07/04/00 Hiking Crabtree Falls Trail:
I didn't do much last week. It rained pretty heavily for two days. Some folks came up from Alabama and surprised me by not wanting to paddle the Nantahala Gorge. We paddled Santeelah Lake again instead and I saw them off on Sunday.
The Ococee and Pigeon Rivers in Tennessee and North Carolina's French Broad, and Nantahala Rivers are all half day trips. The Nantahala River has water releases everyday (I think) from 8-9am to 4-5pm. For the most part it's class II with a couple of class III sections. The Nolichucky and Chatooga Rivers have full day or overnight trips (Chattooga). All are class III & IV in the spring but probably drop to II & III in the summer and switch from rafts to inflatable kayaks in the summer. So it looks like I won't get my rafting trip in this year. I want a minimum of a full day on with lots of class IV stuff or above. It's not worth the money (to me) otherwise.
I've moved into the Pisgah National Forest at Black Mountain Campground. I came up 100 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Wow, what views! This part of the parkway has been cut along ridge tops up to 6000 feet high and offers wonderful vistas the whole way. Scenic outlooks are plentiful, averaging every half mile or so. The parkway has so many twists and turns the posted speed limit is 45mph.
Many of the outlooks have trails leading off from them and several hikers were out. Many bikers appeared to be touring with bulging saddlebags and stuff sacks. I was amazed at the number of cyclists pumping their way up some fairly steep pitches.
Many late blooming rhododendrons made an attractive sight along the roadway. Fog and haze limited the views but they were still great. A black bear track truck was out. It had a large antennae circling, searching for the receivers attached to some of the bears.
The goal this morning was actually Woods Mountain Trail. I got to the parking lot for the trailhead but couldn't find the trail. There was supposed to be a sign and a service road. All I saw was a couple of what looked like trails but they all dead ended in a few yards. My frustration level is pretty low so I gave up and looked for someplace else to hike.
The hiking book revealed the Woods Mountain Access Trail at milepost 342 of the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was supposed to intersect with the Woods Mountain Trail and continue on to the parking lot I was sitting in. If I couldn't find the trailhead one way I figured I'd take this trail and find trail end.
The access trail is a service road that parallels the Parkway from milepost 342 back to the parking lot I started from this morning. The road descends gradually over its 2 miles.
Lots of rhododendrons were still blooming and lined both sides of the road. There were all white ones, white with purple rims, whitish purple and purple ones. The purple ones were not as bright as the domestic ones I was used to in New Hampshire but still very pretty, especially mixed with all the other colors. At times, walking through corridors of blossoming rhododendrons, everything was so pretty I felt I was participating in a wedding. ..shudder!
I eventually popped out in the parking lot and now knew where the Woods Mountain Trailhead was. The sign I was looking for had been destroyed and all I saw of the service road at that end was a single track that was overgrown and covered with downed trees.
The hike back showed how deceptive gradual descents can be. The ascent didn't seem so gradual and I got a pretty good workout.
It was only 11:30am so I stopped for lunch and then went up to the Crabtree Falls Campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway to hike down to the Crabtree Falls Trail. This trail descended steadily a mile or so at a moderate decline. This would be a lot of fun on the way back up.
The falls themselves were pretty impressive, towering 50-60 feet in the air. A fair amount of water was coming off the top and falling straight down into a nice pool.
The hike back up was about as expected. I took it easy and only stopped at the top of three different sets of steps.
07/05/00 Hiking Linville Falls Trail & Linville Gorge Trail:
It looked like rain this morning. I didn't want to get caught out on the trail in a thunderstorm even though I have Gortex raingear. Linville Falls & Gorge, 30 miles north on the Blue Ridge Parkway, seemed a reasonable alternative. If a thunderstorm did come by I'd always be within a mile or so of a trailhead.
The Linville Gorge Trail is 2 miles round trip and takes you down to the 20 foot Lower Falls. The trail falls steadily at a moderately steep decline through a forest of rhododendrons; some of the still in bloom.
The 10 foot wide waterfall explodes in a mild arc out of the rock cliffs on both sides into a large pool at the bottom. A lot of water is coming down from above and the exit is relatively small compared to the amount of water.
I took my sneakers off and waded to the other side for a really good picture. The trip back up the three separate flights of steps is the worst part of the ascent.
