Smoky vacation offers plenty of recreation, rafting, fishing
Looking for a great vacation destination? My wife Beth and I just returned from a wonderful trip to the Smoky Mountains in western North Carolina . We love the Smokies. They're so different from the Rocky Mountains. The Rockies are higher and more rugged.
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Within the dense forests that slant steeply from these spectral elevations, waterfalls chuckle through deep gorges and rhododendrons cling to impossible cliffs.
This fairy-tale landscape is the domain of Pisgah National Forest, whose highways and byways are among our most scenic roads. One of the most beautiful of these is US-276, which crosses the parkway 30 miles south of Asheville. Along its curvy descent from the parkway toward Brevard, this road samples all of Pisgah's splendors. Besides pink beds of rhododendron thickets, you'll spot a massive cascade called Looking Glass Falls, which wells out from under a towering rock shelf. At Sliding Rock, nature's original water slide, whooping kids and grownups whoosh down a smooth 60-foot rock slab in Looking Glass Creek that dumps them into a swimming hole.
Also on this 16-mile stretch of road is the Cradle of Forestry. America's first forestry school was founded under Vanderbilt auspices almost a century ago. Its campus, deep in the woods, is now a fascinating indoor-outdoor museum.
Not surprisingly, because of its convenience to Atlanta, Knoxville, and Charlotte, Pisgah is one of the most heavily visited forests. Still, you can often find campsites - even during summer vacation season - without having made reservations through MISTIX, a national forest reservations service.
Right on US-276, below Looking Glass Falls, is the big Davidson River Campground with showers and flush toilets. Other handy campgrounds in this part of Pisgah are Sunburst, Lake Powhatan, and North Mills River.
Pisgah Ranger District, Pisgah National Forest, 1001 Pisgah Hwy., Dept. BHG, Pisgah Forest, NC 28768; 704/877-3265 or 3350. Area information: North Carolina Travel, 430 N. Salisbury, Dept. BHG, Raleigh, NC 27611; 800/VISIT-NC.
SHAWNEE, Illinois
You don't have to travel all the way out west to find dramatic canyons much like those in John Wayne movies. Near the southern tip of Illinois, less than a half day's drive from St. Louis or a day's drive from Chicago, you come upon a wild landscape of dizzying cliffs and precipitous gorges, towering rock spires, and mazes of tumbled boulders. Created in the last ice age, these geological spectacles are in Garden of the Gods, part of Shawnee National Forest, 16 miles southeast of Harrisburg.
The finest areas for canyon touring besides the easy cliff-top trail in the Garden of the Gods, are nearby Pounds Hollow, Bell Smith Springs, and Rimrock. In Pounds Hollow, a short path descends into a romantic ravine, while the seven-mile canyon trail at Bell Smith Springs is more strenuous. Before the forest was established, Rimrock's overhanging, 12-story-high rock wall sheltered cattle. A 70-mile drive, designated as a Scenic Byway, between Mitchellsville and Hamletsburg connects all of these sites except for Bell Smith Springs.
For sites off the beaten path, set up at Teal Pond or Red Bud near Bell Smith Springs. If you want 21 swimming beach, camp at the forest's Lake Glendale Recreation Area, 25 miles south of Harrisburg; there's also a marina that rents fishing skiffs for going after bass, bluegills, and crappie. Cedar Lake has the best fishing spot.
Shawnee National Forest, 901 S. Commercial, Dept. BHG, Harrisburg, IL 62946; 618/253-7114. Area information: Southern Illinois Tourism Council, Dept. BHG, Box 40, Whittington, IL 62897; 800/342-3100 or 618/629-2506.
DIXIE, Utah
Dixie National Forest is the place to go mountain biking in the sky - up so high that you can see around the bend of the earth.
Indeed, panoramas stretching for 80 miles or more are not uncommon on the gargantuan plateaus of southern Utah that make up this forest's two-million-acre domain. What's more, since plateaus are fairly flat on top, with few drastic ups and downs, the pedaling isn't as strenuous as in many other mountainous regions. Just don't overdo it on the first day. It takes a while to become acclimatized to Dixie's elevations, which often tower above 10,000 feet.
