"Joe McIntosh" wrote in message
...
just came in from morning bike ride and realized fall is almost here and
the mountains are calling. Plan to hike down from Clingman"s Dome to
upper Forney creek early next week and see if the brookies are around

Think they have a backcountry campsite called Steel Trap at 3,960 ft so
plan to spend a couple of nights there. Have never camped in Great Smoky
Mountauns National Park so any suggestions regarding such plans please
speak up. Do I need a stove or will a small campfire do the job ? I do
not plan to use white gas to promote flames ( nor drink too much "spiced
" rum )

//snip//
Life is tough - Joe



Joe,
I wouldn't plan on building fires. It's permitted and most of the campsites
have pretty good fire rings, but most of the dry wood within a decent hike
of the campsite will have already been scrounged up by other campers. I have
a little stove powered by propane/butane gas that works well. Something
ripped off my Primus stove so I replaced it with a Coleman "Peak 1"
backpacking stove that I found at Wal-Mart. The Coleman is a few ounces
heavier but it works fine. the Coleman weighs about 8 ounces, and a canister
of fuel to last easily two or three days weighs 8 ounces, so for about a
pound of weight you don't have to worry about building a fire unless you
want to. It puts out 10,000 btus and will boil a quart of water pretty fast.

Fires are nice for esthetic reasons - but for cooking, IMHO, they're more
trouble than they're worth.

The only other thing I can think of is that you're supposed to fill out a
back country registration form so they'll know roughly where you are. Some
campsites require reservations but this time of year you should be OK. Most
of the park entrances have a display with a supply of the forms, and you
just fill it out and drop it in the box.

--
Bob Patton
(remove hat to respond)