A DISAPPOINTMENT?
Christy,
the dogs, and I spent last weekend in the North Carolina High Country. We headed out Friday afternoon for 2 ½ days
of camping, hiking, leaf peeping, tailgating, and football.
We
left Charlotte a little after 3pm, which enabled us to beat the worst of the
rush hour traffic. We headed straight
for Kistler Memorial Highway in Linville Gorge, where
I hoped to find a campsite for the weekend.
We had reservations at Price Park Campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway
near Blowing Rock, but thanks to the Federal Government meltdown, the
campground is closed.
The
government has been shut down for almost two weeks now. To me, the only noticeable effect has been
the closure of the National Parks. And
to what end? It certainly isn’t saving
us tax payers any money. Since all of
the furloughed employees will eventually get back pay, it’s actually going to
cost us. In the meantime, it’s an
inconvenience (or worse) for tourists and travelers, and it’s devastating to many
local economies in areas outside of the parks.
The
other notable effect is an unpleasant increase in the amount of toilet paper
that is strewn about the Parkway and National Forest areas. What exactly is the benefit of padlocking a
pit toilet, anyway? And please don’t
tell me that they’re locked because they can’t be serviced. I don’t believe the toilets at the Black
Balsam Trailhead have ever been cleaned.
We
drove up 221 through Linville Falls and down the Kistler
Highway. We passed the Linville Falls
parking area, which was packed. No doubt
this is because the more popular, paved access road from the Parkway is gated. From there we continued on past the
information center (closed) and toilet (locked) and on down the road. We reached the first primitive campsite a
couple of minutes later. It wasn’t
anything special, but it was both adequate and vacant. I wasn’t real interested in spending half the
afternoon looking for a better spot, so we took it. We would be driving to Boone the next
morning, so being at the north end of Kistler was
more convenient, anyway.
By
the time we set up camp it was 6pm. That
left us with about an hour of daylight.
Originally we had talked about visiting Wiseman’s View later that
evening to look for the Brown Mountain Lights.
Neither of us were feeling real motivated to do that though. So we drove down there for the view. The drive was largely uneventful, except for
passing a guy with an axe standing on the side of the road. I don’t know what that was about. Perhaps he wandered away from the nearest
Haunted Trail? I kept driving.
We
drove to Wiseman’s View, parked, and walked down past the toilet (locked) to
the overlook. There were only a few
people here, which was a pleasant surprise.
We enjoyed fine evening views from there, encompassing Hawksbill, Table
Rock, the Chimneys, Shortoff, and the Linville River
far below. There was a fair bit of fall
color around, particularly at the higher elevations on Hawksbill. I imagine colors in the gorge will peak this
coming weekend.
We
headed back to camp before dark to start dinner. We enjoyed a fantastic meal of jambalaya with
local Andouille turkey sausage around a pleasant campfire. The temperature dropped into the 40’s that
night, providing ideal sleeping conditions.
I slept fairly well, although we were occasionally startled by the blast
of an air horn from the local Haunted Trail down in Linville Falls. I guess that was the main disadvantage to
camping at the north end of Kistler.
We
got up at first light on Saturday and headed out. I wanted to hit the Parkway in time for
sunrise. Unfortunately, sunrise didn’t
really happen on Saturday. It was an
overcast morning, and conditions deteriorated as we headed up towards
Grandfather Mountain. I had planned to
do a short hike up Rough Ridge, but that area was completely socked in. The fall foliage was a bit disappointing up
there, too. There were some nice reds,
but the golds seemed rather muted. It looked like we’d missed the peak by a few
days. However, the early hour and dense
fog may have dulled the colors.
Rough
Ridge isn’t dog or wife friendly, anyway.
Dogs aren’t allowed, and the trail is too rocky for Christy’s
perpetually swollen knee. I made a quick
change in plans, and we continued down the Parkway towards Price Lake. I did stop briefly at the Boone Fork
Trailhead, as the fall colors were pretty nice there. They seemed to be at their peak around an
elevation of 4,000’ or so. From there,
we continued on to Price Lake, which was fairly busy for 8:30 in the morning. I took a few photos of the lake, but there
would be no wall-hangers with Grandfather Mountain lost in the clouds. Christy and I walked the dogs
part of the way around the lake, until we found a good place for them to access
the water. We spent about 30 minutes
letting them play fetch before heading back.
They were pretty tired by the time we reached the car, which ensured
that they would be on their best behavior while we were tailgating.
