Shining Rock Wilderness

So here's the plan: get to the Black Balsam Trail head around noon, follow the northern bit of the Art Loeb Trail north, camp near Cold Mtn and summit first thing for a sunrise before heading south on the Ivestor Trail to the truck. So much for plans...  hikers are laid back people, relaxed, flexible and these are good things. We all know uptight people make bad hikers right? 

I hit the trail closer to 1:30, but made good time. Its pretty easy going at first. Just over ridges filled with wild flowers and good views. Some elevation changes, but if you hike in western NC you're used to that and used to a lot worse than this.

Weather was not ideal, but not terrible. The forecast was for sunny and clear in the towns and a chance of afternoon t-storms in the mountains. What really happened was off and on light rain all day. Enough to keep you cool and the springs full, but still pretty wet going through tall overgrown trail. 

The bees were loving all the flowers, and the bugs were out in full force, but stayed away from me. I didn't have to deal with a single insect pest mostly butterflies. 

This is pretty much what the trail turned into north of Ivestor Gap. Blue berries. Tons of them as far as the eye can see, because thats all you can see. Sometimes a good foot over my head and always covering up the trail. Believe it or not thats a picture of the actual trail and not even the worst of it.

Things got a bit cold and wet fighting through the wet blueberry bushes.

The overgrown trail and lack of blazes, trail signs or markers on any of the trails made for some confusing junctions. I'm pretty happy I brought my compass along instead of just the map. Once I dropped down north of Shining Rock is when things started getting frustrating. The trail basically petered out to nothing. I spent a good hour going back and forth following game trails to nowhere and trying over and over again to find the trail hoping that I just missed a switchback or something. No such luck so I turned around and scrapped my Cold Mountain plans. I filled up on water near Shining Rock Gap and hiked south back to Ivestor Gap for the night.

After I turned around I couldn't get my mind off my Ramen, salmon and broccoli dinner I had waiting for me in my pack.

Relaxing and drying my feet out. Taking the views in while waiting on supper.

Looking south at Ivestor Gap with my tarp and campsite. 

We may not have the scale and space of the American west, but I still love southern Appalachia.

Nice sunset before bed.

I should've used a flatter rock as my tripod. I promise I wasn't camping on that steep of an incline.

I pitched my tarp low and tight expecting some late night thunderstorms, but the forecast was wrong again. Its the clearest night I've ever had in the southeast. Definitely the starriest night I've witnessed in the southern Appalachias. After some star gazing I crawled into bed for a pretty good night's sleep.

Overall it was a good quick little overnight. A good blow to my hiking pride having to change plans after misplacing the trail (I wasn't lost I knew exactly where I was just not where the trail was! right?).  Oddly enough a few years ago when I was on my 3rd backpacking trip it was an Art Loeb attempt and we had to bail after one night. Cold Mountain being an easy and accessible 6,000 footer is still haunting me.

Grayson Highlands

Hit up the Grayson Highlands last weekend. The plans were to do a real flexible loop, but in the spirit of flexibility we had a super lazy hike. Jason and I parked at Massie Gap and hiked up the Rhododendron Trail to the AT. Headed south on the AT (felt so wrong and dirty) and got water at Thomas Knob and set up camp near there. Dude and Eileen came in from VA Beach and got a super late start and rolled in around 3am and missed our campsite. We woke them up at the shelter the next morning around 10am. We decided not to do a loop and just headed north on the AT slowly with plenty of stops after a side trip up Mount Rogers (since Dude and I both skipped it on our thru hike). The next day we doubled back up the AT and took the AT Spur back to our vehicles for the drive home.  All in all a nice relaxing time outside with friends.

Once we hit the trail head on the Rhododendron Trail we spotted the first of the ponies. Assuming we'd see much more later (just didn't know how much later) we didn't stop for long. Went almost all weekend without seeing any. Just hearing them around our campsite the first night and walking through their piles of excrement. 

Jason spying our provisions of Dickel.

My note I left for Dude knowing he'd be passing by it after dark and most likely miss it. 

We grabbed a great spot in an open field near the next shelter north (I can't remember the name and I'm not looking it up) on Saturday. We ended up having the most intense lightning storm I've ever experienced that night. The rain was so heavy the field was flooded until it stopped raining. I had a good half an inch of water under my tarp, but my pack was in a garbage bag and my bivy kept me dry as a bone.

We finally ran into the ponies when we were almost back to the parking lot Sunday morning. I was worried Dude was bad luck because he never saw them on his thru.

All in all I needed the trip after working as much as I have been. The original plan was cut short a day and we definitely took the lazy route, but hey real hikers are lazy.

Roan highlands and not so highlands

I have a bunch of pictures that I've got to post, but they probably won't see the light of day. I've kinda neglected this blog for various reasons. I'm just going to post some pictures from a few trips around the Roan Highlands area. Starting with a short day hike up the Overmountain Victory Trail up Yellow Mtn. Its in the Hampton Recreational Area and the trail connects to the AT right near the Overmountain Shelter below the Hump Mtns.

I've been working 6 days a week for the past few months and my last real 2 day weekend in April I went on a quick overnight hike from Carver's Gap intending on posting up on Big Hump for the night, but severe wind and running into some trail magic cut my trip short and I crashed for a cold night at Overmountain Shelter.

The Balds were coated in frost early morning as I hiked back to my car.

Frost covered Roan Hight Knob.

Recently after work on Saturday night I drove the truck up to Carvers Gap and got on the trail around 1am and headed for a few short miles to Grassy Ridge to find a spot for my bivy. Laid down around 2am and was up for the sunrise.

Grassy Ridge was pretty popular and luckily I just had a bivy so I didn't have to find a large enough spot when I slipped in at 2am.  I never saw any sign of life beyond the dozen or so tents. I caught the sunrise with some deer and we were all gone before any of these other hikers were up.