Archive for May, 2009

Rufus Morgan Falls

Saturday, May 30th, 2009

Rufus Morgan falls is located on an isolated loop trail on the east side of Siler Bald.   The forest road access to the trail is off of Wayah Rd and it’s about the only maintained trail in that area.

Rufus Morgan in the Distance

Rufus Morgan in the Distance

The trail is a loop of about a half mile on either side with a decent elevation gain up to the falls.  The main falls can be seen in the background where the trail crosses the creek.

Us at Rufus Morgan Falls

Us at Rufus Morgan Falls

Up close, it’s impossible to see the entire cascade at once but the main drop is impressive and it’s about 5-10 degrees cooler in this little cove than the surrounding forest.  There isn’t much of a pool at the bottom of this one.

Rufus Morgan Falls

Rufus Morgan Falls

Probably everyone who has ever been here has a picture involving this prominent rock.  Now we do too.   Trout usually wanders out of the frame before a picture is taken but for some reason he wandered into this one and sat down nicely in the center.

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Big Laurel Falls

Saturday, May 30th, 2009

Big Laurel Falls is located deep into the Standing Indian area of the Nantahala National Forest.   If you drive in past the campground, across the creek and a few miles further on – the trailhead is along the right side of the road.

Melanie on the bridge at Betty Creek

Melanie on the bridge at Betty Creek

Melanie isn’t tired yet in this picture – the crossing of Betty Creek is only a few hundred yards into the hike but I couldn’t get her standing up and the stream under the bridge at the same time.    

It’s a short (0.6 mile) and pleasant hike along a couple different streams to Big Laurel falls.   The falls themselves form a nice pool which one might consider swimming in if one is somehow immune to hypothermia.   Maybe it’s better later in the summer but even Trout wasn’t willing to stand in this one for too long.

Big Laurel Falls

Big Laurel Falls

It’s a fairly easy rock scramble to get to the mid level of these falls but we’re probably supposed to mention that waterfalls are dangerous and you shouldn’t mess around with them.  Don’t try this at home if you happen to have a 25 foot cascade at home.  

Mooney Falls

Mooney Falls

Just a half mile or so further down the forest road from the Laurel Falls trailhead is a pull-off for Mooney Falls.   You should be able to see the falls off the south side of the road as you approach.   It’s just a couple switchbacks down to the river but the canyon is narrow and overgrown through here so it’s difficult to get a view of the entire cascade.  This picture is probably less than half of the total drop.

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Cowee Bald

Saturday, May 30th, 2009

After our two waterfall hikes (below) we felt we needed one more short hike to round out the day.   Cowee Bald was a tempting target with it’s prominent location at the north end of the Cowee Mountains and it seemed like it might be a good place to watch the sunset over the Smokies.

Melanie at the Cowee lookout tower

Melanie at the Cowee lookout tower

Forest Service road 70 is the key to getting up Cowee Bald.  It’s sort of hard to find in the maze of roads north of Franklin.  Once found it’s a long way up with some fairly steep gravel grades.  There’s a gate about a half mile from the summit so we parked there and hiked up to the lookout tower which unfortunately was locked halfway up.

View from Cowee Bald

View from Cowee Bald

Due to towers for cell phones, radio transmitters and such the view north is non-existant.   The view in other directions isn’t bad though.  This is looking south towards Franklin, NC. and Dillard, GA.

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Moore Cove Falls

Monday, May 25th, 2009

On Memorial Day, we bravely hazarded the stretch of US 276 through Pisgah Forest between Looking Glass Falls (approximate number of cars parked here = 40) and Sliding Rock.    This is the location of the Moore Cove trail which is a 0.7 mile spur up to the falls.

Moore Cove Falls

Moore Cove Falls

This was after a day and half of rain so presumably the falls is often just a trickle.   The trail mostly follows the creek upstream crossing on wooden bridges several times.   There are other smaller falls in the vicinity as well.

Moore Cove

Moore Cove

The ‘cove’ portion of the falls is quite impressive on its own.  There is substantial space inside the overhang.  

David at Moore Cove Falls

David at Moore Cove Falls

The location of the falls is well-shaded and the water was frigid but it was worth standing in nonetheless.    Trout, of course, only stood in the falls long enough to get damp before finding some mud to lie in.   We had intended to change into more serious hiking footwear after this trail and visit something a little more obscure but the rain moved back in shortly after we got back to the car and hasn’t really stopped since.

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Linville Falls

Saturday, May 16th, 2009

We took the scenic route back from Danville along the Blue Ridge Parkway.   Our intent had been to hike in the Linville area but it just kept raining and raining.   Finally we gave up and decided we were just going to get a little wet.   How bad can the half-mile hike to Linville Falls be anyway?

