Yellow Mountain (100 Favorite Trails Hike #9)

Just before hiking this route, I hiked the short 2-mile Whiteside Mountain Trail loop nearby and I wasn’t about to head home afterward. The day was still young and I had been granted a hall pass for its entirety. So I jumped in my car and headed toward Cole Gap and Yellow Mountain Trail. This is hike nine on the 100 Favorite Trails of the Smokies and Carolina Blue Ridge Map.

If you’re not familiar with this map, it’s been around since 1966 and was updated in 2020 by Great Smoky Mountains Association and Carolina Mountain Club. I’ve been commissioned to hike the routes and provide updated information before the next printing. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it. 😉

Compared to Whiteside Mountain Trail (hike #10 on the map), Yellow Mountain is far less popular. The trailhead parking was nearly empty with only one car in it besides mine. At least someone was ahead of me to break through the cobwebs first.

I was instantly enchanted with Yellow Mountain Trail. The trail felt well trodden yet remote. And it was quiet, save for the songbirds serenading me overhead. Glancing at the elevation profile of the route, it’s easy to see why: it’s a moderately difficult 6.2 mile, one-way hike. Well, one-way until you have to turn around and head back which instantly doubles the mileage. It probably keeps most tourists heading toward the more popular trails of the region that have equal reward with less work.

It wasn’t long before I began adding an increasingly thick layer of cobwebs to my attire and body, while I brushed my hair and face to rid myself of any hitchhiking arachnids. I suspected there were some camping spots somewhere along the route where I’d discover the owners of the other car at the trailhead, explaining the annoyance realization that I was the first person to hike from the trailhead that day.

Yellow Mountain Trail visits a series of summits on its path to the peak of Yellow Mountain. If you’re imagining an elevation profile that looks like a roller coaster, you are correct. Along the way, I barely bypassed the summit of Cole Mountain and didn’t even notice it was happening, but Shortoff Mountain’s summit was far more memorable with wildflowers and fern glades lining the trail. I took my time and lingered in this fairyland.

Several miles in, I passed two men hiking in the opposite direction. But they were only wearing day packs which made me scratch my head for reasons other than spiders. I would eventually solve the mystery of all the webs, but not yet.

The trail is slightly confusing at Yellow Mountain Gap due to some reroutes around private property, apparently, but it was easy to stay on track with signage the forest service has added. Shortly after passing through the gap, I felt a sharp pain grab my right ankle. “Yow!” I exclaimed, inspecting the spot. It possessed the hallmarks of a bee sting—a tiny puncture with a small whelp rapidly forming around it.

I glanced my assailant, a yellow jacket, entrapped in my gaiter by its stinger, undoubtedly seeking another spot of flesh to terrorize. “You little jerk, get out of there!” I yelled. A good flick of my thumb and (appropriate) middle finger did the trick, and I took off running in case he decided to take revenge. The entire incident was foreshadowing for things to come the next night on a search and rescue callout I attended.

A young guy from the city came up to hike one of the toughest trails in Western North Carolina and got stung along the way. It was unfortunate he forgot his EpiPen since he’s had an anaphylactic reaction to a bee sting in the past. But it was fortunate that he had a tiny pocket of cell reception where it happened. He called 911 and my team was dispatched. We suspected he’d be dead or near it by the time our team climbed the ridiculously steep trail and arrived on the scene. But it must have been his lucky day because he lived and walked out on his own with nothing more than a very swollen hand and a bruised ego. I’ll bet he won’t forget that EpiPen again.

Back to Yellow Mountain, the last long ascent to the summit is a series of switchbacks. The trail was rocky through this section, but focusing on my steps distracted me from my throbbing ankle.

I met two women hiking in the opposite direction. They asked me if the trail ended at Cole Gap, and I assured them that it did. I didn’t think much about it other than feeling like this forest had the most ambitious spiders I’d ever been around. I’d encountered four people whose bodies should have cleared webs ahead of me, yet I was still finding remnants of silk from the dozens I hiked through the first three miles.

Finally, after a series of long switchbacks I arrived at the summit and the iconic lookout tower. It’s in pretty good shape and was restored in the 1980s after falling into disrepair since it was decommissioned in 1969. It was built in 1934 by the Civilian Conservation Corp. The views from the summit were just as beautiful as Whiteside Mountain, which I believe I spotted in the distance.

As I sat on the rocks at the lookout tower’s base eating my lunch, a woman joined me. She hardly had anything with her, and she barely looked like she’d broken a sweat. “I want to look as refreshed as you after hiking six miles,” I said to her jovially.

“Oh, did you come up all the way from the bottom?!” she asked, surprised.

“If you mean Cole Gap, yeah, I thought that was the only way to get here,” I replied.

She chuckled as she told me there was a much shorter and easier way to get to this spot on the other side of the mountain that involved driving a forest service road. She explained that a lot of people park a car there and another at Cole Gap to make it a one-way hike. She was hiking that day as an out-and-back, but she applauded my efforts for tackling the entire trail in both directions.

Mystery solved.

Thunderheads were building in the distance, signaling it was time for me to start the journey back to my car. “I’d best get going with the rain moving in. I’ve got a couple more routes I’d like to hike today if it doesn’t get too nasty,” I told her.

“You’re going to hike more today?!” she asked, a little surprised.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve had a day off to hike and it’s therapy for me. I’m going to take advantage of every waking moment,” I said to her, tears pricking the corners of my eyes as I thought of Josie, my sweet dog back home battling terminal cancer. Hiking that day was bittersweet, but I knew it would recharge me for the emotional days and decisions ahead.

We bid each other farewell and I started my trek back to the car, allowing myself moments of sadness amid the joy I felt at being alive, where I feel most alive. About two miles from the end, the bottom fell out and the Heavens cried with me. The trail turned into a virtual creek and my umbrella did absolutely no good in protecting me from the driving rain. My rain gear would have been just as useless since it was so warm and humid. The silver lining wasn’t lost on me though–all the sticky spider webs I’d accumulated were washed away, along with some of my sorrow.

I arrived back at my car just as the rain was stopping, but the thunderous booms in the distance were evidence of lingering activity. I headed back down the mountain and made my way to my third of four hikes, Glen Falls, hopeful the rain would pass on through before I got there.

P.S. If you’d like to purchase this map and start chipping away at this amazing hiking challenge, it’s available for purchase in several retailers surrounding the Smokies. Or you can purchase it online right here (and you’ll get free shipping if you order it with my book, Chasing the Smokies Moon: An audacious 948-mile hike–fueled by love, loss, laughter and lunacy.