Washington is TIGHT, Continued

Check out part one of this trip if you haven't read it yet!

I woke up super early after a night of little sleep. I unzipped the rainfly to see a big, fat bird looking at me with its head cocked to the site. Then it hopped backwards off of the log it was standing on and disappeared from view. It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen and immediately I knew it was a great start to a great day. There were three of these fat birds pecking around the campsite and a big squirrel was scavenging around for whatever he eats. I went out and took a picture of Mount Rainier, seen at the end of the previous blog post.

Justin slept for a good while and I wandered around the campsite and talked with a few people who were up and out on the trail already. I finally got to see a marmot, there were quite a few roaming around the meadow and digging around the streams' banks looking for food. Those dudes are so awesome and chill. Justin climbed up a huge rock field and up into the ridges above our campsite. He spent a good part of the day getting up to the ridges and walking down the big boulders following the river to get back to the campsite. You might be able to spot him in this picture.


I continued down Wonderland Trail to get a feel of what it was like. It turns out it was just a short walk to Panhandle Gap, which was the ultimate goal of the hike. I have never seen something so beautiful in my life, I walked around this rock trail to see a glacial pond at the base of a peak. The light was perfect at this time of morning and there was not a cloud in the sky. The sky was so blue, the ice was so white and the pond was a crazy blue-green color.


I wanted to get Justin to come see this. He was still playing around on the ridge, so I went back to the campsite to take a nap while he worked his way back to the campsite. When he got back, I cooked some dinner and we made our way back up to Panhandle Gap and a mile or two farther. I love this picture.


Justin:


There was still ice along parts of the trail. Justin:


Me:


I'm still not sure exactly what part of the trail we're on, but we decide to scramble our way onto the peak of a ridge above us. I'm so glad we did, this was the perfect way to end the hike. From the top we could see Mount St. Helens way in the distance and we were completely surrounded by the most amazing Washington scenery. Here are some pictures from the top of that peak.




Mt St Helens is somewhere in the background, just washed out.




The next day we packed up early and made the quick hike back to the car. We found a Denny's on the way home so we had some good eggs and pancakes and turkey bacon and whatnot. I cannot wait to go back to Washington. I want, no wait I NEED to hike the Olympics and the Cascades and more of Wonderland.

Big thanks to Jonathan for hosting us. He's the best dude, so nice and incredibly generous. This trip wouldn't have even been possible had he not offered to let us stay with him!

Washington is TIGHT

There's not really a better feeling than leaving your world behind for an entire week. I very much enjoy traveling to Europe because my phone doesn't get reception so I have absolutely no way to check in on anything, except calling my parents a couple of times from one of those cyber café stores with phone booths. However, this trip was across the country where my cell phone still works. But hold on one moment please, let me nerd out for a minute.

My BlackBerry is a corporate phone which is hooked up to my work's Microsoft Exchange server (aka I get work email and work calendar on my phone). Since I set up my out of office message and marked my calendar as away for the week, I think my phone automatically held back my emails. I didn't see one work email while I was out. I would have read them and I would have stressed about stuff I was supposed to be escaping from while pretending I'm an explorer and walking around in the woods and farting nonstop inside the tent because of those freeze dried meals.

There's too much text so far without a picture, so here's a chill ass marmot.


Anyway, rollerblading is such an awesome sport to be into. It can be the greatest tight-knit community. A fellow rollerblader Jonathan was very kind enough to host Justin and I during our trip to Washington when we were not sleeping in the woods. We explored and skated Seattle, which is something I've wanted to do for a long time. The skateparks in North Carolina do not even compare to the great Seattle area parks.

After a couple of days in Seattle, Justin and I rented a car so we could head out to Mount Rainier. The original tentative plans involved hiking around Rainier on Sunday and then spending a few days in the Olympics during the week, but bad weather made us stay in Seattle on Sunday and hike Rainier during the week. That is no problem, because it was the best weather anyone could ever ask for for those three days.

