mrfs.net – the little trips pages – Page 7 – outdoor activities around Asheville, NC

Hickory Hops

Hickory Hops is the first relatively local beer festival of the year. It’s basically a ring of thirty or so breweries around one tiny little park.

This has never been much of an issue in the past but Hickory Hops has been growing rather quickly and I suspect they may need more space in the near future. One nice aspect of Hickory Hops though is that it is right downtown and you’re free to come and go (as long as your beer glass is empty). This allows you to eat at some of the local restaurants which is good filler in between 10 or 20 samples of beer.

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.

BRP in Skyland

The first hike of the year, most of the Blue Ridge Parkway was still closed due to recent snows so we just went to the section of the Mountains to Sea Trail that parallels the Blue Ridge Parkway through Asheville. This section, from I-26 to US 25 is not exactly wilderness but it’s very close to town. It’s 3.5 miles between the two big roads but it’s such easy hiking that it seems substantially shorter.

Dogfish Head Brewery on New Year’s Eve

Ok so this isn’t really local but we don’t actually intend to do a full page on one brewery (sorry). Actually, Rehoboth Beach is within a day’s drive from Asheville so it counts as local by our standards.

Anyway, we spent New Year’s Eve in Delaware at the Dogfish Head Brewery. Why? Well, because they had an interesting five course beer pairing meal planned, and because it was festive, and because we already liked their beer.

When we arrived we promptly ordered beers, mostly because they asked us if we wanted one. This was a stupid thing to do considering each course came with a beer and despite the menu claiming they would be half-pints, they were generally all pints. This is the first course, a deconstructed Tuna Nicoise salad with an unbelievably fantastic aioli and a glass of Pangaea (brewed using ingredients from all 7 continents, because the Dogfish Head brewers have too much free time).

Here’s course 4 which was duck cassoulet. Obviously a bit deconstructed yet again, but still good. There’s a pint of pale ale, with what might be an Indian Brown behind it. It’s hard to drink a full beer with each course so we were running about 2 beers behind through the middle section of the meal. Don’t worry though, we caught up in the end.

As you can see, we have many beads. Melanie gets feathers too for some reason. We’re not actually as drunk as we might look here, my cheek looks like that because one day earlier Trout clawed me there while I was trying to teach him how to toboggan. (no, really, honest that’s what happened.) After the meal, there was a band, more drinks, fireworks, and a short taxi ride through outlet malls to our hotel.

Walnut Cove to Chestnut Cove

The Shut-In Trail (from the Biltmore Estate to Mt. Pisgah) and the Mountains to Sea Trail run together along the Blue Ridge Parkway west of Asheville. This is the Sleepy Gap parking area. From here it’s about a mile west to Chestnut Cove, not the most scenic hike but there are some camping areas near Truckwheel Knob and those are rare things along the Blue Ridge Parkway trails.

East from Sleepy Gap the trail goes out and around the north side of Grassy Knob where these cliffs are. The parkways tunnels under the far side of the mountain so this section is peaceful and relatively quiet. There are also a couple unofficial trails from here that lead down into the Bent Creek bike trail system although we saw no evidence of mountain bike usage on the MST.

For the most part this is only a good hike if you happen to live in or near Asheville and don’t decide to go for a hike until 3 hours before sunset. Or if you happen to be section hiking the Mountains to Sea Trail. Or if you like the sound of hordes of motorcycles on the Blue Ridge parkway during fall foliage season.
This last picture is apparently some sort of gentian. We spent quite a while trying to convince Melanie’s camera to focus on it before we gave up and continued on.

Latta Plantation / Carolina Raptor Center

Our trip to Charlotte started with a stop at the Carolina BBQ in Statesville, NC. Carolina BBQ is the 6th location on the NC BBQ Trail we’ve been to and it’s definately one of the best. The chopped pork is incredibly smoky and the sides, which are often just an afterthought, are good as well.

