Trek to Sassafras Knob with Surprising Find

A hike up to Sassafras Knob... And a surprising discovery! The high ridge of the Southern Nantahala Wilderness Area is trail-less and seldom visited. While much of the western side of the ridge-line is relatively easy hiking, climbing up to that point is a work-out!

We had bare ground at our house, but the trees and ground at higher elevation were snow-covered.

High up on the slopes of Skut Knob, I came across some scattered pieces of aluminum. Twenty years ago, a former neighbor told me he had found debris from a plane crash on the mountain side. In those pre-GPS days, he was unable to find the site again. I could find no record of any plane crash there in FAA / NTSB records, but in early 2017 I had searched an area where he thought the wreckage was (not close to here), with no luck.

Looking around for additional remnants, something much larger caught my eye as I looked up slope:

At first I thought this was an old communications tower or mast. How did the structure get here? This area is too steep for even the old logging roads... (I never even thought "aircraft" at the time. This welded tube structure was not anything like the modern aircraft frames I was used to in my Lockheed career.)

Update - 3 days later... (updates are in orange) A friend commented "Probably not, but it looks almost like the fuselage frame of a WWII assault glider." That got me wondering... Look at the above photo, showing the frame of a DFS-230 German glider (from Nick Wotherspoon's Flickr site). Note the windshield framing. Now re-look at the image above it (the structure I found). Imagine that it is laying on its side, and flip it over to the right. That sure looks like a similar windshield frame, and you can see the curvature where it meets the plane's nose. It appears this is indeed an old aircraft fuselage! Now to determine the aircraft model and a record of the incident.

Aircraft fuselage frame, seen from the front. Lying on its right side...

Fuselage frame from the underside

Unusual details attached to the structure. Now that we've identified this as a plane, we know this is the landing gear & wing strut supports.

Upper (aft) section of the structure. It is over 30 feet long.

Top (aft end) of the structure. Note that some of the unidentified aluminum can be seen attached to the framing in several images.
I soon added new information and documentation about this aircraft and the crash site. Continue viewing this hike album; then visit the "Crash" links at the bottom of the page.

Checking out the aircraft put me behind schedule, but I finally resumed the climb up to the ridge-top, and headed for Sassafras Knob. There's no real trail, but this is an example of the ridge-line route.

Looking back to the WSW at the silhouette of Eagle Mountain

A view to the south from Sassafras Knob (4127'), looking down into valleys of Scataway and Hightower Creeks. Old Nell Knob is just to the right of center. Double Spring Knob (4275') is the tallest peak on the right horizon.

Hightower Bald, Georgia's fourth highest peak (4564'), with a touch of snow, viewed from Sassafras Knob. The peak to the right is Shooting Creek Bald.

A view to the NNW into North Carolina, with Chunky Gal-Boteler Ridge at right-center, and the Tusquitee Range on the horizon.

View to the NE, toward Shooting Creek and the Hwy 64 climb up Chunky Gal.

Heading back along the high ridge While not quite a knife-edge, much of the trek is along a similar narrow, rounded ridge-top. I'm sure the crest was a lot sharper when the Appalachians were a young mountain chain...

You are viewing the "Initial Discovery" page. See additional pages covering the Norseman crash site:
Initial Discovery
Norseman Crash - 1	Norseman Crash - 2	Norseman Crash - 3	Norseman Crash - 4
Norseman Crash - 5	Norseman Crash - 6	Norseman Crash - 7

Misc. Explr. Index	S. Nantahala Index
Hiawassee Index	NE GA - NC Index