go hike a mountain

February 21, 2008

We woke up to gray skies and mild wind this morning, not bad weather for tromping around on the land my parents and aunt and uncle own. There’s a total of about 11 acres all together, three semi-flattened lots for houses and the land behind the lots that extends to the top of a ridge. The hike up to the ridgeline was pretty steep. Here’s a view of Jackie’s cabin from my dad’s lot.

We had to descend down some gullies because the incline was so steep.

Jesse started yanking on a vine and we decided to leave it because if you could find it while hiking up to the top, it was as good as rope.

We spent most of this day poking around downtown Asheville. There was a very good outfitter called Black Dome that had some good winter gear deals. I bought some casual shoes. We went back to the cabin for some spaghetti and an episode of Lost. I’ve never seen the show, and I was totally lost.

February 22, 2008

This morning there was a lot of fog hanging in the valley. Here is a panoramic view from Jackie’s front porch of the road that runs into the valley.

After leaving the cabin behind, we went to explore Black Mountain, the next town over from Swannanoa. There were a lot of little shops, but many of them were closed for the season. We did find another outfitter here called Take a Hike as well as a map shop where we bought a 3-D topo map of the area (with my parent’s land on it).

From Black Mountain we drove straight to Charlotte so we could catch a Bobcats game. We found the Bank of America Stadium where the Panthers play.

Charlotte has a downtown area not too different from Memphis, minus the Beale St. atmosphere. There were plenty of tall buildings, men in suits and coffee shops.

We were able to get $20 seats for $10 at the game because of some sort of promotion they were having. They were pretty good seats, too. There weren’t many fans and people started leaving early because the Bobcats were trailing most of the game.

They should have stuck it out, though. The Bobcats tied the score in the last few seconds of the game, forcing overtime with the Sacramento Kings. At the end of the overtime period, they were really close again and could have won the game if they had scored 2 in the last 7-second play they had, but whoever had the shot missed the basket. It was a lot of fun. We left the city and slept somewhere along the highway just south of Charlotte.

February 23, 2008

We decided to drive to Savannah to say hello to one of Jesse’s childhood friends and to tour the city for a few hours. One of the parking garages had beautiful flowers in its planters.

We walked down River St. to see the tugboats and find the candy and souvenir shops.

Jesse and his buddy Ron.

From Savannah, we drove toward Gainesville where we were going to spend the night. We made it there in time to go to The Top for dinner, on Main St. in downtown Gainesville, one of my favorite restaurants from when I was in school. I made Jesse try corn nuggets, these super good little dollops of creamed corn that are breaded and deep-fried and served with a garlicky sauce. He had a turkey melt that he says is one of the best sandwiches he’s ever eaten. And then we split a slice of Heath bar peanut butter pie for some more sensory-flavor overload. With full bellies we turned in for the night at a rest area just outside of Gainesville.

We slept in late again and said our goodbyes to the family and the dogs.

We had planned on driving straight to my aunt’s cabin near Asheville, NC, but I decided to call the Mt. Mitchell State Park for information about their road closings. I had originally read that some of the area would be closed off and we planned on getting to this highpoint sometime later. The person that answered told us the Blue Ridge Parkway was open from the north of the park entrance, but closed south of that, so we could drive to the summit parking area but we had to leave on the parkway the way we came. This wasn’t so bad because we had to kill some time before my Aunt Jackie got off of work.

We gained a lot of elevation just getting to the parkway and then a lot more in the 5 extra miles to the summit area. What I failed to realize was that the summit area was under construction so we were allowed to go to the summit parking lot, but not walk up to the true summit. Just like Mt. Rogers, we came within about 300 ft. of elevation of the top of Mt. Mitchell. It seems we’ll have to come back anyway.

The visitor’s center and parking lot were deserted except for one other family.

It was really windy, so we hurried back to the car. The real summit lies somewhere behind the car there.

We left the summit area and stopped at a few scenic overlooks on the way back down the mountain.

We dropped about 3000 ft in elevation in 20 minutes and there was much less windy.

From Mt. Mitchell we went west into Hendersonville to see my Aunt Sheila and Uncle Stanley. They live in apple country.

We had dinner with them and my cousin Kirk and his family.

Afterward, we drove to Swannanoa to meet Jackie so we could follow her up to the cabin. The drive up the mountain is really steep and dark and I’m sure we wouldn’t have found it ourselves at night. Jackie also has dogs and we got to meet them before getting some sleep.

February 18, 2008

We slept in pretty late this morning headed to the Raleigh-Durham area to try and catch my sister while she was in the hospital. She gave birth to an adorable baby boy on February 15 and as it turned out, they had left the hospital the night before. We made our way to their house and just caught them before they were leaving the house to return to the hospital for an appointment. His name is Grayson.

We told them we’d return again on our way back home so I could see all of my nieces also and went back to Lloyd and Gail’s where we watched a movie and got some sleep.

February 19, 2008

Our last full day at Lloyd and Gail’s we went and met Lloyd for lunch. Afterward, we got to take a tour of the photo studio where he works. We also ran around looking at some interesting things in the area, like a giant chair and giant dresser. Hi Point, we’re told, is the furniture market of the world.

Later that evening we went to see Ian, one of Jesse’s cousins, play a pickup game of ultimate frisbee.

We awoke this next morning to rougher wind and thicker fog. It was a good thing we had made our attempt on Mt. Rogers the night before because if we had woken up with the intent of hiking in the morning and seen the weather like this, there would have been no attempt at all.

We were on our way to Jesse’s aunt and uncle’s house when I read a recommendation to check out a fudge factory in a town called Meadows of Dan. Pretty ridiculous name, but there were others like it, Mouth of Wilson and Toast, which we passed on the way. We barely found Meadows of Dan because it was enshrouded with fog.

We found the candy place, but it wasn’t going to open for another 2 hours and there wasn’t anything to see in Meadows of Dan to kill time because of the fog. We left with frowny faces and took the Blue Ridge Parkway down to Winston-Salem, which was also pretty foggy.

We made it to Lloyd and Gail’s by lunchtime and were welcomed very warmly by them and their gigantic dogs. They own an Irish Wolfhound, three Great Danes and a Sheepdog. The Great Dane puppy is Gus already weighs 50 lbs. at 4.5 months. He thought he was hiding cleverly.

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.