One great Dixie destination is Brian Head, elevation 9,750 feet, accessible by paved roads from I-15 at either Parowan or Cedar City. A popular ski resort, Brian Head keeps a chair lift running summer weekends to haul bikers to nearly 11,000 feet, thus keeping uphill pumping to a minimum.
Several bike trails are easy enough for novices. Fit bikers can pedal to the nearby Twisted Forest, one of the few places where you can see and touch the oldest living organisms on earth - bristlecone pines. Brian Head's nature walk program visits the Twisted Forest, but the easiest way to get there is by car. The Twisted Forest trail looks down on the red rock of Cedar Breaks National Monument, whose precipitous, erosion-carved walls and pinnacles drop away below you for more than 2,000 feet.
Brian Head accommodations, ranging from hotel rooms to condos, go for $45-$90 a night in the summer. Mountain bike rentals run about $15-$30 a day. Shuttle service is available for various regional trails. For a change of pace, Brian Head stages such special events as classical guitar concerts and photo workshops.
Farther east in the forest, on Highway 12 between the small town of Panguitch and Bryce Canyon National Park, you can camp in Red Canyon, another spectacle of erosion. Explore it on foot or bike. In this part of Dixie, rent bikes at Ruby's Inn, a famous food-and-lodging outpost at the gateway to Bryce Canyon. Ruby's charges $20 a day for bikes, $68-$78 for rooms; 801/834-5341. Bike shuttles to Bryce Canyon and Aquarius Plateau run about $20.
Dixie National Forest, Dept. BHG, Box 580, Cedar City, UT 84721; 801/865-3700. Brian Head: 801/677-2029. Area information: Color Country, Dept. BHG, Box 1550, St. George, UT 84770-1550; 800/233-8824.
SAN JUAN, Colorado
Here's a special adventure for experienced backpackers. Let the narrow-gauge Durango & Silverton Railroad drop you off at a remote trailhead amid some of southern Colorado's highest summits.
The Durango & Silverton, steaming over one of the .'s most spectacular routes, crosses a lofty divide in San Juan National Forest on its summer sight-seeing runs between those two popular tourist towns. You get off about halfway at Needleton, an isolated flag stop in the middle of nowhere, at about an 8,000-foot elevation.
There's still a strenuous half-day hike ahead-3,000 steep vertical feet in six miles - but you'll be fresh and rarin' to go after your train ride.
Your destination is the Chicago Basin, a paradise of wildflower meadows and catch-and-keep trout streams. It's a great place for wildlife watching too. Marmots whistle at you from boulders, and there are deer and elk and black bears, but no grizzlies.
Chances are that a volunteer of the San Juan National Forest Association win meet you on the trail to orient you and explain the precautions necessary to protect the sensitive ecology of this splendid enclave.
You may camp anywhere you like as long as you stay away from creeks, use a camp stove (no open fires permitted), and pack out your garbage.
When the time comes to return to civilization, you hike back down to Needleton and hail the next train that passes in your direction. The roundtrip from Durango costs $; under age 12, $.
San Juan offers good campground camping at McPhee Reservoir north of Cortez, less than an hour's drive from Mesa Verde National Park.
San Juan National Forest, 701 Camino del Rio, Dept. BHG, Durango, CO 81301; 303/247-4874. To receive area information: Southwest Colorado Travel, Fort Lewis College-MSC 108, Dept. BHG, Durango, CO 81301; 800/933-4340.
HASSLE-FREE CAMPING
NEAR CROWDED
NATIONAL PARKS
National-forest camping comes in handy when you visit popular notional parks whose campgrounds choke up by noon most days. Contact the forests below for information on camping near these popular parks.
* Glacier. Flathead National Forest, 406/755-5401.
* Grand Canyon. Kaibab National Forest, 602/635-2681.
* Grand Teton. Bridger-Teton National Forest, 307/739-5500.
* Great Smoky Mtns. Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests, 704/257-4200.
* Rocky Mountain. Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests, 303/498-1100.
* Yellowstone. Gallatin National Forest, 406/587-6701.
* Yosemite. Toiyabe National Forest, 702/355-5301. Inyo National Forest, 619/873-2400.
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