Hiking up a mountain is a phrase that sounds fairly ominous for those who haven’t done it a couple times. For those who have, they know the journeys are not the dragon filled, death defying escape that they might have imagined. For one, dragons are expensive, so due to budget cutbacks they only appear on weekends now on most trails. But getting to the top is often a circuitous route involving only gradual climbs, a few highlights along the trail, and at least in Appalachia woods and other features which obscure the totality of the climb and keep you in anticipation of what you’ll see next.
Tag Archives: mountains
2020/10/16 – Doing Time at Silvermine Bald
I’m not sure if the ridge that the Blue Ridge Parkway rides west of Asheville through Mt. Pisgah and to the Great Balsams is actually the Pisgah Ridge. I saw that name on a sign once, though, so I’d like to think it is. Maybe its name is Gerald. I like to learn a lotContinue reading “2020/10/16 – Doing Time at Silvermine Bald”
2020/07/04 Jumping John Rock is a Gas, Gas, Gas
I wasn’t sure I could go. I was pacing, or at least the best approximation I could do, back and forth in our hotel room, testing out the injured foot that would need to have far more than the 20 hours I’d give it to recover from the nasty turn I had given it on the Flat Laurel Creek Trail. It really wasn’t good. My foot had swollen so much through the gaps in the compression sleeve that I was wearing that the edges nearly cut my skin. I wasn’t sure I could walk down to the car, and was half hoping Jess would push me a luggage cart. I could barely make it from bed to bathroom, and yet in less than an hour I was hoping to tackle a 7 mile, 1100 foot elevation gain hike.
In normal times I might have heard the fat lady sing. But these were covid times, and the fat lady’s performance was canceled as it was against CDC regulations.
2020/06/29 – Little River of Big Wonders
Step by step I worked my way up the gradual incline, trekking poles assisting me to make the burden of each step just a little less. The sound of two feet and the knobby end of two poles constantly pushing off the ground filled the air with the distinctive sound of crunching dirt. There was another sound permeating the air; that of the heavy breathing of the three people enjoying this hike with me, my wife Jess and our friend John and his wife Lauren, making their first trip to the Great Smoky Mountains. I paced onward, practically oblivious to their plight, my overriding concern being to push the group forward to minimize the possibility of us getting caught in a significant thunderstorm, something I had experienced before and wanted to protect my less experienced friends one. If I may be excused for being oblivious to the physical struggles of my group, one must understand that it almost unfathomable that I could outhike anyone; for in the days and weeks leading up to our Smoky Mountain trip, I had legitimately barely been able to walk.
2017/10/20 – Reveling in Roan Mountain
“Throw everything for a loop and go to Roan Mountain?” That’s what my immaculately prepared trip itinerary had listed for this Thursday in October 2017, the sixth day of our eight day mountain trip and our second in the vicinity of Grandfather Mountain and Linville Falls, likely next to a notation on a restaurant thatContinue reading “2017/10/20 – Reveling in Roan Mountain”
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.
2017/10/17 – Touching the Sky at Tennent Mountain
I felt like I was walking on air. I knew I wasn’t – in fact I was hiking on the narrow ridge of Tennent Mountain. There was but a narrow path that navigated the small bit of the ridge that remained level enough at the top to walk. In many areas the terrain sloped quickly and someone steeply on either side, but still mild enough to provide just the right level of unobstructed views and excitement without the feeling of danger. one could see the distinctive ball of Looking Glass Rock, though very small and far, far below (some 1,500-2000 feet lower in elevation gain). We had hiked that rock yesterday, and it was hard to imagine one could find a location so dramatically higher, but there we were, looking down on the rock which had struck fear into us at the end, where the dramatic slope of the rock gave us little comfortable place to enjoy the views we had hiked over 3 miles to obtain.
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.
2017/10/15 – Trial at Tallulah Gorge
Jello leg. That’s what you call it when your legs are so tired the soft tissue has lost all strength and has simply become a gelatinous mass, and you rely on the structure of your bones, any assisting devices such as railings, and sheer willpower to ply your way up the remains of whatever inclineContinue reading “2017/10/15 – Trial at Tallulah Gorge”
J. Parker Nature Stories 