Ramsey Cascade
I grew up in Athens, Tennessee, a somewhat rural town nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Each summer my wife and I take our three urban kids and dive into this land for a few weeks. We spend most of our time keeping cool in the pool or at the lake, but reserve at least one day for hiking. Despite spending every July less than two hours away, I had yet to introduce my kids to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. This year we decided to change that. We found a day, picked a hike and planned the trip. There was space in the car for another passenger so we invited my Dad to join us. Dad is a few months shy of his 75th birthday and in the kind shape that daily gardening, golf and good genes can create. Aside from Meniere's Disease and an ongoing battle with tricky knees, he’s in great shape. Still, when I told him the hike was rated strenuous because it gained 2200 feet over 4 miles of an 8 mile round trip he paused. That pause ended when I told him the name of the hike. “Ramsey Cascades? Oh, yeah, I’ve done that one dozens of times. Let’s go.” Of course, as we would learn on the ride to the park, all of those dozens of hikes were done 52 years ago.
In the summer of 1966 my Dad was 22 years old, a semester from graduating college, marrying, getting commissioned and serving a tour in Vietnam. On the edge of these changes, perhaps sensing what lay ahead, he decided to go to the woods. Thoreau had Walden and my Dad had the Great Smoky Mountains. Unlike Thoreau, who I don’t believe my Dad has ever read, his time in the woods was in service of the National Parks as a seasonal Ranger. He spent that summer driving an old Dodge pickup around crooked graveled roads, the engine humming along with the songs of tree frogs and cicadas as he welcomed visitors to the most popular park in the country. When not in the truck he was most often hoofing the four mile trail to the tallest waterfall in the park, Ramsey Cascades. He was there to protect the park as well as the visitors, but he spent most of his time as a kind of host who chatted with hikers to help them feel welcome. It was, he would later tell me, one of the best summers of his life.
At the trailhead Dad didn’t waste any time stepping back into his old role. While I laced up my shoes and my wife and kids ambled ahead, he approached a father and daughter who’d just arrived. “Hello, have you hiked this trail before… I was a seasonal ranger here 52 years ago and this was my area… enjoy it.” I would hear some version of this refrain at least a dozen times over the next four miles. It was as if he was back on the job. Decked in olive pants and a Johnson era rucksack, my Dad sported enough earthtones to make my kids joke about losing him in the woods. He was a campaign hat away from passing as a park ranger. He, of course, still owns his old topper but quickly dismissed my daughter’s suggestion to wear it. “Oh no,” he replied, “that’s big trouble for impersonating a federal officer.” Fortunately there’s no such penalty for reliving your days as such an officer. Full of energy and enjoying a relatively flat first mile, dad regaled my kids with stories of following black bears, chatting with fishermen and rescuing puppies from beneath an old log. He was moving fast and flying high until the climb began. The trail got rocky, steep and narrow while Dad got sweatier, slower and a little (not a lot) less talkative. His zeal was dissipating when we happened upon four young adults taking a rest. Dad was half-way into his spiel before he realized they were wearing ranger garb. They were, as it turned out, seasonal rangers. Dad’s energy seemed to return with every admonition he gave them to enjoy their summer. It was as if he were talking back in time to his younger self.
The last half mile of the trail took a turn for the really steep. I knew Dad was struggling when he failed to say more than hello to a passing couple. What remained of Dad’s vim and vigor had leaked through his arthritic knees. Pride, nostalgia and good trekking poles were all that spurred him to the falls where the rest of my family was already enjoying their lunch. “Phew,” he sighed deeply as he collapsed onto a rock, “I don’t remember this trail being so hard...but I guess nothing was back then.”
The hike back was slow but steady. With Erin and the kids well ahead, we took the time to talk. Perhaps in effort to take his mind off his knees Dad began to ask me questions. How were things in Tacoma, with the church, with the kids? It was my turn to tell stories and for reasons still unknown to me, I began to talk about when I graduated college, was in my early twenties and about to begin service in the Army. Although we both started our lives in Tennessee, and headed into adulthood as second lieutenants, my path led to the other side of the country, a different geography, a different vocation, a different life than my dad’s. And yet, for a few wondrous hours that warm summer day, we were once again walking the same trail.
