go hike a mountain

We woke up at a rest area along I-85 and made our way into the hills to find Georgia’s highpoint, Brasstown Bald. We also stopped for some hot water to make oatmeal.

We arrived at about 8:15am and there were no other cars in the parking lot. Because it’s the winter, the visitor’s center and shuttle service were closed down. There was frost on some of the trees.

The hike to the summit was 6/10 of a mile on a fairly steep paved walkway. We huffed and puffed all the way to the top and realized just as we were approaching the observation deck that we had both forgotten Treeson. Jesse volunteered to hike back down and up again to go get him. The weather was perfect and it was very quiet at the summit. No birds, no traffic noises, no wind.

The road we had to take away from the summit crossed the Appalachian Trial so we hopped out and took some photos.

Without a real plan, we started driving toward North Carolina and ended up in the Franklin and Highlands area. I wanted to revisit some waterfalls I had been to a few years ago. The first one we came to was Glen Falls, which is a long waterfall with three different sections of falls. You start at the top and make your way down, about 3/4 of a mile and return on the same path. This was the top section of the falls.

There were some icicles forming in shady areas.

Jesse decided he needed to climb underneath the waterfall. He convinced me it wasn’t dangerous and said it was neat, so I went under there with him.

The last section of the falls is the most scenic.

On a winding mountain road, we passed Bridal Veil Falls, which you can normally drive under. As you can see, there’s a lot of ice on the rock under the falls and the area is blocked off to cars.

The last set of waterfalls we saw was Cullasaja Falls where we had to park in a tight area right next to the road and climb down to see it on some slippery, icy rocks.

We left North Carolina for a little while to visit South Carolina’s highpoint, Sassafras Mountain. We made it just before the sunset. You park in an area very close to the summit and walk past a gate and up a paved road for about 5 minutes. There wasn’t much to this summit, like a few of the others.

We left South Carolina to head back into North Carolina to stay the night with my Aunt Linda. We found some creative poetry next to a bar called Bob’s Place.

Jesse found out he owns a machine shop in North Carolina.

And we enjoyed a beautiful sunset before stopping in for the night.