The Plunge Basin Overlook Trail forks from the Linville Gorge Trail and leads to another great view of the falls. From here you can see the water flowing from the level above. This flow is within the cliff face and can't be seen from below. It pools and then is forced out into the lower falls.
The Linville Falls Trail ascends one mile to three great overlooks of the 90 foot upper falls. The trail rises at a moderately steep incline and passes through lots of rhododendrons and hemlocks.
07/07/00 Hiking Woods Mountain Trail:
I thought I was ready to find a fairly short but strenuous trail; something 5 miles or less. Today I attempted a 10.6 mile trail that was listed as moderate, and it blew me away. Of course moderate is relative and there's different degrees of moderation.
It rained much of yesterday so that became a rest and relaxation day. The temperature was in the lower 60's when I got up this morning. This seems about normal in the mountains so far, nights in the 60's, days in the 80's. It can be brutal when going down in elevation to civilization and all that heat bouncing off the hot pavement.
The Woods Mountain trail is the one I was trying to find the trailhead to the other day. Most of the blooms had disappeared from the rhododendrons on the approach service road.
15 minutes and .7 miles brought me to the Woods Mountain Trail junction with a white circle blaze. When these blazes fade they turn a light gray and begin to look like lichen so you have to pay closer attention to what you're looking at.
A steep upwards slope was excused by the several views it provided. Trees prevented perfect views but several nearby peaks and ridges were great none the less.
Raspberry bushes grew across the trail and had to be watched on bare legs. Their berries had just started to form. Many blueberry bushes were farther along and starting to turn blue. That wil make the black bears happy. If I remember correctly, blueberry season in Maine, a big producer, is July and August but of course, while they're much farther north, they're also much lower in elevation. I even saw a few ripe blackberries. They didn't survive my passing.
At 35 minutes a tiny trail branched off to the right. I thought it might provide a good view so descended steeply for a couple hundred feet. From that point it appeared the trail would head up another peak so I retraced my steps.
45 minutes into the hike the trail began to descend at a steep incline. And it descended and descended and dropped 400-500 feet in 10+ minutes. After another steep descent the trail started back up again.
75 minutes along I came to a sort of saddle with the trail turning left and right. And of course I saw no blazes to guide me along nor did the guidebook have any information. I took a waypoint and made note of a large, knobby oak leading into the trail I had just exited and turned left.
Eventually I found a white circle blaze. 10 minutes later I came to another fork and again no blazes. Don't you just hate that? The right fork looked like a better trail but it descended and I really didn't want to go down so again, I chose the left fork.
Of course I had to backtrack after 100 yards or so of no blazes. Back on the right fork I saw a blaze 30-40 yards down the trail. The trail forked again and lo and behold, a blaze guided me to the left this time.
The guide says to expect a steep ascent at 4.2 miles. Where was it? Surely I'd come that far already. I decided to keep going until 12:30pm or the trail started down again.
I heard what might have been a bird. It might also have been a bear cub calling for mom. Just in case, I banged the walking stick on each tree and stump I passed. I had no desire to get between a whiney little cub and its bad assed mom.
I finally got to the 'steep ascent', and it was. I'd go a few feet and rest, stagger along a few more feet and rest some more. I was high enough now where I could see mountain tops of the next range over my tree tops. The steep ascent leveled off to only a pretty steep ascent after .25 miles but I was still resting every few steps with a sit down rest every few minutes.
I got the guide book out and determined I had another half mile to go. It didn't indicate the steepness of the trail. I decided I didn't need and probably couldn't handle another half mile of this kind of steepness. The 15-20 pound day back I haul around just for kicks wasn't helping much either. Plus I knew I had a whole of of steep ups on the way back. So I called it quits.
And I did have trouble with those ups on the way back. The legs or the heart and lungs or the mind were breaking down, probably all three. I'd go 10-20 feet and rest 1-2 minutes. Go another few feet and rest some more.
I heard the bird or cub again about in the same place so figured it must be a bird. A cub shouldn't be crying for that length of time. The long, steep stretch I had descended in 10+ minutes took me 45-60 minutes to drag my weary, old bod up.
I did come across several great views I hadn't noticed on the way out. Of course they may have been great views so I'd have an excuse to stop and admire them.
It's funny, on straight or downhill stretches I could really pick up the pace with little effort. But as soon as I hit any kind of incline I came to a crawl. Some of the inclines I saw but some I didn't notice. It made no difference, the legs almost came to a halt when the trail moved up so it wasn't all mental.