The Main Trail
by Michael Malloy, LCSW
A decade or so ago I went hiking with my friend Nathan up at Big South Fork on the best hike in Tennessee, The Honey Creek Loop. If you do it all, it takes six to seven hours and has multiple features...rock squeezes or crawling through massive boulders, ladders up cliff faces and hiking in the middle of the creek for a ways..to name a few of them. It is described in hiking manuals as ‘technical’ and ‘tough’. I hiked it again last year doing only half of it...still quite the challenge...but worth it. There are markers along the way...there could be a few more!
Nat and I were hiking along going down a slope and could see the trail where others had walked before that went straight ahead at the foot of the slope—so we followed along. But after 2 or 3 minutes I asked Nathan if he’d seen a marker...and hadn’t. We decided to backtrack to the last marker we had seen. As we approached the slope we saw this sign in the photo, ‘MAIN TRAIL’ which was only visible from this direction, not when coming down the slope. So the trail actually did a 180 reverse at the foot of the slope but had no ‘take a U-turn sign’...so it’s very likely most everyone did just what we did..the wrong trail was clearly where others had been. On the hike last year someone had put up blue ribbons on some side trails...to show WRONG WAY. But then someone else..the funny one, had moved a couple of those just to make it ‘interesting’.
I’ve never hiked the loop without getting lost for a while. Obviously, we ultimately found our way since I’m here to tell you about it. Like our lives, you have to be lost first, before you are found. We all have been on trails life-wise where eventually we learned were not the main one...yet the only way you find The Way is realizing you are lost for the moment. So often in life, we learn as much if not more from doing it wrong rather than doing it right.
The Honey Creek Loop has markers if you’re paying attention…although there could be a few more. If you get a chance, hike the Honey Creek Loop, just don’t get totally freaked out when you get lost.
