Best hiking to date!!

This was definitely the best and most fun hiking I have ever done!  Warning, there will probably be a lot of pictures :)

My dad, oldest son, Kyle and I went camping at Hot Springs for 5 days/4 nights.  We had a blast!  Kyle has only been hiking a couple of times so I wasn't sure if he would have as much fun as my dad and me, but he is a hiking machine and ready to do a thru hike.  

We arrived at the Hot Springs Resort and Spa on Wednesday just in time for the rain.  The campground was nice, but nowhere on their website did it mention the train tracks.  We were probably camped about 150 feet from them.  It reminded me of one of our stations at work.  Luckily the train didn't come thru as often as it does at the station.  It did come thru nightly, usually several times.   

My worry with this trip was that I would hurt myself and be out of work for awhile.  Little did I know that I would injure myself at the campground!  The first day there I was walking down to the river in my flip flops, twisted my ankle and nearly busted a toe.  It was bruised and sore but nothing a little tape couldn't fix.  I wasn't about to let it ruin our adventure.  

French Broad River next to the campground

The weather was supposed to be questionable on our first day hiking so we decided to head out to Max Patch and hike part of the AT.  The views from the Bald were amazing!!  And Kyle had a couple of girls stalk him but he was pretty oblivious to that fact.

We didn't make it to the shelter before the rain started, but that was half the fun for the first day!  We enjoyed lunch and good conversation (and yay it had a privy) while we waited for the rain to pass.  The rhododendron tunnels were so cool!  It was like everything I've read in the trail journals and books.  We would have kept heading North but I think my mom would have tracked us down and had a few choice words for us :)

I don't know how he stayed so dry!

After an awesome first day hiking, we headed back to the campground to build a fire and cook some sausages over the open flame.  One of my favorite things about camping :)  We also taught Kyle how to play Backgammon and he taught us the strategy to Chinese Checkers.  

Our second day hiking we headed back out to the AT to find the fire tower on Rich Mountain.  I have never climbed such a steep trail!  We told Kyle to HYOH and we would meet him at the tower.  Being young, it didn't take him nearly as long as it took us.  I was a bit of a nervous mom telling him to head out, but I figured he would either be at the tower when we arrived or somewhere in TN, but eventually would backtrack to get more food from me.  

Kyle was at the top of the tower waiting on us when we got there.  We met several thru hikers and section hikers along the way and had lunch with 3 of them.  That was a lot of fun!  I also got to do my first trail magic YAY 

The 360° view from the tower was awesome!  I'm really glad we chose this hike for day 2 since the weather was perfect!

On the way back down we found a stealth campsite and had a snack and some fun taking selfies

Day 3 we chose a nice trail along the Laurel River.  It started out as a nice flat trail.  Then we came to the storm damage.   This was actually the easiest part to go thru.  We went under, over and around many trees.

We found a nice spot to have a snack and cool off.  Then the rock skipping contest began!  I lost very early. Apparently they are supposed to skip at least once and not just KerPlunk into the water!  We declared Kyle the rock skipping champion.  I was just having fun playing in the water and soaking my feet.

There were so many beautiful flowers along the trail.  I didn't even get pictures of all of the varieties.

   

  

I thought we were going to lose Kyle here.  This is called the "Stackhouse"  It's a popular place to jump off the rocks into the river.  The paramedic in me was cringing watching this because it doesn't go straight down. You have to jump far enough out to miss the actual stack of rock.

Another view of the river.  It was sooo beautiful!  I love walking near water.  The sounds could lull me to sleep in a minute!

We eventually came to the end of the trail where it is supposed to loop around from the railroad tracks at the French Broad River.  At this point none of us wanted to wander around in the heat to look for where the trail goes back into the woods.  It was probably about an 1/8 of a mile that we missed and nobody was disappointed!  

A few more selfies on the way back (that was fun teaching dad how to do a selfie!  I won't show the ones he took with my phone hehe)

We did decide that we should rent this cute cabin for mom next time....so she'll let us have a next time :D

Planning a trip to Fontana Dam next....

Happy Trails!

Been too long!

I can't believe how long it's been since I posted on my blog!  It's been a busy Spring, but dad and I are still hiking.  Just a run down of a few of our trips this Spring....

We attempted (notice I say attempted) backpacking for the first time.  We rented our gear from REI, packed and unpacked and packed again, removed a few items (but obviously not enough) and headed to the Eno for what was to be 3 days and 2 nights.

We hiked the Mountain to Sea trail starting at West Point on the Eno.  Enjoyed a nice lunch break by the river and continued on towards our destination.  We hiked about 6-7 miles that day.  We knew this trip was going to be a learning experience and it was.  Dad learned that 37 lbs is too much to carry and that he needs to drink more drinks with electrolytes.  After the 6+ miles and many cramps in the legs, we decided to call my sister and have her and her hubby come pick us up.

I'm not sure if the people driving by were honking to say "hi" or if they thought we were homeless.  Either way we had fun (I may have had a bit more fun than dad).

After many emails and conspiring conversations, my family and I decided to buy dad some light gear so we can get out there again.  Being the impatient people we are, we couldn't wait until Father's Day to give him his presents :)

Between the 13 oz sleeping bag and the less than 2 lb pack, I think we just knocked about 6-8 lbs off!  I think with some tweaking he should be able to get down to less than 25 lbs.  I can't wait until we try again!!

After that big adventure we decided to find our pride again and head out on an 11+ mile hike on another section of the Mountain to Sea trail at Falls Lake.  For this adventure we brought my oldest son, Kyle.

