On Top of the World

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, we were driving in and out of mist, at elevations at or around 3,000 feet, but we decided to pull off the parkway at Craggy Gardens.  Like every other “chance” we took on the Blue Ridge, Craggy Gardens was a wonderful experience!  Part of the Pisgah National Forest, this mountain is one  of the Craggy Mountains, a subrange of the Blue Ridge.  At 5,525 feet Craggy Gardens is among the higher peaks of the Blue Ridge.  The high slopes of the Great Craggies are covered with heath bald.  This means that the slopes are covered primarily with grasses and shrubs, in this case beautiful Catawba rhododendrons, wild blueberry bushes (pick your own!), clover and wildflowers.  Small hardwood trees of beech, buckeye, mountain ash and red oak grow at the lower elevations.  The summit is called a “blunt summit.”  There are no trees to block the view.

After a stop at the visitors center, we drove a bit further to the parking lot for the Craggy Garden Summit Hike.  We grabbed a jacket (in August!) and started up the path.   Wild flowers, ferns, mosses and lichens lined a lovely path which led through a rhododendron forest which promises to be glorious in late Spring!  After a light to moderate hike, not long, maybe 20 minutes or so, we reached the summit.

The mountain was wreathed in clouds.  There was a cool, damp mist and all was hushed.  We whispered, and listened to the wind!  As the clouds moved off, the sun brightened considerably, and the jackets came off!  The slopes around the stone parapets of the viewing area were covered with wildflowers, clover, shrubs and blueberry bushes.  After the quiet, we noticed a slight hum and then a gentle but persistent buzzing.   With the warmth of the sun, hundreds of bees and butterflies had begun feasting on nectar and pollen!

There is a 360° view at the summit.   The overlook provides a viewing area for each side of the peak and a few benches for resting and relishing the scenery.   The glistening Swannanoa River and the Black Mountains are quite visible to the East, with Mt. Mitchell to the North, and the rippling ridges and peaks of the Pisgah National Forest wrap around West and South.  It was a beautiful, serene, “mountain top” experience!  I would love to see it in late May, early June when the Catawba Rhododendrons are blooming!

From here we went to Mt. Mitchell!  Over one thousand feet higher than Craggy Gardens at 6,684 feet, Mt. Mitchell is the highest peak east of the Mississippi, and one of the peaks of the Black Mountains.  More alpine in nature, the mountain’s climate resembles Canada more than North Carolina, and is home to the famous Frasier Firs.  Here is a link to a North Carolina State Park Teacher’s Guide and Educational Booklet relating to the unique climate at Mt. Mitchell.  We pulled into the Mt. Mitchell State Park, just off the Blue Ridge, and drove up to the parking lot, where there is a Visitor’s Center, a Gift Shop, and Education Center.  We (slowly) climbed the steep walkway to the pinnacle, but took very few pictures.  We were immersed in clouds (again!)!   Here is a website with some pictures of unclouded views.

Relaxing over a lovely view, on the back patio at the Mount Mitchell Restaurant.

We were just a little disappointed to miss the four-state view, but cheered up considerably with a wonderful lunch at the Mt. Mitchell State Park Restaurant.   A short drive from the Visitor’s Center, the restaurant also has a gift shop, as well as a large patio out back with rocking chairs!  From our table by the window we could see nothing higher than us, and enjoyed glimpses of the tree-clad peaks and sunny green valleys below as clouds thinned and moved past.

I will have a separate post with all of the flowers!   Here are a few photos:

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Thanks so  much for reading!

This is the latest post in a series about our wonderful summer vacation in the Blue Ridge!  Thank you so much for reading!  If you are interested in the other posts you’ll find them here:

We Set Out Accompanied by Wildflowers
Dipping Our Feet in the Ancient New River
Stumbling Over the Tanawha Trail
Wonder and Awe at Linville Falls
Relaxing on a Rock at Looking Glass Falls
Ice Cream at the Vanderbilts

Wonder and Awe at Linville Falls!

Now that the kids are older, Mr. Garner and I are re-discovering our love of hiking. Part of our decision to drive the Blue Ridge was in order to chase a few waterfalls!  North Carolina has gorgeous waterfalls.  If you’ve seen the French and Indian War historical drama, Last of the Mohicans, with Daniel Day Lewis and Madeleine Stowe, you’ve seen some beautiful North Carolina waterfalls!  Ralph had the challenge of selecting just a few waterfalls for us to see in a very short time, so he went for the Wow! factor and totally nailed it with Linville Falls.

