I grew up car camping all over Tennessee, but last fall was my first time taking my younger brother and his fiancée on a real backpacking overnight.

We did everything by the book, permit at Cosby Campground, car parked by the trailhead kiosk.

Route planned up the low-gap trail along Cosby Creek to one of the designated sites a reasonable

walk-in.

It was late October, cold enough that the morning frost made the footbridge boards slick,

warm enough by afternoon that you could unzip your jacket on the climbs.

The campground was half empty, and the air had that dry leaf smell you

only get when the color is past peak, and the trees are thinning out. I wanted them to have a gentle

first trip, cook on the stove, hear the creek at night, see how quiet the smokies get once

you walk more than a mile from a road. A half mile before camp, my trekking pole

caught on something I never saw. The pole flexed sideways and a thumb-sized bell gave one flat

note. Knee high, almost invisible in the shadow. Someone had run monofilament between two saplings

and tied the bell to a loop. We crouched around it like we were looking at a leak under a sink, all of us suddenly very aware of how still the woods were. The line was too clean to be old trash, and too purposeful to be random. I eased it off my pole and set it back exactly how we'd found it. Ten minutes later we hit another rig, a coffee can with pebbles strung on

more line so it would rattle if you brushed the thread. It sat right at shin height across a faint

side path. What is that for? my brother's fiancé asked. I said something stupid like,

maybe a way to spook deer because I didn't want to say what

I was actually thinking, which was that someone wanted advance notice of people moving around

out here.

We stepped over it, reset it as best we could, and kept going because the sun was already flattening

out behind the ridge.

We got to our sight without seeing anyone.

It was one of the small quiet ones, a couple of flat pads,

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