Day one we hiked a portion of the Wonderland Trail, from the Fryingpan trailhead to Summerland camp. The first couple of miles of the trail are a very easy walk through a beautiful and very vividly green conifers. There are log footbridges over creeks along the trail. Seriously, the entire weekend was picturesque and something I never thought I would see (I don't know why). I took some pictures of the bridges and the woods in this part of the trail, but they didn't come out because the trees make it dark and I suck at taking pictures most of the time. We finally walked up high enough to get to a pretty big waterfall. It was hard to find a good angle, so I just took a picture of the creek here.


And the trail at this part.


Shortly after this, we came to a really cool bridge. We saw a picture of this bridge online the day before when looking for trails, but it had a bear on it. I was very relieved to find this bridge (and the whole forest while we were there) bear-less.


When you walk around a curve to get to this bridge, this is the first part of the trail where Rainier comes out and it is so awesome. None of my pictures will do it justice, but it is really magnificent. Here I am, thumbs up with Mount Rainier in the background.


The trail starts going up up up, but it's made much easier with the switchbacks. I met a really cool guy on the trail who said that he heard that we don't have switchbacks in NC. I never stopped to think about it until he said that, but he's absolutely correct (in my experience of NC, anyway). The trails here just go up up up down down down up down up down along the ridges and your legs are about ready to fall off. Once we were up the switchbacks, the trail opened up to beautiful meadows and a great view of Rainier and all of the other mountains. Here's a meadow, my pack, and Rainier.


We finally got to the campsites, took a look around and checked out the bear poles. Bear poles are so much easier to use than trying to hang your food up with rope, I'm really really glad that the poles were set up. Justin was wandering around our camp area when he spotted a very curious little marten up in the trees. We had no idea what it was and didn't want to get too close, but I got a couple of OK pictures of him!




We also had a couple of other critter visitors that wanted to check out what we had. One chipmunk was running around our camp pretty much the whole weekend and a little turd mouse climbed into my stuffsack and got some of my trailmix! Here's a blurry, quickmoving chipmunk inspecting our gear and on my jacket.


We relaxed in the area for the rest of the day and had a sleepless night. Neither Justin or I could sleep (we were still on NC time), so we had a long conversation about this and that late into the cold night. Once we were ready for sleep, we heard some coyotes close by our site on the hunt and they definitely killed something. There was also something sniffing around outside of our tent for a couple of hours, but we were both too chicken to get out of the tent to check it out. Whatever it was, it peed really close to the tent and I did not appreciate it one bit, but I wasn't going to challenge it.

I will make one more post about days 2 and 3 out here soon. Here's the view from our campsite.


Make sure to check out part two of this trip!

Cold Mountain and Pancakes, Part Two

Oh lord it has been too long since my last post and since I went to Cold Mountain. I went to Seattle with Justin last week and we spent a few days in Mt Rainier park on the Wonderland Trail, so I'll be putting up pictures from that soon.

Pancakes became the word on this trip. The goal was more aggressive than any we had undertaken before and there were times where one or the other or both of us weren't sure if we could keep going. When the trail got tough, one of us would shout out "PANCAKES" to keep the morale up. At the end of the trip, we were going to Pisgah Inn to get some nice, warm pancakes and good ass coffee - and dammit that was one luxury to look forward to and push us on.

I slept OK on night one. A bunch of dogs started howling at one point and freaked me out for a second, but I didn't get the sleep I should have. We woke up, made some biscuits and gravy (I love you Backpacker's Pantry), and packed up. After two miles back up (and I mean UP) the Art Loeb, we were back to Deep Gap. Time to hide the packs and only carry camera, water, and beef jerky to the top.

The hike to the top wasn't bad at all. I think it's about 1.5 miles. I'd bust out my map to get the exact mileage but I don't care at this point and if you're reading it you probably don't care too much either. Anyway, awesome views at the top of Cold Mountain, plus this was the peak of the trip (pun intended ha-ha-ha).




