Quote Originally Posted by Tipi Walter View Post
There's a section of the Benton MacKaye trail north of Unicoi Gap along Peels Mt and Tate Gap and Cantrell Top which is nothing but a sea of healthy poison ivy. One time I got knackered and had to find a camp and, well, who wants to clear a patch of p. ivy?? Luckily I found a small patch of mayapples and cleared a spot---
The worst trail I've seen in GSMNP for Poison Ivy was Beard Cane trail. Four miles of a narrow path through a sea of poison ivy.

Setting up a tent at campsite #3 was not an issue. With designated campsites in GSMNP, the vegetation remains cleared due to use.

But when it was time to dig a cat-hole, I must have hiked more than the length of a football field before I could find a patch of ground off the trial free enough of poison ivy to safely be able to dig a hole.

That trail is what finally taught my boys how to recognize poison ivy. When you stare at the stuff for hours, your mind starts to pickup the details of the plant making it easy to recognize.
The way I learned to recognize poison ivy was trying to clear it from some land I own. For about an hour a day over the course of a week, I walked the property with a sprayer of Roundup... spraying ANYTHING with three leaves. After looking at three-leaf plants for that many hours, your mind starts to be able to easily discern the subtle differences and it becomes easy to recognize poison ivy.