Christy,
Boone, and I returned to the North Carolina high country the weekend of October
16th. By the time we made our plans, all
of the reserved sites at Price Park were taken.
I didn’t like our chances of getting a walk-up spot on Saturday morning,
so we booked a tent site here:
It’s
a decent place, and the prices for tent sites are reasonable for a private
campground. It’s conveniently located
near Foscoe, which is off of 105 between Boone and
Banner Elk.
On
our way up Saturday morning we swung by Price Lake so I could get a few more
photos and Boone could go swimming. The
fall colors had been a bit short of peak the week before at Price Lake, but now
they were mostly gone. In that area,
they definitely went fast this year.
The
campground let us “check-in” early on Saturday morning, and we set up camp
before heading back to Boone. On the
way, we were relieved that I had taken a back road to get from Price Lake to Foscoe. Apparently
there was a fair going on in Valle Crucis, and
traffic on 105 south was backed up from the Valle Crucis
turn almost all the way back into Boone!
We
spent Saturday tailgating and enjoying Appalachian football once again. Boone particularly enjoyed the tailgating, as
he loved the attention he received from various passers-by. We enjoyed the game, and slept fairly well at
the campground that night.
On
Sunday we slept in a bit before heading up to Ashe County. We saw some nice fall foliage along the way,
although the colors were mostly gone from the higher elevations. We drove to the town of Todd, NC, where
Christy met her friend Carly to do a bike ride. Their plan was to ride Old Railroad Grade
Road, which follows the New River for 10 miles between Todd and Fleetwood. Christy had chosen that ride primarily for
its complete lack of hills. They planned
to do 3 or 4 round trips. Meanwhile, I
took Boone up to Three Top Mountain for a short hike.
Three
Top Mountain is owned by the state and is managed as a game land. The best source of information online can be
found here:
http://www.summitpost.org/three-top-mountain/252741
I
drove up Hidden Valley Road through a private housing development, but
continued on rapidly deteriorating gravel roads to the actual trailhead. I found one other car there, so I knew I
could look forward to a quiet hike.
Boone and I headed down the trail beyond the gate, and after only a few
yards I spotted a promising hiking stick.
I’ve been looking for a replacement to the stick I carried for 14 years,
before breaking it on a recent hike.
This one is Yellow Birch, and is quite sturdy. It’s a bit heavier than the prior one, but I
think it might work out.
We
made the straight-forward hike up to the eastern-most peak, Huckleberry
Rock. Most of the fall color was gone,
but the views were great on another sunny, blue sky day. From the top I spotted Mount Rogers, Whitetop, Bluff Mountain, Mount Jefferson, The Peak, Snake
Mountain, Rich Mountain, and even Grandfather Mountain. Once on Huckleberry Rock, I briefly
considered bushwhacking along the ridge line to access the middle peak, Big
Rock. However, I didn’t want to keep
Christy waiting, and I wasn’t really in a bushwhacking mood anyway. Instead I lounged in the sun for a while
before heading back down.
Boone
and I headed back to Todd. We arrived a
bit before Christy and Carly finished, so we settled
in to wait. A few minutes later, a
middle-aged couple arrived at the end of their own bike ride. They’d been all the way to Fleetwood and
back, but the guy’s wife / girlfriend / whatever was staring daggers through
his back. She looked like she might
actually kill him. I guess the ride
hadn’t gone as well as they had planned.
I could be wrong, but I’m guessing it might have had something to do
with the fact that she had done the full 20 miles in open-toed sandals. Ouch!
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