Pisgah National Forest

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Over the holiday weekend, Neecee wanted to visit her childhood friend, Sarah, in Asheville, NC. While she was going up, I thought it would be a good time for a hiking trip. I invited Giles, and another friend Clifford, so we were a trio. We went up a day early (Thursday) so Neecee could join us for at least one night. Quartet.

Friday, the first night, was on Looking Glass Rock. Normally a heavily-used trail by dayhikers and the overnighter alike, this 3-mile (one-way) trail was a brute coming up, but well worth the effort. At the summit, we were greeted by an overused campground; another 50 yards down the trail, a spectacular view awaited us.

I’ve hiked around North Carolina a bit and have seen Looking Glass Rock from afar while backpacking on a distant trail, but have never been to the top to see the view from a bald hunk of granite. Well it was amazing and a little scary - one little slip and you could start tumbling, and I have a feeling once you get momentum, it’d be hard to stop.

Giles was kind enough to carry a bunch of marinated chicken, salmon, and tilapia up the mountain, so we feasted like kings. We grilled it on my Grilliput, which has proven it’s weight over and over again.

The next morning, after packing up camp and checking out the view one more time, we hiked back down to the truck and drove around to the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP) and drove south to around mile-marker #420 at the Graveyard Fields Overlook. With a hug and a kiss, Neecee left us there and we descended the stairs to the stream coming from Upper Falls. We followed the Graveyard Fields Trail to the GFT-MST connector trail, then followed the Mountains-to-Sea Trail to the Graveyard Ridge Trail, where we wrapped around and came into a gap at a trail junction. Good thing too, because my knees were killing me. A while back I lost my trekking poles (probably left them at a trailhead) and hadn’t noticed how much I’ve come to depend on them - I used to have to wear a knee brace, but the trekking poles allowed me to use those alone. Even wearing the brace during this trip, I realized I really miss my poles…

Off-trail, near this intersection, we found a nice campsite with a fire ring and grass-covered ground. That’s one thing I’ve noticed about NC hiking: you frequently find these campsites that have nice, soft green grass that you can just lay in. It’s wonderful. Georgia doesn’t have that so much; more like pine bark and dirt…

The weather was beautiful - fluffy clouds with sun, and temperatures that were cool, seeming to rise while hiking and fall when at camp. I tried my hand at using the interval function on the camera, which I think turned out pretty well. There are a few things that I would have liked to change, and having a battery pack would have helped. It got pretty cold, so the battery didn’t last long; even though it was missing a bar, it only lasted 3 hours in the 50-degree weather. At 10fps, that only gave me around 8 seconds of video. Anyways, check it out (best in fullscreen mode):

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