I was almost through it, the stacks of boulders the size of modern day pickup trucks that tow mobile homes behind them just for the sake of justifying them costing more than my house. I had navigated foot by foot along the treacherous stretch, having to take care to avoid a spill and concentrating onContinue reading “2017/10/16-2017/10/17 – Grandfather Mountain is our Granddaddy”
Tag Archives: adventure
2017/10/19 – The Wonders of Linville Gorge (Table Rock and the Chimneys)
“The last mile to the parking area is very steep”, one of several trail guides I referenced had warned. Well, they weren’t joking. At least it was paved. The serious nature of this ascent mean that after miles of rustic roadway, you suddenly found pavement again. That made the road feel much safer in much the same way that duct tape always provided reassurance when one was on a poorly maintained fair ride.
2017/10/16 – Three Falls at Dupont State Forest
In my haste I allowed the filter to slip out of my fingers in the wet conditions, striking the rock with a force no filter was designed to sustained. One look at it confirmed its days of usefulness were at at end, and in a moment of anger and frustration I chucked it as far as I could see. Jess saw what I had done and raced over to scold me, and she was right. I had littered the forest, though that wasn’t my intention and the consequences of what I had done didn’t even pop into my head at the time. But as I said before, I was angry. (There’s a popular saying that it’s impossible to hike in the woods and be angry. That person clearly never hiked with a photographer).
2017/10/15 – Darnell Creek and Glen Falls
I was nervous. Scared. We were in our distinctly non-four wheel drive Toyota Corolla (though I scarcely think I would have felt comfortable in any vehicle). We were on a narrow, gravel, one-lane road heading up a mountainside to God know’s where. And we were in completely over our heads.
The young man on the four-wheeler had passed us and we asked him if there was a turnaround point. He said something along the lines of not really. I said something along the lines of shit.
2019/11/04 Hiking at High Shoals Falls
I stepped onto the wooden observation platform, taking care not to slip on the smooth and wet wooden planks, and I came across a familiar sight. The bottom tier of the falls plunging into an aqua pool below is an iconic image for the trail and the area at large. Only on this day the usually placid-looking fall was somewhat of a raging torrent, which did even seem to be possible to have been birthed by the same shallow creek I had crossed just moments before. A solitary vibrant-colored sweatshirt was draped over the railing on the platform. With no other person in sight, I can only presume the owner drowned in the creek and the body was never found.
J. Parker Nature Stories 