My lesson for this day was that a 19 year old eats way more food than my dad and I!  I will definitely bring more food next time!

This tree was huge!!  Along with seeing the enormous tree, we saw a couple of old barns, some old farm equipment and what my dad thinks was maybe the foundation for a barn (??  I'm a city girl, don't laugh) that was used to milk the cows.  I don't know what you would call that.

The day was perfect and the scenery was beautiful!  I felt like I was in the enchanted forest.  I've never seen such a beautiful place.  I do wish we had more views like the marina below.  But still, the forest was amazing!

After that fun adventure, we had another one this weekend.  In honor of Memorial Day, my dad, sister, Mary and her hubby Tim, and I did a charity hike for the Fisher House Foundation.  For this, we headed to Umstead State Park.  It was another beautiful day and the company was great!

Thanks to American Backcountry for the T-shirt....will be wearing it on my next adventure this week.  Stay tuned for details of all our fun from that!

Peace, love and happy trails.....

Know where you're going

Don't you hate it when you accidentally click the wrong thing and close your page before you have a chance to save your work?  C'est la vie.  Lucky for me I'm at work until 0700 and have plenty of time to write it again.

Dad and I hiked another section of the Eno that we haven't been to yet. We basically did section 2 & 3.  We started at Pump Station Trail and headed east.  This brought us to the Mountain to Sea Trail/Laurel Ridge Trail.  I liked the diversity of this trail.  There were some small elevation changes, rocks, roots, wooded areas, river, creeks and soft flat areas.  It had a little bit of everything...well, except bathrooms, but we won't discuss that.

The area that surrounds the Eno River was mostly farm land back in the day.  Amazing that it has grown into such a populated area.  Section 2 had some cool remnants of the past.  This is one of three of the old fireplaces that we saw. There was also an old Mill, dams, walls and the old pump pictured below this one.

Sad it's been vandalized with graffiti

I'm guessing this wouldn't make a good water source...or any water source for that matter!  Luckily we weren't far from the river.  We tried to find a date on the pump but to no avail.  Based on the other areas I've seen along the Eno, I'm going to guess late 1800's, maybe early 1900's?

I was surprised at how much ice we saw along the trail.  I assumed it would have melted by now.  I think the high yesterday was 50.  The shaded area's must have been pretty cold because it didn't look like any of it melted from morning until our trip back.

So this is where my title of "Know where you're going" comes from.  The first two miles of our hike is on the west side of Guess Rd.  When we came to Guess Rd there were stairs leading up to the bridge.  We decided instead of trying to cross this busy road, we would bushwhack to the other side.  Luckily before we got to far we realized there wasn't a trail on the other side of the bridge.  Thanks to technology, we found the trail to be on the other side of the river and then goes under the bridge.  Ahhh the fun of learning :)  This picture is from the other side of the river.  I saw a crane but couldn't get a picture of it.  Maybe another day.

We hiked about 4.5 miles out and found an amphitheater with picnic tables.  Dad got a new stove for Christmas so we had yummy mocha's (instant coffee with hot chocolate) with our lunch.  It turned out to be an amazing day!  The temp was perfect, the skies sunny, the scenery beautiful and the company was excellent.  All in all a great 9 miles!  Oh and the great thing is that I didn't use any Alleve before the hike and my hip did great!  That reminds me, I need to go do some more squats.

Question of the day:  Has anyone ever used this http://www.backpacker.com/fall-gear-guide-2013-brunton-power-essentials-solar-kit/gear/17965.  Comments and observations would be welcomed.

Peace, love and happiness.....

Fun Muddy Mess

Happy New Year!!  We started out with a hike at the Eno River.  My sister, Mary, had the day off so she joined us.  I did not know it is an annual tradition.  Luckily, we arrived early and missed the large crowds. We had a lot of rain last weekend that apparently all ran off down to the trail.  It started out very muddy. Mary only ended up on her butt once, but ended up sitting on a log as she went down.  She was crossing over a downed tree and did the splits as her feet slid in the mud.  I think we all almost went down at least twice!  It was still a blast though!!

This is the highest I've seen the river so far.  I'm sure there have been many, many times it has been higher.  I just haven't seen it this high before. 

We were going to hike along part of the Mountain to Sea trail, but there are no bathrooms along the way, it was cold and I figured there would be too many people and not enough tree coverage to use the woods. Bathrooms are a must since mom always makes sure to have coffee ready for me when I arrive at their house.   We decided to do two short loops instead.  The first was Pea Creek Trail.  The second loop was Dunnagan Trail.  We found this cool cemetery along Dunnagan.  It made us wonder how many other interesting sites we have missed along the way

Cool cemetery we found along the trail.  Looks like it dates back to the 1800's

I'm guessing this wall is part of the "historic pump station" that is on the Dunnagan trail.  I'm going to have to do more research on the history of this park.  There are a lot of points of interest here.  

My favorite part of the river is listening to the water rush over all of the rocks and boulders.  It's so easy to leave behind all of the stresses of life out here and get lost in the beauty of it all.

Mary was kickin' some butt out here!  She quit smoking (go girl!!) about 3 weeks ago and she said it has made a huge difference.  Hopefully we can get out more on the weekends together.  The low is supposed to be 16 Friday night and rain on Sunday so I doubt it'll be this weekend.  A cold front is moving in next week so I'm not sure if we'll be able to get out.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed :)

 Wishing everyone peace, health and happiness in the New Year....