March 2008 – mrfs.net – the little trips pages

Grassy Ridge in the Roan Highlands

Grassy Ridge is the oft-overlooked third peak over 6000 feet in the Roan Highlands area.

Climbing up from Carver’s Gap one first has to summit Round Bald and Jane Bald. The day before this hike it had been 65 degrees in Asheville, but it was spitting snow by the time we finished the hike. The snow on the west side of the conifers atop the balds was proof that it had been snowing recently as well. That is Grassy Ridge in the background of the first picture.

The views along this entire hike are spectacular. The Black Mountains including Mt. Mitchell are clearly visible on the NC side. The city of Roan Mountain, TN and surrounding area including Strawberry Mountain are visible to the west. From Grassy Ridge the ski areas around Boone and Grandfather Mountain are visible (including the horrendous bit of construction atop Sugar Mountain). Here are Melanie and Trout resting atop Jane Bald. We had intended to have a bit of a picnic atop Grassy Ridge originally, but once we got there the wind was so intense that we had to hide in the lee of rocks near the summit just to have a conversation. Three layers of clothing were apparently not enough.

One thing about hiking in the highlands north of Roan is that it isn’t hard to follow the trail. Here it can be seen stretching a mile or more towards Jane Bald (foreground), Round Bald (middle ground), and Roan High Knob (background, and an entirely different hike). We’d recommend this hike on a slightly warmer day.

Congaree National Park

A blog entry for a national park? Yes, I’m afraid so, although we intend to go back and spend some time on the rivers and make a full web page of it one of these days. Congaree is a relatively new National Park (previously just a National Swamp before the glorious promotion in 2003). There is a decent network of hiking trails through one section of the park, although much of it is only accesible by canoe during high water times. We did a 5 mile loop or so just to visit the park and collect information for a future trip. Hiking trails here are about as easy as they can get. There’s no elevation change, an excellent network of bridges over creeks and generally packed solid dirt on the trails. A few cypress roots are the only difficulty.

We didn’t see any wildlife (such as otters, mink, raccoons) but then we had a large clumsy dog and the boardwalk sections of the park were actually rather crowded.

Palmetto Pig Pick’n

Our first BBQ contest as certified KCBS judges, the Palmetto Pig Pick’n is held in Ladson, SC – just a bit outside of Charleston.
Overall, a pretty interesting experience. KCBS rules mean that we each judge 6 samples of each of the four meats (chicken, ribs, pork, beef). It ends up being quite a lot of food even with relatively small sample sizes. In fact after the judging we pretty much went back to our hotel and collapsed in a meat coma.
Here is Melanie in her sporty competition apron.