EARLY BLOOMER
Christy, Saucony, and I met
up with some folks we hadn’t seen recently last weekend. We met Myron, Dorcas, Izaak, Bob, Laura, and
Patrick for an 8-mile dayhike along the Mountains-To-Sea Trail. Christy came along, but she wasn’t planning
on hiking. She brought her road bike
instead, with plans to ride from the Folk Art Center near Asheville to Mount
Mitchell and back. While Christy was
pedaling to the top of the highest mountain in the eastern U.S., we’d be
wandering through meadows looking for blooming rhododendron. There’s no question whom had the more
ambitious agenda for the day.
We climbed from the picnic
area through thick forest before reaching an old shelter at the edge of Craggy
Gardens. Craggy Gardens is known for
beautiful views from the meadows, as well as colorful blooms of rhododendron,
mountain laurel, and flame azalea in June.
The shrubs were blooming a little earlier than normal this year, so we
weren’t disappointed. After that first
climb, we spent the next 30 minutes browsing the meadows and enjoying the
flowers. The blooms weren’t at their
peak yet, but there was enough to keep us entertained. It was a cloudy, hazy day, but the views were
still good, especially to the west.
We resumed our hike and
followed the MST down into the woods.
Craggy Gardens is a popular area, but we left the crowds behind once we
turned away from the visitor’s center.
Over the next couple of miles, we hiked through a dark jungle. The path was rough and rocky, and hard to
negotiate thanks to the thick vegetation.
We spent almost an hour looking for a lunch spot before settling for an
open area along a service road just below the parkway.
Bob and Laura had just
returned from a trip to Arizona, where they had backpacked in the Grand Canyon. They told us tales from their trip, while
Saucony and Izaak became amorous. Izaak
isn’t properly equipped, but that didn’t stop him from trying, to our
amusement. Patrick was so tickled, he
filmed the entire event with his digital camera. Yes, Patrick is the Hugh Hefner of doggie porn.
After lunch, Bob got up from
the pointy rock he’d been sitting on, or tried to. A debilitating buttock cramp left Bob waddling around like a
duck. Luckily for Bob, Izaak is a dog,
not a duck.
Bob worked the kinks out and
we resumed the hike. We climbed to
cross the parkway, and passed a faint side trail leading towards the summit of
Craggy Dome. We skipped the summit this
time, and descended to the Graybeard Mountain overlook on the Parkway. We’ve hiked Seven Sisters Ridge and
Graybeard Mountain many times, so it was interesting to view the mountain from
a different perspective.
We left the Parkway behind
and climbed up and around Bullhead Mountain.
Along the way we hiked through a dark spruce forest before reaching more
meadows and overlooks. This area made
Craggy Gardens look bland. To the west
are the Ivy Creek Valley and the Walnut Mountains. High above, the highest peaks, including Mount Mitchell,
Clingman’s Peak, Potato Knob, and The Pinnacle towered over a deep valley. Down the valley, green ridges spilled
steeply to the waters of Burnette Reservoir.
It would’ve been easy to believe that we were in Scotland looking down from
a sheer cliff to a loch obscured by the fog.
Blooming rhododendron added to the beauty, and new buds on the mountain
laurel promised more color to come.
We had to meet Christy at
Balsam Gap at 4, so we eventually had to come down off the mountain. We reached the Parkway again and walked the
shoulder briefly before detouring through the woods. This led us to a Parkway Overlook of Glassmine Falls, which is
allegedly 800’ high. That may be true,
but the stream is only a trickle of water.
It was still a nice view over the gaping chasm below to the highest
peaks in the distance.
We resumed our hike to
Balsam Gap, but it was almost 4 already and we had over a mile to go. Dorcas gave Christy a call, and found out
that she was heading our way. We decided
to skip the final mile, which isn’t terribly exciting anyway. We returned to the Glassmine Falls overlook,
and Christy arrived a few minutes later.
She had survived a tough ride.
She ran out of time and had to turn back short of the summit. Still, she made it almost as far as Balsam
Gap, a 42 mile round trip with a serious elevation gain. Her reward for the brutal climb up had been
an exhilarating, if not terrifying, high-speed descent. She was totally exhausted, but still had
enough energy to enjoy a celebratory dinner with us at My Father’s Pizza in
Black Mountain afterwards.
Back to North Carolina's Black Mountains
Back to North Carolina
Back to Hiking and Backpacking Trip Reports
Please remember to Leave No Trace!