Little Hump and Big Yellow Mountain
Appalachian Trail
Avery County, NC
Sunday, February 13th, 2011
Trip report by Jack Thyen
Blog Post:
http://scjack.blogspot.com/2011/02/little-hump-and-big-yellow-mountain.html
Photos are posted here:
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/579773990ZbkLSC
A 2.5 hour drive (one way) means 5 hours of travelling! That's a bit more
than I normally like to do for a dayhike. However, Andy convinced me that this
hike would be worth it. And the weather forecast made it the perfect day to
visit some of the highest peaks along the Appalachian Trail.
I met Andy and Brenda in Marion, NC and we combined into one vehicle (Brenda's
Xterra) from there. From Marion we took US221 to
NC194 to US19E. About halfway
between the Metropolises of Plumtree and Minneapolis,
NC we turned left on
Roaring Fork Road and headed up the mountain.
The higher we climbed, the more snow we saw. The paved
portion of the road
was mostly clear, but once the road turned to dirt, we would have been hard
pressed to continue on without 4x4 and high ground clearance. Snow drifts over
2-feet deep remained in the shady areas.
We parked at the end of the road (just before the gate) and hit the trail. We
started out hiking the Overmountain Victory Trail, a
short spur trail that would
connect us to the Appalachian Trail at Yellow Mountain Gap.
We took the AT to the east which climbs steeply to Little Hump Mountain. Most
of the trail was covered by over a foot of snow which made for a much slower
than normal hiking pace. Not to mention all the views which caused us to stop and
pull out the cameras every few hundred feet!
Even though we were trekking through snow, we started shedding clothing. Andy
and I were quickly down to just a t-shirt and were considering removing the
legs
from our zip-off pants.
That was until we left the tree sheltered area of the trail and entered the
wide open exposed summit of Little Hump Mountain.
The open faced summit of Little Hump Mountain offers up 360-degree views.
However it does not give any protection from the fierce and cold wind which was
blowing some 50mph+ gusts! We quickly started layering up again.
Fortunately, just below the summit is an area with some huge boulders which
blocked the worst of the wind and made for a nice spot to break for lunch.
Our original plan was to continue on to Big Hump Mountain, but as the trail
crossed the summit and headed into the trees on the North side of Little hump
the snow was even deeper than what we had been through. Instead we decided to
head to Big Yellow Mountain!
Again, once leaving the bald areas and entering into the trees, the snow cover
became deep. Most of the time it seemed like only a few inches as there was a
hard frozen layer a few inches below the surface. However, every so often, our
feet would break through the frozen layer and our legs would plunge into about
2-feet of snow.
The summit of Big Yellow Mountain is a huge expanse of open area. The wind
seemed to have gotten even more intense. On two separate occasions, my hat was
blown off my head and almost got swept over the side of the mountain never to
be
seen again!
The views from Big Yellow are spectacular and we spent a good bit of time
roaming around taking photographs. We hadn't seen another soul all day, but we
did run across a group of (3) people on Big Yellow.
On the hike back down we ran across another group of (5) people and then a
stray dog that kept us company for the remainder of the hike and gave Boone a
friend to play with.
We made a short detour to check out the "Red Barn" Appalachian Trail
shelter
before returning to Brenda's vehicle.
Andy was right! This was a great hike! And it was a pleasure to meet up with
Brenda for the first time!
Overall, we hiked about 8-miles, but it
seemed longer as much of the hike was
through deep snow! This is definitely an area I plan on getting back to!
My full set of photos is posted here:
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/579773990ZbkLSC
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