I recently completed a trip that took me to Asheville, NC and then Charleston, SC. The primary purpose was to watch some South Atlantic League minor league baseball games (“Low A” ball), but I also managed to squeeze in some other sight-seeing. One could probably spend several days to do Charleston right and I was only there for a brief period (and dodged rain for most of that time), but I was really impressed with Mt. Pleasant and hope to go back there for a more leisurely and in-depth visit to “Chucktown”. While in Asheville, I spent a really enjoyable day consuming a portion of the Pigsah Region of the Blue Ridge Parkway – a section that was virgin to me.
Even though I spend most of my existence sitting on my butt inside an air-conditioned office, the persistent heat, humidity, and “late afternoon thunderstorms” of Piedmont summers seems to wear on me psychologically around this time of summer. A trip to the mountains always provides a nice, refreshing respite. I keep telling myself to try Asheville in the middle of winter when it is cold and wet and yucky to get a more balanced view of the locale, but it looks like one of a handful on my short list of very attractive retirement destinations. That is quite a ways away though.
Friday July 12th was just a beautiful day in Western North Carolina (upper 70s). I set out about 7:30 with a leisurely breakfast at the IHOP on Tunnel Road. Isn’t it fascinating how nowadays the default expectation is that any establishment will have wireless Internet access and that any establishment that doesn’t is an outlier? (I am talking to you Cracker Barrel – get with the program!) While wolfing down my eggs and hash browns and guzzling the coffee, I was grazing the Web on my Samsung GS3. I came across a useful Android application that provided essential information about all the regions on the Blue Ridge Parkway, including trails, gardens, overlooks and other cultural attractions. Nice application. (I hate the term “app” by the way. “Cool app” is even worse. What is wrong with the terms “program” or “software”? Oh, and while we are at it, Get Off of My Lawn!)
Using this wonderful “cool app”, I mapped out a leisurely plan of about 5 hours that would take me north on the parkway from Asheville up to Mt. Mitchell State Park. I entered the parkway at the US Highway 70 to Asheville & Black Mountain access point (Milepost 382.5) and proceeded north. There were a ton of nice overlooks in this initial stretch and I took advantage of those. Several decent shots were taken with the morning fog starting to burn off. Another highlight was a roadside waterfall, highly reminiscent of those side roads back home (around Brush Mountain) where we would take Sunday drives and fill up those plastic jugs with that mountain water that always seemed to taste so much better than the tap water. Here is a Flickr slideshow of photos taken on the 18 mile stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway between Asheville and Craggy Gardens. (This is the first of a series of slideshows in this weblog post. Friendly reminder that you can display a full-screen version of the slideshow by clicking the “Play” button and then clicking on the four dot square in the lower right corner.)
Around Milepost 364, there were a couple of self-guided trails that I did – Craggy Gardens and Craggy Pinnacle. These were easy trails of about 1.6 miles round trip each. Rhododendrons all over the place and I caught a beautiful shot of what I later learned to be flaming azaleas (bright orange color). Western North Carolina has received a ton of rain this summer and things got a bit muddy in places, but was still a low-key enjoyable walk. Here are some shots taken on the Craggy Gardens Trail.
From Craggy Gardens I continued north up the parkway another ten miles or so to Mount Mitchell State Park – the highest point in the US east of the Mississippi. (I realize that Westerners may be snickering about that.) The part of the parkway approaching Mount Mitchell had some glorious views but unfortunately very few overlooks where one could pull over and snap. There was hardly anybody on the road that morning, so I took it all in by driving well under the 45 MPH speed limit in effect. When you exit the parkway and head to the State Park, it is 20-25 MPH and you are doing some serious climbing. Rather than driving to the summit, I parked at a lower level and walked up to the summit on the Balsam Nature Trail (about a mile trail along to the top of the ridge through a spruce-fir forest). The trail was classified as “easy” – I am in decent shape for my age and enjoyed the trail – but it was a healthy exertion with the higher altitude and much more strenuous a trek than trails classified as “easy” in the Eno River State Park (my home turf).
The trek winds up and down (whether you are heading toward or away from the summit) and halfway through on the way up I came across two German couples (clearly older than me) returning from the summit. They were resting at the bottom of a particularly rocky and challenging portion of the trail. We exchanged pleasantries though I could have sworn I heard one of them muttering “easy trail my ass!” in German. Hope they made it up the trail OK. Here is a Flickr slideshow of images taken on the Balsam Nature Trail approaching the summit of Mount Mitchell.
On to the summit. The Balsam Nature trail dumps you out near the summit and you walk up a winding paved road to get to an observation tower (recently replaced in 2009). On the way up, I had scarfed down a couple of bananas and was a bit thirsty, but, alas, the water fountains at the summit rest rooms were not functioning. It was so wonderfully cool though. One of the most underrated aspects of North Carolina is the variety of the climate, environment, and topography. My house sits about 230 miles from Nags Head and about 210 miles from Mount Mitchell. Here is a Flickr slideshow of images taken from the summit of Mount Mitchell.
