that review, the county informed HMA officials in a conference call this morning that the county could not accept the proposal, due in large part to a clause that would make the county liable for up to $1.7 million in potential fines incurred by any possible wrongdoing by HMA since the firm has been in operation of the hospital.

As one county official put it, “Either everyone is mad at us today, or everyone is mad at us in 60 days and we’re $1.7 million poorer.”

It appears that HMA will cite the county’s mid-stream change of course as an effort to circumvent the WARN Act, which requires employers to provide a 60-day notification before a mass layoff. By doing so, HMA would be able to close the hospital and terminate all of its employees on May 24.

Closure of the hospital has been pending since HMA acquired Mercy Health Partners’ assets last year. Two years ago, Scott County agreed to give St. Mary’s, which later merged with Baptist to become Mercy, a long-term, rent-free lease on the hospital facility. However, HMA informed the county after its acquisition of the Knoxville-based firm that it had no interest in continuing to operate the hospital.

Scott County originally sought another operator interested in leasing the facility, and appeared to have an interested party in Mississippi-based Pioneer Health Systems. Pioneer and Cookeville-based Downey Enterprises LLC were the only firms to submit lease proposals. County commissioners chose Pioneer, but lengthy negotiations ultimately fell through just before Christmas, due in large part to the county’s reluctance to assume an indemnification clause requested by Pioneer, which county leaders said could have left the county’s taxpayers liable for millions of dollars.

After that deal fell through and no other firm expressed an interest in operating the hospital, the county turned to its last-gasp plan of action: setting up a non-profit organization to keep the hospital open, and hiring a management firm to handle day-to-day operations of the hospital.

It initially appeared that obtaining the necessary funding to do so would require a 37-cent property tax increase for Scott County. However, an anonymous citizen stepped forward to loan the county $1 million — interest free — to render the tax increase unnecessary.

Still, the county has had difficulty obtaining the funding — around $6 million is needed to keep the hospital afloat until revenues start to come in from its operation — which led to the recent request for HMA to extend its lease agreement beyond May 24.

One county official said this afternoon that the county has exhausted most of its options for obtaining that funding, making it very likely that the hospital will, in fact, close on May 24.

That is the latest blow to a county that continues to reel from economic recession. Scott County’s unemployment rate remains the state’s highest, but has been slowly improving in recent months, with several positive developments.

However, the past week has brought plenty of bad news. First, Huntsville-based Tennier Industries, the county’s largest manufacturing employer, received a stop-work order after its recently-awarded $98 million contact for military modular sleep systems was protested by an Alabama-based company. The protest, and subsequent stop-work order, are common occurrences within the industry, but the developments nevertheless shuttled work at the Huntsville plant and forced workers to file for temporary unemployment benefits, although company officials anticipated being back to work in short order.

The latest piece of bad news will deal a significant blow to what has become the county’s second largest industry behind education services — health care. The hospital employees nearly 200 people, whose wages are among the highest in Scott County, where the median household income is $27,000. That loss of jobs could push the county’s unemployment rate back to 20%, making it one of the highest in the nation.

If Scott County Hospital closes on May 24, Jamestown Regional Medical Center will become the only hospital on the northern plateau. The nearest hospitals off the plateau are located in Livingston, Cookeville, Lafollette and Oak Ridge.

Spring is winding down, but there are still signs of nature’s annual rebirth. Wild turkey poults are now appearing across the Cumberlands, and whitetail deer fawns soon will. Here is one of the former, pictured today at Brimstone Recreation near Huntsville, Tenn.

After a spring whitewater paddling season that was cut short by abnormally dry conditions, rivers in the Big South Fork NRRA continue to flow near or below historical lows for this time of year.

At Leatherwood Ford on the Big South Fork, the USGS-measured stream flow is 214 cubic feet per second (cfs) this morning. The record low for this date was 230 cfs, set in 1986. The average is 652 cfs. Earlier this week, rainfall pushed the streamflow to 600 cfs…but even then it was below average for early May.

At Burnt Mill Ford on Clear Fork near Robbins, the streamflow this morning is 63 cfs. The record for this date is 52 cfs, set in 1942.

At the U.S. Hwy. 27 bridge on New River, the streamflow is 78 cfs. The record is 58 cfs, set in 1936.

