Wet, Rugged Conditions Make Search Tricky For Missing Backpacker at Great Smoky Mountains National Park

A search was under way Friday for Albert "Morgan" Briggs, who did not return on schedule Tuesday from a backcountry trek. NPS handout.

Wet and extremely rugged conditions were hampering a search Friday at Great Smoky Mountains National Park for a 70-year-old backpacker who had been expected to return from a trip on Tuesday.

Five two-person teams were searching off-trail Friday along the route that Albert "Morgan" Briggs, of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, planned to travel. Mr. Briggs set out last Saturday when he was dropped off by family members at Porters Creek Trailhead in the Greenbrier area just east of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. He filed a trip plan and got the needed permits to hike the Porters Creek Trail to Campsite #31 and spend Saturday night there, and then hike off the established trail system up Dry Sluice "man way" to the Appalachian Trail. He then planned to go south on the AT to spend Sunday night at the Icewater Springs shelter. From there he expected to continue on the AT a short distance then hike the Boulevard Trail to Mt. LeConte where he would spend Monday night at the Mt. LeConte shelter. He was expected to hike out to Newfound Gap on Alum Cave Trail on Tuesday then hitch-hike back to Pigeon Forge, but has not been heard from since.

Park spokesman Bob Miller said the searchers were confronted by "tree trunks like jack straws in there....Sheer vertical outcrop," dense thickets of rhododendron and mountain laurel, and rain.

"If you're trying to get up a hill, and you come up to a 15-foot cliff, it’s as good as 150-foot. You have to go around," he said Friday. "You can picture people going up on all fours. A lot of broken rock. And it’s all wet, so it’s more difficult to track (someone). ... It’s slick and the footing is nasty. It’s also very heavily vegetated so you can’t see very far. Somebody could be down and 10 feet from you and you’d never see them.”

Helicopters haven't been called in both because of the poor weather and because "the over-story and understory are so thick here that you wouldn’t be able to see the ground 1 percent of the time," said Mr. Miller. "We even talked about dogs, but you’d be carrying them as much as using them” because of the cliffs.

On Wednesday, rangers and volunteers hiked all of the trails on Mr. Briggs' itinerary looking for signs of him and interviewing other hikers who may have encountered him. They have contacted a hiking party that believed they saw the elderly backpacker at Campsite #31 on Saturday, but have had no further reports of sightings since that time. His name does not appear on the shelter logs at either Ice water Springs or Mt. LeConte Shelters.

Since Wednesday searchers have been focusing on the off-trail segment of Mr. Briggs’ planned itinerary.

Morgan Briggs is a white male 70 years of age, 5’8, 180 lb. with white hair and balding, a mustache and beard, blue eyes, and often wears glasses. He was reportedly wearing brown Danner hiking boots, a green two-piece rain suit, and blue jeans or khaki slacks. He is said to be very familiar with the park's backcountry and was one of the park’s first "Appalachian Trail Ridge Runner." Ridge Runners spend several months on the 71 miles of the AT in the park, providing information, performing trail maintenance and serving as the park’s eyes on the trail.

Park officials ask that anyone who may have seen Mr. Briggs since Saturday morning contact the park at (865) 436-1230.