Our trip had two main purposes. One of those was Charlotte’s Oktoberfest which is where we spent most of Saturday afternoon. This year it was held at an ‘expo center’ which seems to be the term for a bunch of quick construction metal warehouses in a parking lot. Compared to the 2006 rendition (which merited part of its own webpage) the location left something to be desired. We also went to Latta Plantation on Saturday morning for a canoe orienteering race. Latta Plantation is a restored home from the settlement days of central Carolina.

On Sunday we returned to Latta plantation. We had primarly seen it from the water during the canoe race, with a few forays into the woods. Besides the plantation, the area has a nature center, horse and hiking trails and is the home of the Carolina Raptor Center. The Raptor center is really a recovery center for injured raptors that also works as a specialized zoo of sorts. There are about 25 or so exhibits, including this quirky little owl who refused to leave the fencing.

If you like owls, hawks, falcons, eagles and so on it’s a great place to spend an hour or two. There is an enormous two-part enclosure for Bald and Golden Eagles. Among the more interesting birds: this is Honeysuckle a semi-albino hawk. She’s not quite a true albino but that doesn’t really detract from the visual appeal she has.

Just down the road from Latta is Lancaster’s BBQ in Huntersville, NC. It’s not a member of the BBQ trail because I don’t think it’s been around quite that long but it’s also a worthwhile stop.

BRP French Broad River

The Mountains to Sea Trail crosses the French Broad River on the Blue Ridge Parkway bridge.

The Shut-In trail also crosses here on it’s way from the Biltmore Estate to Mount Pisgah. This section of the MST in general is pretty easy hiking and it parallels the parkway closely. In fact, from Asheville this is probably one of the most accessible areas for trail running as long as you don’t mind out and back runs.

The MST website recommends parking at the French Broad overlook for hiking on this section, but unless you’re a big fan of crossing road bridges it’s probably easier to park on the east side of the river at the pull out where the MST heads back into the forest.

This frog (and a garter snake) are about all the wildlife we saw between the French Broad River and the I-26 bridge (bikers don’t technically count). So it’s not exactly much of a quiet wilderness experience but it’s very close to Asheville (and our house) so it’s good for a quick hike. It’s also a good rehab hike (which we seem to be specializing in the last few years).

Dry Creek / Phillips Hollow

This hike follows the less popular trail from the Margarette Falls trail head near Bethany, Tennessee in Cherokee NF.

The half mile gravel road that leads in from the parking lot to the trailheads has a high salt content in places and attracts butterflies. These are pipevine swallowtails.

The Phillips Hollow trail is dark blue blazed and leads across dry creek and up along the north bank. Ultimately, this trail leads all the way up to the A.T. at the top of the ridge which is a very strenuous hike. In the lower portions, to say that there are a few waterfalls might be an understatement.

At the first major stream crossing, a light blue blazed trail leads south across the stream and then winds up the valley with Dry Creek. This would be the same Dry Creek (still poorly named) that Margarette Falls in on, although a different branch. This trail is not listed on our map of Cherokee National Forest and the Cherokee NF website is more or less useless when it comes to trail identification. Instead your best bet are some rocks at the trail junction which have been painted with names and arrows. The trail up Dry Creek is identified on the rocks as Shoot Creek for reasons we can’t possibly explain. Either way the further you go up this trail, the more impressive the waterfalls get and the more difficult the path becomes. About 0.3 miles in, the trail crosses Dry Creek between ledge falls.

There are plenty of good swimming holes along the way. In fact, in several places it’s a lot easier to walk up the stream than it is to follow the trail over and around rhododendrons. Somewhere along the way is Spruce Thicket Falls, which seems to be the only named falls. We’re not sure which one it is but there is a 35 foot series of cascades about .6 miles in. Above this, it becomes really difficult to travel further upstream.

Melanie became fascinated with the wide range of mushrooms along the way and might eventually put up a gallery of images on the site. In the meantime, we’re mostly certain (after some time with the mushroom field guide) that this is a Yellow Patches. If it isn’t, some mycologist out there can correct us.

