{"id":178,"date":"2009-07-06T16:41:26","date_gmt":"2009-07-06T21:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trailstealth.com\/blog\/?p=178"},"modified":"2009-07-06T17:44:59","modified_gmt":"2009-07-06T22:44:59","slug":"summer-adventures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.trailstealth.com\/blog\/trailstealth\/summer-adventures.html","title":{"rendered":"Summer Adventures"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is easy, sometimes, to get too caught up into where you are going, and forget to enjoy the place where you are.\u00a0 When I am out hiking, I try to remind myself that it isn’t always the destination that is the center of attraction, but rather the getting there.\u00a0 Curbing that anxiety to be somewhere else is not always easy for me, and indeed, I see it in the eyes of the ‘thru-hikers’ that I meet sometimes.\u00a0 It is easy to recognize; the robotic voice and faraway stare, as they contemplate how many more miles they have to walk to maintain their unrealistic schedules in the back of their obsessed minds.\u00a0 That is why it is so refreshing, I suppose, when I meet someone who not only doesn’t have a ‘summit date’ for Katahdin<\/a> planned, but doesn’t give me that look like they expect me to pull out a banjo<\/a> at any moment and start picking the\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 theme to ‘Deliverance’.<\/p>\n

\"Katahdin\"

Mount Katahdin in Maine<\/p><\/div>\n

About a week and a half ago, while on a Appalachian Trail Volunteer Maintenance Work Trip near Spivey Gap with the ‘Rat Patrol’s’ trail crew, Rat and I met a fellow hiking the trail that wasn’t in too big of a hurry to get anywhere.\u00a0 In fact, he stopped and told us the story about he had gotten lost a few times, walking off in the wrong direction.\u00a0 I just had to laugh, having done that myself a time or two.\u00a0 By the time Rat had answered all his questions, and it was time to move on, the hiker had a new trail name–‘Wrong Way’.\u00a0 That is how it works sometimes, the inadvertent and unexpected has a way of sticking with you, whether you like it or not.\u00a0 As I recall, I received my trail name by a similar unintended, spontaneous custom.<\/p>\n

\"Rat

Rat cleaning steps near High Rocks<\/p><\/div>\n

One of the things that I don’t like about my trail ‘blog’ is that all of my best stories are started out in the ‘past tense’.\u00a0 I don’t like living my life in the ‘past tense’, but rather look forward to the ‘next adventure’, which is why writing a ‘blog’ is so difficult for me, I suppose.\u00a0 But, there have been a couple of people that have told me how they somewhat look forward to my trail stories, because it inspires them to want to get out to the mountains, breath the fresh air, and exercise (whether they read it or not, which I doubt).\u00a0 Anyhow, that is how I look at it, as a justification for staying cooped up in front of a word processor when I would probably rather be out hiking a trail somewhere instead.\u00a0 Of course, right after I wrote that last sentence, I decided to go out to the mountains for awhile.<\/p>\n

Anyway, here is what has been happening:\u00a0 The day after Unicoi County reported heavy rains and \u2018funnel clouds<\/a>\u2019, I decided to go back to the Jones Branch Falls area to take photos, since I was so disappointed with the previous photos that I took there.\u00a0 The Nolichucky River<\/a> was muddy and still swollen with water, covering the boulders that people sit out on near \u2018the point\u2019.\u00a0 Hiking up the Appalachian Trail into Jones Branch, I was immediately astonished by how much water was flowing under the first bridge<\/a>, which is usually nothing but rocks, as the creek flows underground through that stretch.\u00a0 I had to walk across a slippery log at the next creek-crossing<\/a> to avoid getting my feet wet.\u00a0 Indeed, the entire creek was dynamic and vibrant as far as I could see, and even the meager tributaries<\/a>, where typically only a trickle of water flows, on this afternoon had sprouted flourishing cascades.<\/p>\n

\"jones

Jones Branch Falls<\/p><\/div>\n

As I said in the opening paragraph, it was difficult to remain focused on the trail \u2018where I was\u2019 since I was quite anxious to get to the falls.\u00a0 Eventually, after a 2 \u00bd mile hike, I was climbing up the boulders of the creek<\/a>, which is the trail through there at that point, and getting my first glimpse of the marvelous stair-stepping waterfalls<\/a>.\u00a0 I had never seen so much water flowing from the top of the falls<\/a> before, and I took several photos with the digital camera \u2018Rat Patrol\u2019 has loaned me.\u00a0 I rock-climbed to the top, getting quite wet, and nearly crushing the camera as I maneuvered over slippery logs<\/a>, hoping to get photos of the incredible \u2018chasm<\/a>\u2019 that is cut into the rock cliff-face that funnels water to the top of the beautiful cascades.\u00a0 The photos cannot do justice to the depth and power of the amazing, intense stream of water that was plunging through the unique chasm, lifting up a spray of mist into the air thick as rain.<\/p>\n