Linville Falls

Linville Falls

The falls are quite impressive, especially after several hours of rain.   There is an upper view point (just below those very top cascades in this picture) but by then we were soaked in a persistent downpour so we figured we might as well keep going.

Melanie at Linville Falls

Melanie at Linville Falls

Here are Melanie and Trout at the overlook.    Trout didn’t seem to consider this a proper sort of hike.  He would’ve been more than happy to jump in a river and swim around but he’s not thrilled to be rained on.

David at Linville Falls

David at Linville Falls

How much did it rain?   A lot.   Notice that you can’t see my toes in this picture and I’m standing on the trail.   There were pools of water six inches deep – but, we did get at least one small hike in.

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Pigs in the Park – Danville, VA

Saturday, May 16th, 2009

Pigs in the Park – part of the Festival in the Park – was our first KCBS barbecue judging experience for 2009.   We don’t have very many pictures of the festival which included a lot of crafts, some kids’ rides, a music stage, and a cheesecake competition (alas, we didn’t judge that).

View behind the scenes at Pigs in the Park

View behind the scenes at Pigs in the Park

As barbeque contests go, Danville’s is very well organized and we had a good time.   ‘Cool Smoke’ won the competition, although they seem to win just about every competition we go to.

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A.T. – Spivey Gap to Chestoa

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

This section of the AT starts in North Carolina and finishes in Erwin, Tennessee.  We parked at Uncle Johnny’s Hiker Hostel in Erwin and he shuttled us up to Spivey Gap which is about 11 miles away by trail.

AT Sign near Spivey Gap

AT Sign near Spivey Gap

There’s a bit of a climb out of Spivey Gap and a couple short climbs further on in the hike but for the most part it’s downhill with an elevation loss of 2000 feet from the highest point.  There are plenty of stream crossings in the first half of the hike.   No Business Knob Shelter (yes, that’s the name of it) is almost exactly halfway through this hike. 

Mountain Laurels along the AT

Mountain Laurels along the AT

The last two miles of this hike is pretty much all down.   There’s a long series of switchbacks descending into Erwin.   To make up for this at every left turn (heading northbound) there’s a rocky overlook of the Nolichucky River with occasional views of Erwin as well.

View of the Nolichucky Gorge

View of the Nolichucky Gorge

With day-sized backpacks, this hike took us just a bit over 6 hours with two stops for food and one stop for a tragic shoelace emergency (thanks random thru-hiker with a lighter!)

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French Broad River (section 8)

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

We often paddle the section of the French Broad river between Marshall, NC and Barnard – particularly when we take the dog along.  We don’t normally put it on the blog here, but we thought we’d share this one because Trout invented a new way to sit in a kayak.

Trout in the Kayak

Trout in the Kayak

What’s happening here?  We don’t really know.  Obviously sideways is not the way to do this but Trout was feeling creative.     There are an assortment of small rapids in the section of the river, most of them class II on the whitewater scale so that when the dog leaps out in the middle of one it’s not too difficult to get him back in the boat.   None of these rapids are big enough to have names so we’ve christened a few of them on our own. 

Trout Beach

Trout Beach

One of those is Trout Beach with is about a mile or so downstream from the Marshall dam.  There is a river-wide ledge with a sandy beach below it on river right.  We almost always stop here for a swim and to let the dog run around a bit.

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Flag Pond Ramp Festival

Saturday, May 9th, 2009
Flag Pond School

Flag Pond School

Flag Pond is a small community just across the NC border into Tennessee.  We’ve driven through many a time but hadn’t ever actually stopped.   The annual Ramp Festival was a great reason to spend a few hours in town.   Ramps are basically a wild member of the garlic-onion family and are often called wild leeks.   They grow wild in the Appalachian mountains and are highly resistant to any sort of farming so they’re not common outside of the mountains and not really even easy to find in the mountains except for a month or so each year.

Serving Line

Serving Line

The ‘festival’ is really more like a lunch, or maybe dinner depending when you get there.  There are a couple of gospel / bluegrass bands but the main reason to visit is to eat.    A ticket costs $7 and you can wait in line in front of skillets frying up either bacon or potatoes with or without ramps.   Just in case you weren’t hungry yet you will be by the time you reach the actual food.

Ramp Festival Plate

Ramp Festival Plate

It started raining while we were collecting our food so we ate in the Flag Pond School gymnasium.   Here’s what you end up with, from the top clockwise on this plate are fried potatoes with ramps, bacon, cornbread, raw ramps (optional), and soup beans with a bit of chow chow on top.   There’s also slaw and desert on separate plates.   In the potatoes, the ramps really just taste like strong scallions.   They’re not really noticeably strong until you eat the raw ones.  Those have a pretty good spicy onion kick to them and you’ll have no problem remembering what they taste like for at least 12 hours afterwards.  Maybe a whole day or two.

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