Mill Ridge / Pump Gap

Mill Ridge was a small farming community located on the east bank of the French Broad River just up from the town of Hot Springs. Nowadays there are a couple of forest roads, a lot of mountain biking trails and a few foundations remaining. The large open areas up here were once tobacco fields.

The AT leads southbound up into the Mill Ridge area from Tanyard Gap (US 25/70 outside of Hot Springs). There’s also a forest road that leads up to a parking area for the bike trails. Where the AT leads back down into the forest there’s an old dam with a large pond above it. We followed the AT as far as the Pump Gap loop trail which makes a circle with the AT.

Along with the dam and some building foundations, the old Mill Ridge Cemetery is located just a little ways off the Pump Gap trail. Most of the stones have fallen over or been broken but it’s still a curious thing to find out in the middle of the forest.

Overall this is a fairly easy hike of about 5 to 6 miles. It’s probably more difficult if done from Hot Springs due to the elevation gain. We did come across a couple of salamanders, but they refused to hold still for photographs, so we have to include this fungus instead.

Potato Knob

Potato Knob lies at the end of the Black Mountain Range on the border of the Blue Ridge Parkway and Mt Mitchell State Park. It’s the highest point in Buncombe County, although it’s unclear if the summit is in Bumcombe or Yancey. While the summit is just over 6400 ft, Potato Knob is not part of the South Beyond 6000 peaks. We however felt that it need to be climbed anyway. This is a view up at Potato Knob from the Mountains to Sea Trail just south of Mt. Mitchell Rd.

So now lets get all the disclaimers out of the way. This is not a casual peak hike, it requires orienteering which means some skill with a compass and topographic map. There are some seriously large cliffs on all sides of Potato Knob which mandate good route choosing. Also, the south and east side of this mountain are in the restricted Asheville watershed which means that sections of it are completely off-limits (use the MST basically).

Here is Melanie on the highest rock we could find on the summit of Potato Knob. Note that there isn’t much of a view here in the rhododendron thicket. The actual summit is a survey stake with blue and pink ribbons. The only reason this summit is even slightly accessible is because the county line crosses it, which means there is a old, generally unused survey trail over it. We took the hard way up (a re-entrant off of the MST which required about 700 vertical feet of climbing up rocks and downed trees). The survey trail to the southeast is a bit difficult to follow and skirts some serious drop-offs but it’s much easier than the way we came up. There are also some protruding rocks both near the top and scattered along the way that have spectacular views along the Blue Ridge.

Buck Creek

We’re pretty much willing to do anything that involves messing about in rivers or streams, so it seemed worthwhile to spend a few hours on our way through Macon County hunting for garnets in Buck Creek.

It’s not really hunting. Generally if you reach into the silt along the river you’ll pull out a dozen or so, although they’ll be so small it’s hardly worth isolating them. Buck Creek is in Nantahala National Forest, just west of where US 64 crosses the Appalachian Trail. We spent about an hour or so fishing around for some big enough to save before we started to lose interest and just ended up playing around in the creek. Besides the garnets there is an old corundum mine on the hillside above the creek, and also some fairly large chunks of talc lying about the area.

Here’s a pile of almandine garnets we found. It’s traditional to include a coin in pictures like this to show scale but well, it’s more impressive if we don’t.

Craggy Pinnacle

With mom recovering from back problems, naturally we dragged her up a reasonably large mountain. Actually, we’d never been up Craggy Pinnacle before but it was reportedly an easy hike with a good view. Unfortunately the rhododendrons were not blooming yet. The hike is about 3/4 of a mile, fairly steep. I’m told that if you’re recovering from back problems it is quite challenging.

