Smith River

 

Black Mountain Crest Trail - Backpacking

 

Mt Mitchell - Black Mountain Crest Trail

Sarah and I rose early on sat and drove to Mt Mitchell State Park in the mountains of NC. Mt Mitchell is the highest peak in the US east of South Dakota. It was enshrowded in fog (or up in a cloud might be more accurate)

We struck out on a trail that follows the high mountain ridgeline away from mt mitchell. After 4 or 5 miles of hiking, we made it to Deep Gap. This was designated as the place that you were supposed to camp. Supposedly, there was access to water. We followed a grown over trail down off the side of mountain in hopes that we'd hit the top of a feeder stream. We hike for quite a ways 1.5 miles down off the hill is my estimate. We said 'screw it' and just collected some water from a seeping hilside.

We made it back up to our campsite and set our tent up just in time for a rainstorm. It was so humid that quite a bit of condensation formed inside our tent. I would guess it was 70 degrees and near 100 percent humidity. We fell asleep almost immediately ( I think it was about 7:30 pm) and woke at dawn.

By the time we had our camp taken down and had eaten some breakfast it was 8 am. It was quite foggy, just like the day before. The hike back consisted of lots of ups and downs between peaks, but was a net gain of 1k vertical feet.

When we were about 1.5 miles away from the end of our hike it began raining in earnest. We got pelted with some serious sideways rain as we trekked across the open rocky top of Mt. Craig (second highest). I would estimate it to be around 55 degrees with winds above 15 or 20 mph.

We were back at our car within an hour and had the corollas A/C and Heat running wide open. I refer to this as the 'Eric Trick' cause he showed it to me with his camry when we were soaked from backpacking in wva.

We drove down off the mountain, 30 miles of _very_ windy roads. This made sarah a little sick. I was driving, so basically immune to motion sickness. Anyway, by the time we'd made it to statesville nc, it was 99 degrees and sunny. Over a 40 degree change in temperature! not to mention the high wind and cold rain.