Eventually, I climbed back down the falls, as the sky turned dark as night, and the rain began falling again.\u00a0 I was a bit concerned at first, having been caught in a flashflood once with my dog, and was moving a bit faster than I should have been over those slippery boulders, and slipped and fell a couple of times, but was lucky to only bruise my forearm.\u00a0 Completely soaked, I had to stop and pour the water out of my boots and wring out my socks a few times before I made it back to the campground by the river.\u00a0 It was an amazing hike, reminiscent of the \u2018old hiking club days\u2019 where all our adventures seemed wild and untamable.<\/p>\n

The next trip was with \u2018Rat Patrol<\/a>\u2019 to the rhododendron gardens<\/a> on top of Roan Mountain<\/a>.\u00a0 He had been up there a few days earlier during the festival, but a heavy cloud<\/a> was sitting on top of the mountain that day, obscuring his views, and he wanted to go back.\u00a0 I was happy to ride with him, since it had been several years since I had seen the Catawba blooming<\/a> there \u2014probably the largest population of Catawba in the world.\u00a0 We had to wait to get into the gardens for about an hour because the Forest Service<\/a> had them blocked off, as two children had gotten lost<\/a> the day before and had spent the night out on the Tennessee side of the mountain before searchers could find them (they were still removing communications equipment and such).<\/p>\n

\"rhodos

Catawbas blooming on Roan Mtn.<\/p><\/div>\n

Everyone we met, some from as far away as Ohio, were very nice, and I enjoyed our conversations with them all.\u00a0 The Catawba Rhododendron themselves were just a little beyond their \u2018peak\u2019, but still quite beautiful.\u00a0 There were still patches of blooms<\/a> that were exquisite, none-the less.\u00a0 We made a couple of side trips beyond the gardens; one out to the Roan High Bluff<\/a>, the cliff with the incredible view of the North Carolina mountains<\/a>, and another to a small overlook<\/a> on the Tennessee side<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As I briefly mentioned before, I met up with \u2018Rat patrol\u2019 and his trail crew at Spivey Gap for a day of volunteer trail maintenance on the Appalachian Trail.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have to \u2018whack\u2019 as many weeds as usual, since he had brought along 2 other volunteers<\/a>, but I did do quite a lot of branch trimming, and also dug out several water trenches<\/a> designed to divert rain water from the trail and reduce the amount of erosion.\u00a0 Rat, and his crew, had already cut about 2 miles of weeds, from \u2018Little Bald\u2019 to the \u2018A.T Rock<\/a>\u2019, a week before (the same day I went to \u2018Jones Branch\u2019) so we only had to cut about 3 miles worth of \u2018weeds\u2019, which still rather significant when you consider how unpleasant it is to hike through 3 miles of briars and sting-weeds.<\/p>\n

A couple of corrections from the previous \u2018blog\u2019:\u00a0 I am not sure if any remnants from the old cabin<\/a> on \u2018Mill Creek\u2019 still exist, or not, since I was led to believe that the old cabin was \u2018before reaching the falls<\/a>\u2019, but apparently it is (or was) beyond the waterfalls on a side-trail.\u00a0 Considering that it had been 20 years since my last hike through that area, and the depreciated condition of the trail through there, this may remain a mystery.\u00a0 Speaking of \u2018mysteries\u2019, what the deep, rock trench<\/a> I found was (the one where I inadvertently photographed the pink-winged orb<\/a>), I have no idea.\u00a0 If anyone knows, I hope they will contact me, as I am very curious about that.<\/p>\n

\"old

Old homestead cabin in Mill Creek<\/p><\/div>\n

Hopefully, I will have more adventures to write about soon.<\/p>\n

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Boulderman 7-5-09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is easy, sometimes, to get too caught up into where you are going, and forget to enjoy the place where you are.\u00a0 When I am out hiking, I try to remind myself that it isn’t always the destination that is the center of attraction, but rather the getting there.\u00a0 Curbing that anxiety to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trailstealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trailstealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trailstealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trailstealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trailstealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.trailstealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"http:\/\/www.trailstealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trailstealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trailstealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trailstealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}