The summit of Craggy Pinnacle has several observation decks with good views in all directions along the Blue Ridge Parkway and back towards Asheville. The Craggy Mountains are a small sub-range of the Blue Ridge which feature Craggy Pinnacle (we’re standing on it in this picture), Craggy Dome (that’s it across the parking lot from here), and Craggy Mountain (behind us). Besides being creatively named, these peaks are all near 6000 ft although only Craggy Dome (the lump out there) is over 6000 ft. We hiked it previously for the South Beyond 6000. It looks gentle from here but there’s no real trail to the top so it involves foraging through blackberries and rhododendrons. The summit does not have much of a view. In fact, it looked vaguely like this up there when we previously visited:

McDowell Woods Score-O

We were in Charlotte for a couple reasons. First – we had to pick up a refrigerator so that we can brew lagers as well as ales, but that’s probably a whole separate entry. The other reason was the Carolina Orienteering Klubb’s Score-O meet in McDowell Nature Reserve. There was a two-hour limit on it but it’s still good practice for some of the 24-hour races we’re planning to do later this summer.

It had been raining all morning so pushing through the foliage left us drenched fairly quickly. Generally we weren’t real fast but I think our route choices and navigation were good. We ended up in 4th place overall, including a stumbling sort of sprint through a swamp at the end to get back to the finish line inside the 2 hour time limit (actually it was more like right exactly at the 2 hour limit).

Having already involved beer (or beer-related acquisitions) and orienteering in the day, there was nothing left to do but go visit a new site (for us) on the North Carolina BBQ Trail. This is Bridge’s in Shelby, NC. Here you can find, well… pork. Bridge’s has a fairly strict interpretation of the NC BBQ menu with pork and slaw dominating (although the deviled egg sandwich is vaguely intriguing). The pork is chopped, the sauce is a warmed tomato-vinegar concoction and the hush puppies are particularly good in pimiento cheese. (That was sort of an accident originally but it worked out well.)

Harmon Den Mountain

Harmon Den is a mountain along the NC/TN border just south of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It actually has its own exit off of I-40, which is just a gravel road that leads down the valley towards Max Patch. We hiked fromÂ Brown Gap (accessible via a rough road up from Harmon Den) to Deep Gap at the base of Snowbird Mountain and then back along the Appalachian Trail.

In late April, this highlight of this hike were the wildflowers, particularly trillium which were prolific on the wetter, cooler slopes of the mountains.

The top of Harmon Den Mountain, a spot also known as Hawk’s Roost in some AT guides is not as impressive as nearby mountains such as Max Patch and Snowbird. Even without leaves on the trees, the views are good but not fantastic. The Smokies, Newfound and Snowbird mountains surround Harmon Den.

From Harmon Den it’s a steady long descent to Deep Gap (one of dozens of gaps with the same creative name in and around the Smokies). Deep Gap itself is a nice shaded campsite. An old abandoned logging road led up to the gap from the Tennessee side so sections are nicely graded. Groundhog Creek flows into North Carolina from the gap and the Groundhog Creek AT shelter is just a quarter mile east of the gap.

Margarette Falls / Dry Creek

The trailhead for this hike is in the vicinity of Greystone, TN. It’s not the easiest place to find but there is a big parking lot once you arrive. A gravel road leads about a half mile through a private land easement into Cherokee National Forest where trails split off in all directions. Several of these trails go up to the AT near Camp Creek Bald. For Margarette Falls, basically follow the main stream of water, although the trail itself is blue-blazed and mostly easy to follow. There are at least 4 stream fordings along the way and numerous small waterfalls. There are also a couple decent pools for swimming if you’re so inclined. About .6 miles up from the trail junctions the canyon will narrow and there is an enormous rock spire on the south bank called Cathedral Rock.

Just upstream from Cathedral Rock is Margarette Falls which is about a 50 foot drop, most of it in a single cascade.

There’s a very nice deep hole at the base of the falls. On our hike this water was far too cold for swimming, unless maybe you’re a dog.

The trail ends at Margarette Falls but our hike did not. To continue upstream of Margarette the easiest path is to scramble up the hillside on the north bank of the creek, cross the rock outcropping, and come back down the hill to the creek upstream of the falls. (Usual Warning: The top of the falls is slick and very dangerous, you should give it a wide berth if you are hiking further upstream.) Once above the falls, it’s easiest to ford back across to the south bank and bushwhack your way along the banks. Why would you do this? About a tenth of a mile upstream the two branches of Dry Creek come together. Here you’ll find the 8 foot Glen Falls which is pretty but not spectacular.