This was actually our fourth stop in one day.  We stopped at the New River, we had a picnic, and we stopped at the Linn Cove Viaduct before we made it to the falls.  In fact, Mr. Garner was beginning to think we weren’t going to make it! I had to remind him that the sun does not set until 8 ish o’clock in August!  There were still plenty of hikers when we got there around 4 ish in the afternoon (See! plenty of time!).  We had to make a quick decision about which hike to take, there are several choices, with varying degrees of difficulty.  We chose the moderate hike that actually provides three views of the falls.

The first overlook spot is situated on an outcropping of rippling rock which stretches out into the upper section of the river and allows a 180° view as the water flows over the upper falls, narrows, enters a winding canyon and then drops out of site.  The next two viewpoints are further down the gorge and allow you to look back and see in the distance the upper falls, as well as where the water emerges from the canyon, drops 45 feet over the cliff side into the plunge basin and continue down the gorge.  The hiking isn’t a tremendous distance, not even a mile, but it is consistently uphill.  So the key, if you spend most of your time in the flatlands of coastal Virginia like I do, is to bring your phone and take pictures of red mushrooms, lovely leaves, interesting tree trunks, and amazing rock formations on the trail while you catch your breath!

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You actually hear the water before you see the water!  I think one of my favorite moments of this entire vacation occurred as we were nearing the first overlook.  We could hear the rushing water from the trail.  GraceNotes was a few feet ahead of me, so she saw it first, and I got to watch her as she rounded the trail and saw the upper falls.  Her eyes widened in wonder and her jaw dropped as she gasped out “WOW!”  Then she turned to me, her face an expression of awe and said “Mom! Hurry! You’ve GOT to see this!”

Here are two videos we took – you can hear the water too!

This is the third in a series of posts about our wonderful summer vacation in the Blue Ridge!  Thank you so much for reading!  If you are interested in the other posts you’ll find them here:

We Set Out Accompanied by Wildflowers
Dipping Our Feet in the Ancient New River
Stumbling Over the Tanawha Trail

Stumbling Over the Tanawha Trail

I love the Blue Ridge Parkway!  Driving along the crest of the mountain chain, one is treated to mile after mile of purple mountain majesty, hidden valleys,  rippling hills, highland fields full of wildflowers, farms with sheep or cows grazing, and small villages with church steeples rising to heaven.   The Parkway offers short, easy leg-stretcher hikes,  mountain top overlooks that steal your breath, creeks to cool your toes, and trees that stretch their branches over the road offering sun-dappled shade.

On our recent summer vacation to Asheville, NC, we chose to drive large sections of the Blue Ridge Parkway, in lieu of driving way out of our way in order to go farther, but faster.  It’s a trade-off.  The Parkway takes longer, but it is gorgeous, it is quiet, it is uncrowded.  We learned last year that it works for us.  Plus, I had always wanted to see the Linn Cove Viaduct.  So, after dipping our feet in an ancient winding river, and then a lovely picnic lunch at milepost 259, we drove a little further and came upon the Linn Cove Viaduct at milepost 304.

The Linn Cove Viaduct is a 1243 foot bridge that wraps around the mid-ridge level of Grandfather Mountain, one of the highest mountains East of the Mississippi.  Grandfather Mountain is part of the Black Mountains, along with Mt. Mitchell and Craggy Garden.  The Black Mountains challenging elevation is home to Red Spruce and Fraser Firs, which appear much darker than the green leaves of deciduous hardwoods which populate the Blue Ridge. The bridge, made in sections of concrete, was the last part of the Blue Ridge Parkway to be completed.  If you look at the huge slabs of stone that emerge from under the Viaduct, you’ll know why the bridge had to be built this way.  The side of the mountain is basically a boulder field.  The bridge is made of 153 50-ton segments of concrete which connect seven permanent piers set 180 feet apart.  Although based on bridges in similar circumstances in mountainous regions of Europe.  It is still unique  – the design included almost every kind of alignment geometry ever used in highway construction, and no two of the 153 segments are alike.

Goes around Grandfather Mountain – engineering masterpiece

At the southern end of the bridge there is a Visitor Center with information about the Viaduct, and the usual Visitor Center attributes! Just off the parking lot there was a sign that pointed out a path to a viewing platform.  Because our Blue Ridge Trail Guide did not show a trail, we thought we would simply be walking a short distance to an overlook (or under-look).  Instead, we stumbled upon a wonderful hike called Tanawha Trail that goes under, and behind the Linn Cove Viaduct – so around and over and through those enormous slabs of rock!  Mr.  Garner and I loved it!  Around every corner was something beautiful, or amazing, or fun!

