I spent the entire summer in the southeastern U.S. mountains after being driven out of Florida in mid-May because of temperatures in the 90's. I had a pretty easy time of it after that with nights in the 60's and days in the lower 80's for the most part. It did rain quite a bit and I experienced several of my worst lightning and thunder storms ever. I had almost no problem with bugs all summer.
I followed the Appalachian Mountain Range up through eastern Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia and western Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. This is a truly wonderful area with mountain peaks, ridges, spectacular waterfalls and gorges everywhere.
The Tallulah Gorge in northeast Georgia and Cloudsland Gorge in northwest Georgia, both more than 1,000 feet deep are not to be forgotten. The Breaks on the western Virginia/eastern Kentucky border is a canyon more than 1,600 feet deep. Whitewater Falls in North Carolina near the South Carolina border is over 400 feet high with another 400+ falls a few miles away in South Carolina. 15 people have died climbing on the surrounding rocks. I'm glad I'm finally old enough to not even feel a little temptation for such stunts (well, not much anyway).
The down side to the mountains is some of the roads. They can be very steep and very narrow and really twisty and turny with lots of switchbacks. It's not the roads so much that are scary. It's when you have traffic coming the other way and they're going so fast they can't stay in their own lanes. Picture yourself driving on the sidewalk and hugging the wall of a building. You come to the end of the wall and as you turn the corner some nitwit comes zooming around the same corner in the other direction. You'd better have good bladder control for that kind of driving.
The Blue Ridge Parkway extends from western Virginia down through western North Carolina and is one breathtaking view after another of nearby mountain peaks, ridges and valleys. I believe the parkway was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930's. The parkway cuts into, along and through 450+ miles of mountain tops and ridges. Turnouts average every .5 to 1.0 miles in some stretches, each offering great photo opportunities. There's lots of hiking trail heads of varying lengths and difficulties right off of the parkway. Campgrounds are scattered along the parkway every 50-100 miles or so. The Skyline Drive in northwestern Virginia passes through the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains and adds another 100+ miles of the same type of views. You can get off the Skyline Drive and right onto the Blue Ridge Parkway. One starts where the other ends.
While paddling the northern part of the Maine coast last summer I was really impressed with the granite cliffs up to 100 feet, rising up out of the ocean and bays. In Florida this past winter I was equally impressed with the beauty of the jungle like setting of many of the creeks and rivers with palm trees, palmettos and huge, gnarly live oaks draped in Spanish moss.
Now, once again, I'm impressed with the paddling on some of the mountain lakes and rivers. I've found a few where you can sit out in the middle and be surrounded with mountain peaks and ridges in all directions. These vistas make for some great paddling. Not all lakes and rivers are created equal. I now study the topographical information in the atlas looking for lakes that have lots of contour lines around them (indicating mountains) and rivers above dams so I don't find myself in a class 5+ set of rapids. And then I'll go out of my way to paddle them.
Some good lakes and rivers I've found are:
New River above Bluestone Dam in Hinton, WV
Lake Moomaw near Covington, VA in the Washington National Forest
Santeelah Lake near Robbinsville, NC in the Nantahala National Forest
Watauga Lake near Elizabethton, TN in the Cherokee National Forest
South Holston Lake near Bristol, TN on the Virginia border
Elk River near Sutton, WV in the Elk River Wildlife Management Area
Gauley River above Summersville dam in Summersville, WV (probably)
I met a guy down in Florida from the Rocky Mountains Sea Kayak Club. Huh? A sea kayak club in the Rocky Mountains? Sounds kinda like the Swiss Navy doesn't it? Now I understand a little better the kind of paddling he enjoys and can hardly wait to get out there.
I spent a week in the Nantahala Gorge in North Carolina's Nantahala National Forest and didn't get to go down the river once. I was expecting folks from Alabama and was saving the trip for them. But they chose to paddle nearby Santeelah Lake instead when they heard how nice it was. The Nantahala River is mostly controlled by dam releases every day. They let the water accumulate overnight and release it during the day because white water rafting is big bucks for the area with somewhere around 50 outfitters in a 10-15 mile stretch.
This time of year the river's only class II with a couple of class III sections. Other big white water rivers in the immediate area are the Ococee, Nolichucky and French Broad. I want to go on a raft trip but wouldn't pay good money unless it was an all day affair of class III and IV with a couple V's thrown in. The Gauley River in WV is the 2nd best in the U.S. (the Colorado?) and in the top 10 in the world. Their season is September and early October when they release water from the Summersville dam during 4 day weekends.
Needless to say I did a lot of hiking in the mountains. Sometimes I used a map, sometimes a guidebook, sometimes I went off on trails just because they were there and sometimes I just hiked along forest or service roads or old abandoned roads.
I've learned that at best, I should stick to the moderate trails. The definition I have for moderate is anything with an incline between 8 and 20 degrees. Less than that is easy, greater than that is difficult. I've found myself on the upper end of the moderate range, tired and ready to call it quits but you can't really do that when you're in the mountains by yourself. It then becomes a matter of going a few steps and then stopping for a minute or so until your heart, lungs and legs are ready for a few more steps. It does add to the length of the hike.
I was most impressed with the mountains in the Nantahala National Forest. Just driving around on the back roads in the Nantahala Gorge area is an experience to remember. Steep, sharply jagged peaks rise up everywhere, one after the other. The entire state of West Virginia is a close second with mountain peaks and ridges across the entire state. That's probably why it's called the Mountain State, duh!
Didn't see too much wildlife until I got to West Virginia. There I saw tons of white tail deer with lots of fawns. I was even treated to several does and fawns at different spots on the Bluestone and New Rivers. Lots of wild turkeys on the back roads and lots of Canadian Geese and the ever present Blue Herons but only a couple of bald eagles. While visiting in New Jersey I happened to glance at a swamp and was surprised to see an American Egret that far north.