Glen Falls is nice but not really a reason by itself to deal with circumventing Margarette Falls. The reason for that is another 0.1 miles up the stream. If you’re standing at Glen Falls, that would be the branch on the left (i.e. the one that isn’t a waterfall). There is no way up but by canyoneering – walking, climbing, and swimming directly up the stream. On our trip there were several pools that were 4 to 6 feet deep. The rock walls of the canyon lend themselves nicely to traversing if you have even the most basic rock climbing or bouldering skills (or want to start). In warmer weather, it wouldn’t be an issue to just swim the pools. Not far upstream by distance (but a decent amount of effort) is the 45 foot high Bailey Falls which has at least three drops before pouring into the narrow canyon shown here. Note that this would be a very bad place to be if a flash flood were possible.

If you happen to do this hike with a dog make sure he can swim. I ended up lifting Trout up over several of the steeper ledges anyway.

Yellow Creek Gap to Fontana Dam

This hike is just slightly under 8 miles in length. We did it by shuttle with help from the friendly folks at the Hike Inn in Fontana. We parked the car at the Fontana Dam, they shuttled us (and our dog) back around to Yellow Creek Gap and we started from there.

About a mile in is Cable Gap Shelter which is practically right on the trail and has a nice little stream running past it. After Cable Gap there’s a long climb through a series of knolls. Most of this section runs parallel to Fontana Lake and offers nice views. This picture shows a section of the lake and the dam.

Somewhere along here is Walker Gap where the Yellow Creek Mountain trail comes in. This does not appear to be a well marked trail but we’ll save that for some future hike. From Walker Gap to the road at Fontana is an endless series of steep descending switchbacks (unless you happen to be hiking up / south / towards the NOC). There are several nice water sources through here and it ends at the road / marina / shuttle pick up for the Fontana Village (which also has restrooms). From there, the AT continues up and over a knoll along Fontana Lake before descending to the assorted parking areas.

Note that post 9/11 – this section of the trail will be closed during “security threats”. There is an alternate path through Fontana Village and into the Great Smokies downstream of the dam. Just off to the right of this picture is the Fontana AT Shelter which is better known as the Fontana Hilton (because of its relative size for a shelter).

The interior of the dam is now closed to visitors although the overlooks are impressive. On the far side is the boundary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park where the AT begins a grueling ascent to Clingman’s Dome (30-some miles away by trail). The dam is probably more impressive when the spillways are open into the Little Tennessee River below.

Roan Mountain

There are several ways up Roan Mountain by trail and one by road. The AT ascends to Toll House Gap from both north and south. From the north (near the town of Buladean) is a rugged 2000 ft climb over about 3 miles. The AT intersects the road in Toll House Gap which was once the site of the Cloudland Hotel. Now it’s just a nice grassy bald with great views into both Tennessee and North Carolina.

From here there is a spur trail that leads along the ridge, parallel to the road out to Roan High Bluff. This is a particularly worthwhile hike in shoulder seasons (like March) because the road up isn’t open yet so the top of Roan is almost certainly going to be deserted. The view from Roan High Bluff is also fantastic.

From Toll House Gap to the north along the AT is a more popular hike down to Carvers Gap which has a large parking area. Along the way is the highest shelter on the AT at a slight side trail to Roan High Knob.

At 6285 and 6267, both Roan High Knob and Roan High Bluff qualify among the 40 peaks that make up the South Beyond 6000 challenge sponsered by the Carolina and Tennnessee Eastman Hiking Clubs. In fact, these are two of the easier peaks to get to (no bushwhacking). The Knob is marked by a USGS benchmark and is a basically a rock outcrop just past the shelter.

Welcome

This blog is intended to record some of our outdoor pursuits that are closer to home and thus not covered in the trips pages elsewhere on the site. This blog will specifically cover day and weekend trips from our home in Asheville, NC. so western Carolinas and eastern Tennessee will be the primary focus.