My friend/neighbor invited me recently to go camping in the mountains of North Carolina. Of course, I was stoked - and now that I'm back, I'm very excited to share this journey with you all here at Hive!
After about 6 hours of driving after work on Thursday, we arrived at the Pisgah campgrounds. I made a fire, threw my sleeping on the ground, crawled in and racked out around 0100 hrs, after a few hours sitting and talking by the fire.
DAY 1
We woke up around 0700 hrs, knocked back some MRE's and reviewed the map to plan our descent to the lower falls. There is a large slick rock around half way down the mountain. Cool mountain stream water runs down the rock to a deep pool, and you can slide down the rock into the pool. It looked like a leisurely hike to this rock on the map, and we quickly set off.
We hiked 4 miles to get to the lodge. The trailhead we planned to take would start down the mountain from there. Took a couple shots, and off we went!
In the grass on the way to the trailhead, the resort has these nice Adirondack chairs seated facing the mountain ranges. Most of them were taken by folks enjoying their coffee in the fresh mountain air...but this one was empty so I took a pic :)
The little grassy yard leads straight to a trailhead that takes you quickly into the forest, and slowly down the mountainside.
I don't typically take selfies, but I did take one. I should have taken a picture of my pack, then I would have felt a little more justified in sharing this story with the rucking community, but unfortunately, this did not cross my mind until now!
Oh man, nothing tastes better than cool water from a fresh mountain stream. I drank more than my fill of delicious revitalizing living waters while I was out in the mountains, but this was the first taste...awesome.
Small streams trickled sporadically from the mountain's stone facade. The wooshing of the wind through the leaves, the sound of small streams trickling down the mountainside, and the chirping of birds filled the air.
...After several hours climbing down the mountain, we finally saw our first glimpse of some real flowing water. There were some smaller streams pouring from the stone along the trail, but now we felt we were getting close to some refreshing ice water swimming. At this point, we'd gone approximately 12 miles.
As we crossed a smaller stream that came from a small series of water falls, it seemed only appropriate to stop, grab a drink, and relax for a bit. By this time we were at around 14 miles.
My 40 year old knees usually start to ache and pound around 7 miles, and today was no exception. Here at this stream, I wandered off into the woods to capture some additional photos, and I found a walking stick. My guess is that someone leaned it against a tree and then lost track of it, but it felt a lot like God had guided me towards the simple tool that would help me fight through the knee pain and get where I needed to be.
For the six miles that followed, I really didn't take many pictures. I was using the walking stick to stay off my right knee as much as possible, and focusing on maintaining a positive attitude so I could enjoy the hike through the pain...but I didn't have the patience during this time to slow down for pictures 🤣
At around mile 19, we caught up with the section of river that feeds into the sliding rock area...we were close!
This was another time of very little footage, except this time it was because we were having too much fun too stop and think about our cameras. The water is FREEZING here - but sliding down the rock and swimming in the cold pool...oh man, so fun, so refreshing.
Here is a short video of me doing the slide. Unfortunately, I didn't get any more footage of jumping in the water/waterfalls - it was just too fun to waste time with cameras!
Once we had gotten our fill of sliding and swimming, we found a secluded spot by the stream in the forest to dry off and change. We stayed there to nap and rest for a bit, but within an hour or so we wandered out to try our luck at hitchhiking back to the top of the mountain...originally we planned to hike back up, but we were in a lot of pain and very tired, so we were super thankful when someone actually stopped and offered us a ride. YES!!!
They dropped us off just over a mile from our campsite and we rucked the rest of the way back. We drove down the mountain to get some real dinner in the little mountain town of Brevard, NC, but by the time we got there all the restaurants were closed...so we got some burger meat and made meatwads over the campfire! mmmmm, meatwads!
After a couple satisfying meatwads and three high octane IPA's, I laid down next to the fire and pretty much passed immediately out.
DAY 2
Graveyard Field Falls (Lower)
On the second day, we were pretty sore and had hopes of seeing more waterfalls...so we took the car from trail to trail. The first trail we visited was the Graveyard Field loop trail.
