go hike a mountain

We left my aunt Linda’s house to make our way to Kentucky’s highpoint. Along the way, we saw signs for Natural Tunnel State Park and decided to stop. There weren’t many cars in the parking lot, and the visitor’s center was closed, but there were maps and plenty of information on what we could see. In fact, this state park also had an information kiosk at the entrance that printed maps and trail info at request on thermal paper. Very handy.

The tunnels were used to run railroad tracks through the mountains. We decided to take the Lover’s Leap Trail first. The legend says that two young lovers from opposing tribes jumped from a cliff to their deaths. The cliffs are now lined with fencing, of course. The views from the top were amazing.

Jesse is standing at the ledge where the lovers jumped.

After climbing back down, we took the Tunnel Trail into the valley area. It appears that in peak season, a lift takes people down and then back up if they choose. There was a little wild dog roaming around and following people that we met on this trail. Jesse named her Tunnel.

There is a small cottage that was transported here.

After the cottage, we walked back to check out the tunnels. On the way, we got a good view of the Lover’s Leap from the bottom.

We spent about an hour and a half at the Natural Tunnel State Park and then went off to Kentucky’s highest point. We had to drive through some mining areas.

The road made some crazy turns. They were so bad at points, we saw really old accidents off the side of the road that were never cleaned up, probably because the hills they had fallen down were so steep.

Black Mountain is on top of an active coal mine, and you actually have to mail a waiver to the owners of the mine before you access the highpoint. There are some towers at and near the summit. There are also signs that claim the area is under 24-hour surveillance.

The boulder that the USGS marker sits on is set back in some trees and I wouldn’t have known where it was, aside from someone putting a pvc pipe on the ground that pointed the way.

Leaving Kentucky, there were the usual abandoned buildings we’ve seen all along the trip. This one actually caught Jesse’s attention and he turned the car around to show me.

The original plan we made this morning was to complete Kentucky’s highpoint and to get somewhere close enough to Virginia’s so we could sleep and attempt it the next morning. We found Demascus (a major trail town on the Appalachian Trail) and the Mt. Rogers Outfitters, one of the few places that seemed open in this town. The gentlemen at the store were very helpful and gave us a weather report as well as a suggestion for where we should hike the next morning and a place to park the car and sleep for the night. They had let us know bad weather was blowing in and would hit the area at about 1pm, so we should get an early start.

We stopped for a quick bite to eat and Jesse brought up the idea that we attempt the hike that night. It was a little chilly, but we assessed the weather and decided we’d make a go for it. We found the parking lot with no trouble and got dressed and packed our gear. We brought our sleeping bags just in case we were so exhausted at the summit that we’d have to get some necessary sleep and descend in the morning. It was about 8:30pm when we left the car.

The Virginia Highland Horse Trail was easy enough to follow. It started out very wide and was stomped out by the horses. It was supposed to be blazed with orange diamonds, but these weren’t easy to find. It’s also a possibility they were placed further apart because people travel faster on horseback. I’m not sure was the case was, but it was hard to veer off course, anyway. We had to pass a few gates and a few trail junctions. This trail actually ran parallel to the Appalachian Trail from the Elk Garden area, but we were told that the Horse Trail was more gradual in elevation gain. We hardly noticed the change in elevation.

Clouds were rolling in and out, but there were many times we were able to turn off our headlamps because the almost-full moon was shining so brightly. We made it to the clearing we were looking for in good time, but the fog started rolling in. We slowed our pace and were flashing our headlamps around, trying to find this shelter at the top of a hill. The small trail to the summit of Mt. Rogers was supposed to be just beyond the shelter.

Without finding anything that really resembled a trail branching off of the one we were on and without spotting the shelter, we finally camp upon a sign designating a junction with a trail that was about a half a mile further than we were supposed to go. From this point, we could have followed the junction north and joined the Appalachian Trail to backtrack and definitely find the summit of Mt. Rogers, but this would have added another 2 miles to the 8-miles roundtrip. We decided to just go back the way we came and try to find the side trail that would take us to the shelter.

This didn’t work. We knew that it was somewhere within the clearing, and after climbing up a ways we still couldn’t find it. We sought out landmarks along the way so we could find our way back, just in case, but we lost sight of these quickly because the fog was so thick. The wind had also started blowing so hard we almost had to yell at each other to talk. We stumbled upon a fence, and then upon a wide and flattened area that looked like the shelter trail we had been searching for.

We followed this for a little while, but it got so wide and flat we couldn’t tell which direction it went in anymore. We also couldn’t find the fence any longer. We decided that at this point, it was dangerous for us to be wandering around without a clue of where the shelter or the summit trails were. We would also be in the area again when we hiked the Appalachian Trail. Although the AT doesn’t go directly over the summit of Mt. Rogers, it comes within a half mile of it, so we could try again next summer.

We started walking downhill until we came upon a fence (which we found out later was a different stretch of fence from the one we followed up) and finally found the Horse Trail we had left behind. It was 11:30pm and we still had to hike 4 miles back to the car. This is the only point we actually took the camera out to snap a photo.

The trees kept a lot of the fog at bay on our hike back. The moon also lit up the trail most of the way back. It definitely felt like the longest hike back to the car and we were getting hungry (even though we snacked) and exhausted. We hit the last stretch of clearing and knew the car was within a half a mile. I stepped on a fallen tree branch and kicked it back toward myself and it struck my leg and left a bruise. I was getting so anxious to get back to the car I wasn’t watching my feet.

The silhouette of the final gate finally came to view in the fog and we jogged up to the car. We shifted everything to the front of the car and bundled up in our sleeping bags in the back. We weren’t sure if this lot was okay for sleeping in overnight, but it was 1:30am and there was no way we’d make it to another place to sleep this night. It was the coldest night we’d spent in the car, and we both ended up sleeping in our long johns, in the sleeping bags, with a blanket spread out on top of both of us. I even had trouble falling asleep at first, no matter how exhausted I was, because it was so cold and the wind was blowing so hard it was rocking the car.