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Here are a few pictures.  It was quite misty the day we were there, so some of the photos reflect that (literally).  We found several types of lichen and moss, trees determined to grow amidst the boulders, and lovely wildflowers that tumbled sunny yellow and bright crimson down a shady embankment.

We found out from another pair of hikers that the trail is quite long – 13.5 miles!  Since we were hiking sans the children, who were waiting for us in the car, we reluctantly turned around.  Turns out the Tanawha Trail is a National Park Service Trail, and we were using a Blue Ridge hiking map, so it wasn’t listed…But the description sounds wonderful “spectacular views…ancient ecosystems…cascades…hemlock forest…“  We liked what we had seen so far, so we promised each other to put this hike on the list for our October trip to Grandfather Mountain, amidst fall color, and crisper air!

This is the third in a series of posts about our wonderful summer vacation in the Blue Ridge!  Thank you so much for reading!  If you are interested in the other posts you’ll find them here:

We Set Out Accompanied by Wildflowers
Dipping Our Feet in the Ancient New River

Enjoying an Old Fashioned Roadside Picnic

Mr. Garner and I both have childhood memories of roadside picnics during long distance car rides.  Back in the day, familiar fast food and restaurant chains were not to be found in every hamlet or village, so families traveling any distance had to prepare for meals on the road.  My memories involve carrot sticks and those tiny square dinner rolls filled with ham.  Mr. Garner’s memories involve his mother climbing into the back seat and attempting to make sandwiches while his father drove along mountain switchbacks perhaps a little too fast, causing the sandwich fixin’s, condiments and Grandma Garner to slide from side to side.   I simply must apologize because this brief explanation is completely lacking in the sound effects and humorously accented dialogue that makes Mr. Garner’s telling of the tale so uproariously funny.  You’ll have to ask him sometime…

This is pertinent because on our recent summer vacation, we were on a tight budget, and wanted to save dining dollars.  We recalled these road-trip experiences and decided we would picnic on the way to the farm.  Before leaving home, we packed up sandwiches and Pepperidge Farm cookies, and put some sodas and water in a cooler.   We chose our Southernmost route to the farm because at about the half-way mark we cross Buggs Island Lake, and typically stop in Clarksville, VA.  This time we planned to stop and make Occoneechee State Park our picnic spot.  It is a Virginia State Park on the shore of Buggs Island Lake, also known as the Kerr Reservoir.  About the time we started getting hungry, we saw the sign for the park!  We paid a few dollars to park,  drove to the recommended picnic spot and found a shady parking place.

Picnicking at the Occoneechee State Park on the way to the farm.

The kids picked out a table overlooking the lake, laid out the table cloth, and unpacked the picnic bag.  A nice breeze kept the bugs away, and we enjoyed a delightful lunch watching boats speed by in the lake.   Soon the kids were involved in a game of Frisbee in the big green field by the Park Office (yes, I threw it a few times too!).   We also had time to stop in the Park Office where there are bathrooms and a small gift/camp store.   The Park Office hosts a small but informative museum about the Occoneechee Indians, so we took a few minutes to learn about this peaceful tribe who once ran a profitable fur trade in the region.  After our picnic lunch, light exercise and pleasant visit we got back on the road refreshed and feeling like our vacation had really started!

After this successful venture, Papa Gene volunteered to pack up sandwiches for our next long drive a few days later down to Asheville, NC.  Papa Gene did a GREAT job making our sandwiches!  He even labelled our baggies and packed the fresh tasty tomato (from Mickey and Wanda’s garden) separately.

Papa Gene made our sandwiches! Thanks Papa Gene!

This time we stopped, along with a very nice group of motorcyclists, at the Northwest Trading Post on the Blue Ridge Parkway NC Milepost 259 in Glendale Springs, NC.   The Trading Post has a lovely rustic appearance, and sells a vast assortment of pottery and hand crafts, in addition to local honey, preserves, snacks and candy.   We had packed drinks, but no dessert, so we bought some delicious fudge to finish off our meal.   Again, we noticed how refreshed we felt after stopping, getting out of the car,  stretching our legs, picnicking in the fresh air, and eating healthier food.

We calculated that even with our few expenditures we definitely saved money by packing lunch.  But what we really gained in each case was a fun family adventure that made our long distance driving seem not so far, and not so long!  We all agreed that we would make roadside picnics a regular feature of our future travel plans!

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Do you like to picnic on long car rides?  What types of food do you pack?