Of course, the anticipated heavy rainfall today will raise the river levels, but just temporarily unless we get into a pattern of receiving substantial rain every four or five days or so.

At Oneida, the Howard H. Baker Watershed Lake, which serves as the primary source of water for a large portion of northern Scott County, has dropped to levels usually not seen until August, if then. The lake dropped to dangerously low levels during the drought of 2007, leading to calls for residents to conserve water as the Oneida Water & Wastewater Department eventually purchased some treated water from an adjoining utility district. If a repeat of that drought were to develop this summer, the town’s source of water could be in big trouble again. Fortunately, most long-range forecasters are not calling for that to happen.

Currently, 76% of Tennessee is declared by the U.S. Drought Monitor as being “abnormally dry,” one step below an official drought. That includes all of the state with the exception of East Tennessee, and includes a portion of the Cumberlands region. The Drought Monitor has declared a moderate drought in 14% of the state, mostly in southern Middle Tennessee.

The NWS’s Climate Prediction Center is calling for below-average precipitation for this area through the next 14 days.

The CPC is also calling for above-average temperatures to continue for the next three months, although several of the global weather models are projecting below-average summer temperatures for our area. In fact, if some of these global models are correct, we may see a summer much like 2009 — the summer that wasn’t a summer, with relatively cool temperatures and an excess of rainfall.

The original home, built in the 1890s, at the Oscar Blevins Farm. In the background is the “newer” home, built in the 1950s.

Back in the middle of the 20th Century, before anyone had the idea of preserving the free-flowing Big South Fork of the Cumberland River, some knuckleheads in Congress wanted to rob it of its wild independence — as had been done to so many other noble streams in the South — by damming it in the vicinity of the historic Blue Heron mining community near Stearns, Ky.

Fortunately, wiser minds prevailed. The dam was never built, and the river remains today as it was before white man ever trekked across the Cumberland Plateau nearly two and a half centuries ago.

Eventually, the Big South Fork River, the gorge encasing it and its major tributaries, and some of the tabletop lands of the plateau surrounding it were purchased by the federal government to form the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area. Authorized by Congress in 1974, the Big South Fork NRRA would eventually encompass 123,000 acres, preserving some of the most beautiful landscapes in the eastern United States.

But it didn’t come without a price.

Every now and then, one finds a stark example of eminent domain’s dark underbelly. Located within the heart of Big South Fork country, the Oscar Blevins Farm is just such an example.

When the feds began purchasing lands for the Big South Fork in the mid ’70s, some landowners happily accepted the government’s fair-market price for their property and bid farewell to a rugged terrain that had been mostly stripped of its timber and minerals.

But other landowners were more reluctant. Among them was Oscar Blevins. He had been born on the small farm where he and his wife, Ermon, were living when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers came knocking in 1975. It was a piece of land that had been more or less in his family for generations, and he wasn’t happy to lose it.

Step onto the small farm — which consists of 10 acres of gently rolling uplands surrounded by forests of hemlock, maple, oak and hickory — and it isn’t difficult to see why Oscar Blevins was so reluctant to give up his farm. The farm is beautiful, particularly in the spring — when dogwoods and redbuds and, a little later, mountain laurel and rhododendron are in bloom — and in the fall.

An old split-rail fence encircles freshly-mowed pastureland at the Oscar Blevins Farm

Oscar Blevins died in 1988, thirteen years after leaving the farm. It was said that he grieved himself to death over the loss of the farm.

Today, there are some who say that the farm is haunted. Over the years, park rangers have gotten goosebumps at the farm and some have even claimed to have seen an old man in a floppy hat and overalls roaming the land. Author Andrea Lankford wrote about it in her book, Haunted Hikes: Spine-Tingling Tales and Trails from North America’s National Parks.

Oscar Blevins’ son understandably bristles when someone suggests that his father’s spirit is hanging around to haunt the family farm. It isn’t likely that ol’ Oscar is haunting the place. But the farm is an example of the subsistence farms that once dotted the landscape of what is now the Big South Fork NRRA. The Blevins family lived off the land, growing the food for their table and raising a variety of livestock that served a variety of purposes.

The Blevins family has been an indelible part of the history of this area, beginning with Jonathan Blevins, a long hunter who is said to be one of the first white settlers to settle in this region in the late 1700s. It was Jonathan Blevins who built the original cabin near where Charit Creek and Station Camp creeks merge. That cabin and a variety of surrounding barns and buildings make up Charit Creek Lodge, a backcountry hostel in the Big South Fork.