The trail started from a parking lot high in the Pisgah mountains. It went very quickly down to the site of the lower falls. This area was impressive. If you followed the water either up or down stream from here, you found a seemingly endless trail of waterfalls and swimming holes...but as fun and refreshing as it was, we chose to press on for the upper falls.
So after only maybe a half hour of exploring and relaxing in the lower falls, we crossed the crooked bridge and began making our way across the ravine and up the mountain.
Graveyard Field Falls (Upper)
This leg of the trip was fun, it was beautiful, it was excruciating, and it was 100% WORTH IT.
The path to the upper falls was only a mile or two, but it was windy and it was all up hill, so our busted knees and worn out legs couldn't take us there as fast as we may have wanted.
Once we got there, we saw a few people hanging out where the path opens up onto the flowing river bank.
There was a small series of falls there; they were beautiful and their water was delicious, but after all the work we'd done to get there, I was not done exploring yet.
I took the arduous path, walking up the slippery rocks alongside the fast-flowing water, and as I rounded past the boulders that blocked the view of what lay higher up, I found a massive mountaintop waterfall, maybe only 200 feet further up the mountain - a special place it seemed none of the present visitors had taken the time to find!
…here is the view most visitors got:
…I mean, yes its gorgeous and revitalizing and woo woo woo…but…here is the view you get if you work just a little harder:
See the rocks in the lower right corner of the shot? This same pile of rocks is basically your whole view from the common area. I had to climb maybe 75ft to get past them, but it was worth it!
We decided to explore a little further. We climbed to the top of the waterfall! Up there we found a little pool, maybe about 3m in diameter.
It was cool and refreshing, but I was wearing the only pair of jeans I'd brought, so I decided to keep them mostly dry.
Swimming would have to wait for the next waterfall, but we were ready to jump in some cool water, so we decided to make the return trek, get changed, and see what other waterfalls we could find...but first, let's see if we can grab a few beers in Brevard before we continue exploring in the wild!
My car is older than my wife's car, so I took her car since it may be more reliable...but I forgot to switch out our sunglasses before we left 😅
Looking Glass Falls
Looking Glass was awesome. The water was deep and cold. The air was filled with the mist from the high intensity impact of the falls. There were many people enjoying the scenery and the refresing environment, but there were very few who were bold enough to swim the freezing waters...and of course, we were a part of that proud few...so I don't have any pictures except the couple I took as we made the descent down to the water 🙈
This was an incredible experience. The waterfall offered a fantastic massage to work out my shoulders, which were still sore from carrying my pack all day yesterday.
Skinny Dip Falls
Pictures didn't do this area justice. This was honestly probably my favorite of all the spots. The landscape here was changed drastically by a heavy tropical storm a few years ago, but there are still many crystal clear pools and cold water falls to enjoy.
This relaxing and isolated place felt like the right spot to make some rock stacks. Once I had done a few of these, I began diving headfirst into as many pools as I could...Man, so much fun.
Day's End
Around 1900 hrs, we decided to head back to camp to get changed, after which we headed out of the mountains an into Asheville, NC. We stopped in at the Wicked Weed Brewery and had dinner along with a couple really tasty beers.
I was a bit sad to know this would be my last night sleeping in the crisp mountain air, but mostly I was just so thankful that I got the opportunity to get out here in the first place.
Here is a view of Looking Glass Rock, I pulled over to take this on the way to Asheville. The rock is the lump in the middle, backed up by the light blue tones of the blue ridge mountains.
Here is a zoomed in shot of this unique feature:
This awesome painting adorned one of the walls in the swanky brewery. I asked the waitress who this guy was. Apparently this is King Henry VIII, and it was his quote (“Hops are a wicked and pernicious weed.”) that inspired both the name of the brewery, and that of one of their signature brews, the Pernicious IPA. ...Cool!
DAY 3#
Time To Go
After packing up my things and getting all set to go, I sat for a moment and watched these pretty little things floating around, enjoying the same air that had done such a wonderful job of revitalizing my energies. I was happy for them; they would get to stay here for the rest of their lives...but for me, it was time to head back to my home by the ocean :)
Thanks for checking out some more of my work! As always, I hope you enjoyed witnessing as much as I enjoyed creating!
© Photos and words by @albuslucimus, except where otherwise indicated.
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