Oh, those Blue Ridge Mountains
10/10/11: For the past 3 days, I’ve essentially been my own pack mule, hauling my food, shelter, and clothing up and down the Blue Ridge Mountains. And oh! What a great 3 days it was!
During Fall Break, I led an Outdoor Rec backpacking trip to the Smokey Mountains. We left Thursday morning at 10am to set out on our 5 hour drive towards Cosby, TN. Fortunately, luck was with us, and we expected only the best weather!
We camped out the first night all together and then the 15 of us split into a group of 7 and a group of 8. The idea, that we would hike in opposite directions and pick up each other’s vans upon completion of our route.
In the morning my group drove along the gorgeous Foothills Parkway to the Big Creek Campground, from which we were going to backpack back to Cosby in 3 days.
Our first hike consisted of a very moderate uphill grade next to Big Creek. We stopped by a couple waterfalls to snack and enjoy the scenery. It was a very nice warm-up for the more challenging days to come. By the way, our favorite snack of all was GORP (Good Ol’ Raisins n’ Peanuts) which is made from oat cereal, Cracklin’ Oat Bran cereal, M&Ms, raisins, and peanuts. Caution: it’s hard to stop eating this once you’ve started! We camped at campsite 37 next to Big Creek and enjoyed the company of some mice friends during the night.
Day 2 was a totally different story. We hiked upwards a total of (2950′) before an annoying downward descent (1020′) to our campground. Fun fact: we hiked by “Low Gap,” which is the lowest point of the Appalachian Trail in the Smokey Mountains, and then followed the AT for a few miles. (P.S. a great book to read about this is A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson) Campsite 29 was our site for the night, next to Yellow Creek and it was quite creepy. It seemed more remote and bear-friendly than any other campsite I’d ever been at. Before we went to bed, the other trip coordinator and me freaked ourselves out a bit talking about what we would do if a ear so happened to wander upon our campsite…. Wonderfully enough, we found no bear scat in the morning and the night had been warm and comfortable.
Our final day, was a long descent back to Cosby Campground, which included scenic creek crossings and beautiful views of the mountains. The last day included a wonderfully warm and sunny nap outside, a very long yet hilarious drive back to Nashville, and collapsing into my bed to rejuvenate myself for homework and studying.
What a great Fall Break…