Christy, Dave, Saucony, and I headed to the Craggy Mountains on Saturday to catch the rhododendron bloom. The flowers didn't disappoint us, as the rhododendron, laurel, and flame azalea were spectacular. However, the weather let us down. When we arrived at the Craggy Gardens Visitors Center we found ourselves in a cloud. It was cool, windy, and damp, with little visibility. We abandoned our plans to hike to Snowball Mountain. Instead, we decided to hike down to Douglas Falls.
We followed the Mountains-to-Sea Trail through an absolute jungle of vegetation. The wet rocks were a little tricky to negotiate, but we reached the Douglas Falls Trail without any problems. The hike down into the valley was quite pleasant, with numerous rushing streams and old growth hemlock trees. It also offered some often overlooked wildlife. We counted 16 orange salamanders (or were they newts?), 2 brown salamanders, 5 snails, and several millipedes.
We arrived at the base of Douglas Falls in time for a late lunch. It is about 80' high, but its unusual feature is that it overhangs. Most falls in this part of the world are really cascades. However, this one projects out a good 20 feet from the cliff behind it. We explored the area, and I took a number of photographs. By mid-afternoon though, we had to prepare for the big climb back to the Parkway. The return hike was uneventful, and less difficult than we expected. We did pass 3 other hikers, who were the only people we saw before returning to Craggy Gardens. Before we left, we hiked up to Craggy Flats to enjoy the rhododendron. We were still in a heavy cloud though, and it was almost cold. We were all glad that we had changed plans and saved Snowball Mountain for another day. When we returned to the parking area, we found an anxious party reporting a missing hiker to the ranger. Apparently he had disappeared, and didn't have food, water, or clothing. I was curious, but we didn't stick around to find out how that turned out. Hopefully he turned up, as conditions were definitely right for hypothermia.
It was a nice hike, though were hoping for better weather next weekend at Roan Mountain. I'm also hoping that some of the rhododendron is still in bloom.
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