Jonathan Blevins’ grandson, John Blevins, built the original one-room cabin at the Oscar Blevins Farm in the early 1890s, and it is still standing today. John Blevins was a Baptist minister who was well-known at churches around the area.

Located on the Bandy Creek Road nearby the farm is Katie Blevins Cemetery. Katie was John’s mother (Jonathan Blevins’ daughter-in-law). Both of John’s parents are buried in the cemetery, as is Oscar Blevins and a number of the other early settlers of this area.

John Blevins sold his cabin and the land it set on to the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company at the turn of the century. The Stearns Company would go on to purchase much of the territory that now makes up the Big South Fork NRRA and adjoining Pickett State Forest.

As was its practice with company-owned lands, the Stearns Company leased the cabin, rent-free, to Oscar Blevins’ father. The elder Blevins was another grandson of Jonathan Blevins from Charit Creek, and first cousin to the Rev. John Blevins, who had built the cabin.

It was there, in that one-room cabin, that Oscar Blevins was born in 1915. The family lived there until Oscar was five, then moved to Charit Creek, where the Blevins family had gotten its start in Big South Fork country more than a century earlier.

Jake Blevins, a brother to Rev. John Blevins, leased the cabin and the land it sat on from the Stearns Company for the next several years and added on to the old cabin using lumber from the forest that surrounded the property.

In 1940, Oscar Blevins came back to Bandy Creek at the age of 25. By then, the Stearns Company was selling off most of its holdings, having depleted the vast timber stands in the region. Oscar purchased the farm where he had been born and lived there for the next three and a half decades until the federal government began purchasing lands to form the national park.

During that time, Blevins built a number of other structures that are still standing on the farm, including a new, much larger frame house (around 1950), a large frame barn (in the 1960s) where the National Park Service continues to stable horses, a corn crib, smoke house and a root cellar.

A root cellar built by Oscar Blevins on his farm is missing its roof today; only the stones remain.

Although the Blevins Farm is located several miles from the main, paved road today, it was once located directly on the area’s major thoroughfare. The main road from Leatherwood Ford west across Bandy Creek and beyond — well before the present-day Tennessee Highway 297 was constructed — went nearly through the front door of Blevins’ home that he constructed in the 1950s.

Today, visitors to the Blevins Farm can drive directly to it by way of the Bandy Creek Visitors Center, but the much more scenic route is along a 3.8-mile loop hiking trail that begins and ends at a trailhead just north of the Visitors Center.

The trail leads hikers through additional farmlands that are in various stages of regrowth. Some are nearly non-distinguishable, such as an early-growth forest along the flat land near the beginning of the hiking trail. As recently as 70 years ago, the land there was farmed. An infestation of the southern pine beetle killed hundreds of yellow pines and set the forest back decades in the late 1990s — the skeletons of those trees still litter the forest floor — but the forest is nonetheless maturing. Further along the loop trail, there is more noticeable former farmland. The farm of Oscar’s neighbor, also located along what was then the main road through the area, is situated on the banks of Bandy Creek about a half-mile west of the Blevins Farm.

Nature is swiftly reclaiming the fields and homesite of the latter farm. All that remain are a few foundation stones, some rusted tin roofing and perennial flowers. It is yet another example of the unfortunate lack of preservation of the historically- and culturally-significant homesteads in the national park.

The hiking trail treks along a portion of the old road to Leatherwood Ford, now just a roadbed that is fading into the mature forest that surrounds it, crosses Bandy Creek twice, and includes a short trail spur to Muleshoe Shelter, a rock shelter once used by Native Americans and later named by white settlers for the mule shoes that were found beneath the rock. For a short distance, the trail is shared by the Collier Ridge bicycle loop trail.

Hikers wanting a bit more of an adventure can hike in to the Blevins Farm from the West Entrance Trailhead on Hwy. 297. From the trailhead to the farm and back is a 6.8-mile hike. Including the entire Blevins Farm loop trail, the hike from West Entrance and back again is about 8.6 miles.

Hemlock trees hover over the Blevins Farm hiking trail a short distance west of the farm. The hemlocks are threatened by the woolly adelgid infestation, and some hemlocks along the hiking trail are already being damaged by the tiny bug. The trail is following what was once the main road from Leatherwood Ford west beyond Bandy Creek.