Welp, now all we have to do is walk back. The original plan had us camping near the stream/creek/puddle shortly after Shining Rock. We trekked back up to the Narrows, then up and back down Stairs Mountain, and we took a nice long break. We cooked some food and OH MY GOD we cooked a Mountain House dessert called raspberry crumble and made some coffee to go along with it. That dessert. THAT DESSERT. It was exactly what we needed after the long long hike of the past day and a half. Both of us were ready to go, we could hike for miles now. Here's what it looks like to finally rest in the woods after hiking forever and feeling exhausted:


It turns out that where we stopped was pretty close to Shining Rock, which means we ended up close to where we planned to get some water and camp. There was still plenty of daylight left, so we got some water, rested up a bit more, and started to hike for about another two miles. We found a nice spot to camp in a place that connects the Art Loeb trail to the Ivestor Gap trail.


And of course you've gotta let your socks dry out.


Goodnight Shining Rock Wilderness, I will sleep so hard tonight.


We woke up super early to take sunrise pictures from Tennet Mountain and to get to pancakes for breakfast. Good morning, Shining Rock Wilderness.




Until next time, Shining Rock Wilderness.




(By the way, the pancakes were cold when they finally brought them out, the waitress was slow and stressed out, and I only got about two cups of coffee. I still love to eat at the Pisgah Inn, though.)

Cold Mountain and Pancakes, Part One

Man... I don't know how to start this one. Let's see... this Monday was Labor Day, which meant no work, which meant 3 days to backpack without taking a day of PTO (fuck yeah). After our last trip to Shining Rock Wilderness and seeing that we were only about 4 miles away from Cold Mountain, Justin and I decided to make it there. When we realized that Labor Day was coming up and we had a free 3 day weekend, it was on.

This trip marks our 4th backpacking trip: 2 around Linville Gorge trails and 2 to Shining Rock Wilderness. Each time out our packs are getting heavier, the camping more comfortable and the hikes a lot longer. I got a hydration pack for this trip and I love that thing. It helped me conserve water without really thinking about it and I could drink without stopping to bust out the bottle, open the top, gulp it down, and push it back in the side of the pack. I love my pack:


We calculated the route - Art Loeb (3rd section) up to Deep Gap, then take the Cold Mountain to the top, come back down Cold Mountain trail, and take Art Loeb all the way back - 16.4 miles. Nope.

Day 1: Art Loeb all the way to Deep Gap, then 2 miles down the 4th section of Art Loeb in search of water and somewhere to camp away from the big groups at Deep Gap.


This section of Art Loeb is beautiful, you walk along mountaintop balds through meadows and rocks, giving you a 360 degree view of Pisgah National Forest. Within the first couple of miles we hit Black Balsam Knob and Tennet Mountain. Here's one of the few Art Loeb markers, heading up a meadow along the mountain ridges.


Tennet Mountain is the second mountain we hit on this trip, and has the best views in my opinion. At the top of the mountain is a plaque dedicated to Gaillard Stoney Tennent. I don't know much about him, but I bet he was a cool ass dude. You have to be if they name a mountain after you, right?


After Tennet Mountain, the trail continues into Shining Rock Wilderness. You walk along a ridge for a long while with limited views. But it is shady and beautiful and a very easy, welcoming walk. I have no idea where I took this picture, but I'm going to pretend it was on that part of the trail, because this is what it looks like most of the time.


So far, so good. We've done this part of the trail before. We stop at a spring that looks like a stream on the map, which is actually a few small puddles that refill themselves fast enough to filter water out of. We take a nice long lunch and coffee break. I took a picture of the stove and whatever pack of freezedried food we had, but it came out blurry because I move too much and there is no way in hell I'm carrying a tripod on top of everything else I have to bring.

So we continue on and get really confused about all of the trails that are intersecting, end up leaving all of the trails and finding the Art Loeb again. We hike and hike and hike, we hit Stairs Mountain and pass through a section of the trail called "The Narrows". We thought we hit the Narrows when we weren't actually on the Narrows. Then we got to the actual Narrows, which is just a rocky ridge that is pretty narrow and a steep climb to get up and back down. Shortly after we arrive at a place called Deep Gap, which is a big opening and a pretty popular spot to camp. Deep Gap is where the third section of the Art Loeb branches off to the fourth section and the start of the Cold Mountain trail.