We
rolled into Boone, picked up hot coffee and cold beer, and met our friend Eric
at 10am to start tailgating. It was a
good time as always, even though the sun hardly made an appearance all
day. That wasn’t the weather we had been
expecting. Apparently the forecast had
shifted about 180 degrees from Friday to Saturday. We had been looking forward to a weekend with
lots of sunshine and highs in the 60’s.
Instead, the forecast had changed to cloudy conditions with a chance of
rain Saturday night and Sunday.
The
football game went pretty much like most of previous games this season –
poorly. We were even less competitive in
this one though. Afterwards we stopped
for dinner at Christy’s favorite Indian restaurant. Then we parted ways with Eric and drove back
to camp. We went straight to bed, and I
managed to sleep right through the occasional air horn blast.
We
got up at first light again on Sunday. A
late night leg stretching had revealed a sky fall of stars, and I was
cautiously optimistic that the weather would cooperate for the hike I’d
planned. We were going to head up to Big
Yellow Mountain, in the Roan Highlands.
I was hopeful that we’d catch the peak of fall color there, at the
higher elevations.
I
made breakfast and we broke camp. We
drove up to the Roaring Creek Trailhead, which is around 4,400’ in
elevation. The weather seemed pleasant
at first, but as we neared our destination we noticed that the higher peaks
were lost in the fog. We stopped briefly
just before the trailhead, at the edge of a meadow. The lower slopes of Grassy Ridge were
directly across from us, and the first 100’ or so were
quite colorful. Above that, everything
was lost in the fog. The fog line was
right at the trailhead, and I’ll admit that I had some hesitations about our
hike. We were already there though, and
you never know how things will turn out.
We
hiked the Overmountain Victory Trail up to Yellow
Gap. There were no views because of the
conditions, but the foggy forest was lovely and still. The dogs didn’t seem to mind the lack of views,
either. They chased each other around
through the woods, Oblivious that we still had 5 miles
of hiking ahead of us.
We
ran into one couple on the Overmountain Victory
Trail. That was the first time I’v seen anyone else on it.
The A.T. was busier. Fortunately,
the dogs were on their best behavior. We
have been working with Kona to get her out of the habit of barking at
people. Hopefully that is starting to
pay off.
We
turned north on the A.T. and climbed the steep hill out of Yellow Gap. We followed it through foggy meadows and dark
forests before joining an old road. A
minute later the A.T. turned off to the left, but we continued ahead on the
road towards Big Yellow. We followed it
up onto a high ridge just below Little Hump.
We occasionally caught a glimpse of the mountain above when the fog
thinned, but we were just being teased.
The meadows were full of blooming Goldenrod though. The scenic highlight of the morning came a
bit later, when we reached a tunnel of golden beech trees immersed in the
fog. The roadbed was carpeted in freshly
fallen red leaves, which suggested that we’d missed the peak color. Fall foliage doesn’t have to be on the trees
to be pretty though, and this spot was the most beautiful of the day.
Christy
decided to skip the final climb to Big Yellow, as her knee was already sore and
swollen. I went ahead to the bald
summit, hopeful that the fog would break just as I reached the top. Of course that didn’t happen. In fact, it sprinkled briefly at one
point. The sun did break through for a
minute, but it was directly above, and the surrounding fog refused to
yield. I retreated, and caught up with
Christy on the way back down. We hiked
together to an overlook on the A.T. a short distance above Yellow Gap. We stopped for lunch there, and as luck would
have it, the fog did begin to break up.
First I saw the old barn, which is now an A.T. shelter, down below Yellow
Gap. Then the fog began to clear from
the Roaring Fork valley. Distant
mountains began to appear, and even mighty Grassy Ridge emerged from the murk
for a few minutes.
I
was hoping for spectacular fall color on the slopes of Grassy Ridge. The mountainside was fairly colorful, but
again the golds were very
muted. Given the large number of leaves
that were on the ground, I’d guess we were a bit late. This area must be one of the first in the
North Carolina mountains to turn.
We
headed back down by the same route. This
time, we were treated to lots of colorful views from the meadows along the Overmountain Victory Trail.
Christy made it through the hike, but struggled with knee pain on the
way down. That was probably the biggest
disappointment of the weekend – we were hoping it would hold up better than it
did.
Really
though, it was the only disappointment of the weekend. The football game was an ugly loss – our 5th
of the season. That’s something APP fans
aren’t used to – our last losing season was in 1993. The tailgating was fun though, and only fairweather fans show up only for the winning seasons. The camping lacked facilities, but it was
private and free. The fall color wasn’t
exactly spectacular, but it still added beauty to our
hikes. And the weather wasn’t ideal, but
it could’ve been a whole lot worse. Best
of all, I got to spend the whole weekend with my wife, my dogs, and
friends. What more can you really ask
for?
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