It wasn’t even that late when we got to the legendary fire tower. The sun was high, hot and bright but massive thunderheads were building all around us. The Smokies were doing their summertime ritual of afternoon thunderstorms that shake the earth. We quickly hustled inside.
Finished in 1939, the two-story octangular structure built by the Civilian Conservation Corps was intended to house a watchman, who spent his entire time scanning the massive arms of the Smokies and over the lower lands to the North and West. By the 1960s, however, the tower had been abandoned, leaving it in decay until the NPS, Friends of the Smokies and the Panther Press restored it. Now it sheltered us from the impending doom.
Alex and I swung open the door to the tower to find at least 10 other faces looking back at us. It turns out that a good place to shelter for us is a good place to shelter for everyone. We settle in and make the usual backcountry exchanges.
“How’s it going?”
“Where did y’all hike in from?”
“Isn’t this view amazing?”
“Where y’all from?”
The next hour or so is filled with small talk, tending to gear, eating and laying out in ever-increasing patches of the late afternoon sun. Alex and I were out for a section of the AT and just exploring the area some, so the rest was deeply appreciated. With the promise of good weather to come, the last of the day hikers make a break for it, a 3,000 foot plummet to their vehicles, awaiting somewhere below.
The rest of the afternoon, to the dismay of the day-hikers, plays out with on-again-off-again showers and thunderstorms. I, however, felt lucky to be dry and relatively safe in this rickety old fire tower.
“I don’t think we should leave till after the thunderstorms stop,” I told Alex, as she lay on her back, feet up on a wall to drain blood away from swollen feet.
“You don’t want to get wet?” she asked in response.
“Well, yeah, I mean who does? But more so it is the lightning. I hate lightning!” I said.
We decided to wait it out, the shelter wasn’t too far and would make for a pretty easy night hike if we had to wait till dark. Sure enough, the thunder stays around as the sun sets. We make our dinners and lay out on our foam pads, enjoying the sounds of thunder and distant rain from our dry perch.
9:00, 9:30, 10:00, 10:30.
Eventually, it’s 11:00 pm and we were exhausted.
“Might as well just sleep here,” I muttered.
We had already laid everything out. Pads were inflated hours ago to lounge on and we were already in our quilts to keep us warm as the temperature dropped. Why not?
“Let’s be up early in the morning, packed at sunrise?” Alex asked.
“Yeah, that sounds perfect to me,” I responded.
We slid our pads closer together and said our goodnights. The lights cut, a breeze filtered through the trees outside, intermittent rolls of thunder filled the silence.
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!” screamed Alex as she jolted upright.
I quickly turned on my headlamp, still strapped to my head, and recoil as no less than 10 thumb-sized cockroaches scurried out of the sudden flood of light.
“Oh fuck that!” I yell as I quickly turn the beam on full brightness for the first time all night.
Every corner of the octagonal structure was coated with cockroaches clambering over each other to get out of the light. The giant roaches had been feeding on scraps and crumbs left behind by a half-season of hikers. The nutrients falling through the battered floorboards allowed their population to explode in the safety of the locked lower floor of the building.
Under the cover of darkness, they creep out to feed on all the clumsiness of people and, apparently, crawl all over anyone who sleeps in the tower. Now we had a real conundrum, either risk lightening during a less than ideal night hike in the pouring rain or sleep with the roaches.
After much deliberation, we just decided to sleep in our tents inside the fire tower, bugs be damned. The night was filled with an uneasy rest, one that left me hoping for dawn.
At some point in the night, maybe three or so, the clouds finally parted. A few long blinks later, a cool glow from a sun still some distance beyond the horizon began painting the windows of the tower. The alarm that was supposed to wake me up for sunrise went off but I was already well awake.
Still scarred from the night before, I crawl out of my bivy, cautious of any oversized roaches. After undoing the lock, the door swung open a few inches allowing a cool draft of fresh air to move over my face.
The sun was quickly climbing to the horizon line when I stepped into the new day. The highest peaks were still shrouded in clouds, though they looked much less menacing now. Their deep shades of green blended into the grey clouds, which in turn faded into the increasingly vibrant blue sky above. To the east, the fireball was minutes from its grand reveal but it still stained the sky with oranges and yellows that signaled the arrival of the most important star in the known universe. The primer had been hit, the colors of a new day were about to explode.
***Based on memory of events. Occasional artistic liberties are taken when memory fails.*