We were in need of water, so we wandered down Art Loeb 4 hoping the streams on the map were true. The first one was not, the second one was but there were a bunch of people there trying to filter about 30 bottles out of a little puddle, so we went on. We're exhausted by this point, this must have been around the 7.5 or 8 mile mark of our hike. Oh lordy, pancakes. The forest was amazing here, we were walking around the inside of a ridge and the sun was blocked out by the mountain to our side and backs. The whole area had this dark and purple color, it was quite amazing. We walked another mile and a half, set up camp and finally ate some food and PASSED OUT.

Day 2 and 3 coming soon.

Linville Gorge

Sometime in May of this year, we hiked around Linville Gorge. Here's a quick rundown of what happened:
-Hiked Jonas Ridge Trail
-Hiked down Devil's Hole trail
-Slept by Linville River
-Hiked up Devil's Hole
-Took the wrong path, ended up at Hawksbill trailhead
-Walked down the road to the car
-Hiked up Little Table Rock
-Slept near the top of Little Table Rock
-Hiked back, headed home

You know what's really cool? Pictures.
View from Little Table Rock:


Thank god I got new boots, these were not made for backpacking around.


Down Devil's Hole:


The River:


Justin:


Sunset from Little Table Rock trail:


I'm planning a trip for September 4 and 5. I will most definitely bring my camera on this one and will most definitely post some more pictures. I have no idea where we're going yet, but I have recently received a copy of Hiking North Carolina. I'm going to find a good loop in here so we can explore more of NC's wilderness. I love this state.

Shining Rock Wilderness

I needed a place to document my backpacking trips, so here we are. I have an equal amount of love for technology and being (mostly) isolated in the middle of a forest - a blog makes sense.

Friday morning, I woke up to a text message. "Come over at 9". Two hours more of bedsleep. Reawake, shower, pack up, and head out. We need supplies, so we're out buying fuel and food. We don't leave until noon and we arrive at the trail around 3. No problem though, I'm recovering from a knee injury so we're doing an easy 10 mile, two nighter.

We started walking into the forest at the beginning of the third section of the Art Loeb Trail. After a short walk through the woods we entered the mountain balds. We quickly reached the first peak - Black Balsam Knob. This part is striking. We're standing on mountaintop meadows, watching clouds roll over the mountains, down the valleys, and through us. A new experience, a different view of the mountains from other hikes. We continue down the trail and reach the second peak - Tennet Mountain. Due to expected rain, we didn't bring cameras on this trip. Here's one picture of Justin taken with his ipod:


Eventually we get to Shining Rock Wilderness area, marked by an old weatherworn wooden sign. The trail goes up a little to the Grassy Cove Top peak, then follows along a wooded ridge. This mile or so stretch is the easiest part of the hike. We talk of companionship (inspired by a Fresh Air interview we heard on the drive up) and defining self, trekking through the cool and shaded forest. The trail spills out into a clearing and hits another trail. We find the "creek" marked on the map - at the moment it's a few puddles and wet rocks. One small puddle in the creek becomes our water source for the weekend. We make camp, cook dinner and drink coffee. We relax and read. We drink wine and read with headlamps in the tent. We watch spiders copulate on the tent mesh, between the tent and the rain fly. Finally we sleep.

Saturday I woke to the sound of Justin returning to the tent with all of our food and the sound of a thousand buzzing flies. I couldn't sleep anymore, so I wandered down to the creekpuddle to filter water for breakfast. Here is the morning sun, taken with my blackberry:


After eating some delicious freezedried biscuits and gravy for breakfast, we walked up to Shining Rock - the last peak of the trip. We packed up and began the trip back to the mountain balds to make a camp on a meadow a couple hundred feet below Black Balsam Knob. There was a lot of time to kill. I threw my pack down, used it as a pillow and laid on my back in a field reading Dune and staring into the mountains. After dinner it rained, the rest of the night was spent reading and sleeping. Sunday we woke up very early, packed up and walked the rest of the short trail back to the car. We had breakfast at Pisgah Inn right off of the Blue Ridge. Mmmm, coffee with cream and sugar and non freezedried foods.