We have already run the gamut of the traditional spring cold snaps (Dogwood Winter, etc.) in Tennessee, but much cooler weather is on the way this week after a weekend that was quite hot. In a typical year, an early May cold snap would be referred to as “Blackberry Winter.” This year, the blackberries have already bloomed. Maybe this can be whippoorwill winter . . . although the whippoorwills have been whippoorwilling for a long time already in this unusually warm spring.

Anyway . . .

The National Weather Service’s Morristown field office is calling for high temps to remain in the 60s Thursday afternoon, with Friday’s low dropping into the mid 40s along the northern Cumberland Plateau.

The strength of this surge of cooler weather remains to be seen. Modeling is pretty consistent on the arrival of some cooler air this week, but not as consistent on the depth of the air mass. There was noticeable differences between this morning’s run of the GFS computer model and this afternoon’s, for example, with this morning’s being cooler.

Nevertheless, here are some numbers for the northern plateau from this afternoon’s run of the GFS model:

Wednesday: 59/73
Thursday: 48/67
Friday: 45/72
Saturday: 48/73
Sunday: 51/72

Despite tornado-warned thunderstorms that rolled across Dale Hollow Lake a couple of hours before dawn Saturday morning, it was a fantastic weekend to be on the water.

Summer has come early to the Cumberlands, and the lack of rain experienced by the region this spring has dropped May lake levels to territory not seen this time of year in at least five years.

The fish were biting well on the Obey River arm of the lake this weekend. See more photos here.

My column from this week: 

There was a time at Dale Hollow Lake when you could make a more-or-less spur-of-the-moment decision to go camping, call up Obey River Campground a few days in advance and reserve a nice campsite.

No more.

These days, campsites at Obey River — because of its accessibility just off Hwy. 111 in Byrdstown it is the lake’s most popular campground — are booked months in advance. If you want to go camping in July, you have to make your reservations before spring has even arrived.

Part of the recent increase is due to work that has been done in recent years to Wolf Creek Dam just up the road on U.S. Hwy. 127. The dam rehabilitation project, scheduled for completion late next year, resulted in a drop in water levels on Lake Cumberland, which in turn drove campers from Ohio and other northern locales a little further south in their quest for a peaceful piece of lakeshore for their weekend getaways.

But perhaps a larger part of the increase is due to more and more Americans looking for cheaper alternatives for family vacations amid years of economic uncertainty and quickly inflating gas prices.

For $24 a night at campgrounds like Dale Hollow’s Obey River (some others are cheaper) you can reserve a gravel pad to park an RV or pitch a tent. “Amenities” — picnic table, fire ring, grill and lantern pole — are free. Contrast that with the cost of lodging at the nation’s best-known vacation destinations, and it’s a steal. Even if you pay to rent a boat from one of the lake’s marinas, you’ll come out hundreds of dollars ahead for just an extended weekend getaway. Plus, for hundreds of thousands of Americans who live in the Midwest or the Mid-South, a pristine piece of God’s creation (okay, so the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built Dale Hollow Lake, but if you’ve ever watched a Dale Hollow sunrise on a misty morning from a secluded part of the lake with a rod-n-reel in hand, you might agree that the creation was at least God-inspired) is a much shorter drive than the beaches or the mountains.

What does all of that have to do with Scott County?

Plenty.

As more and more Americans turn to “staycations” and other close-to-home getaways, those trips are often centered around outdoors recreation. In fact, various studies have shown that adventure tourism is increasing faster than ever before.

And that has lots to do with Scott County.

Continue reading…

In recent years I have become something of a landscaping buff. I don’t really know a lot about what I’m doing; I’m slowly learning through a lot of trial and error. But I have managed to build two streams and two koi ponds without chopping off any toes with a shovel. I’ve hauled more than five tons of stone and nearly that much in mulch. And I’ve lost about $300 in plants to my vole infestation, which have so far managed to resist my eradication efforts but which are going to have to put it in overdrive if they’re going to keep up with me. It’s often frustrating and it’s definitely a lot of work, but I figure it’s a better hobby than sitting and watching TV or surfing the ‘Net.

Here is part of my garden. It’s still very much in its infancy, but is at least finally starting to show just a bit of character.