Blue Bend Recreation Area

We're back from our week-long trip into the mountains of West Virginia. When Carole and I were younger we would vacation in WV at least once per year. Later, we got out of the habit of traveling north to those mountains and journeyed elsewhere. But lately we've had the urge to re-visit the state. So we hooked up the Casita and went to stay at the Blue Bend Recreation Area deep in the Monogahela National Forest about fifteen miles north of Lewisburg.

The campground is a classic site created and developed by the old Civilian Conservation Corps, that finest of mildly socialist programs instituted by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That organization did so much to provide the USA with excellent recreational sites. Many decades after its demise, we are still enjoying the campgrounds, trails, lakes, dams, pools, picnic areas, and playgrounds those hard working citizens toiled to make for the generations that have come and gone since those days.

Weather-wise, we couldn't have had it better. Some of our more recent camping trips have been tough due to the rain and inclement weather we have suffered. But this vacation was perfect in that regard. It never rained, rarely even clouded over, and we left the hideous heat and humidity of the Charlotte area behind to find high temperatures in the mid to upper 70s and lows in the 50s every night. We had perfect sleeping weather and with the fresh air blowing in through the screens each evening I dreamed vividly. Two days back, and I already miss that place terribly.

Carole and I both got in some good hiking. I climbed the mountainsides in the Big Draft Wilderness Area which lies across the creek from our campground (via a swinging bridge), and Carole joined me on shorter, developed hikes on extremely well-engineered trails at Cranberry Glades Natural Area, the Falls of Hill Creek, and at Beartown State Park.

We had a blast!

Carole prepared her usual five-star camping meals. We did not lose any weight. She worked on some new Dutch oven recipes that were all excellent, as always. Breakfast, lunch, and supper were all feasts, each day.

I'll try to post some details, either in text, or photographs, or video--or all three--in the coming days.

I took this from a viewpoint on Brown Mountain in the Big Draft Wilderness Area looking down on a farm that abuts the wilderness.

Our campsite, which was enormous.

Carole, standing on the swinging bridge that allows access to the opposite side of Anthony Creek.

The swimming hole at Blue Bend, and the spot for which it's named--the big bend in Anthony Creek. The water was clear and cold and great for swimming on a summer day (even if it was only 77 degrees!). Those slate "beaches" and retaining walls and picnic shelters were all constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1933 and 1935 and are still in use today.

A selfie I took deep in the Big Draft Wilderness Area on a five-mile loop hike.

A shot I took from a picnic area at over 4400 feet above sea level on the Mountain Scenic Highway. All of the peaks along the drive and around us were over 4,000 feet above sea level. Lots of dark spruce trees cover the peaks and ridges here.

Lots of amazing shops and restaurants in Lewisburg, WV which was not many miles from the campground. We spent the day here having a great time. They even have a top-notch bookstore where I bought a Bukowski volume I didn't have. Voted "America's Coolest Small Town" not too long ago. Well deserved, I think. I'd live there, no problem.

Next Road Trip!

Carole and I are getting ready for our next road trip. We'll have one of these a month for the rest of the year, I think, unless Carole has any trouble getting time off from her job. Next week we're headed a little bit north for a week of camping and hiking and sightseeing. I'll post details when we return.

We picked up the Casita from the RV service center where we have been taking it for whatever ails our beloved travel trailer. This latest problem was with the refrigerator which stopped working while we were on our last trip (to Fort DeSoto Park in Florida). We had fears that the fridge would have to be completely replaced, but a $111 part did the trick (plus labor). So we only faced a bill of a little over $200 instead of over $1000 for a completely new refrigerator. That was a relief!

At any rate, only a few more days of preparation and we'll be heading off to take it easy in a National Forest campground where we've never stayed (but have visited).

The Casita just home from RV Pros where they fixed the refrigerator. Works like it's supposed to!

The high country, not far from where we're going to be camping next week.

Extra Caudill Cabin Video

Somehow I missed some video that I shot of the Caudill Cabin. It had been my intention to include the images on the previous video that I created but somehow I skipped them. I think that I was concentrating so much on editing the GoPro video that I'd made that I forgot about the extra stuff I did with my Canon camera. Sometimes it's best not to carry extra photography gear, and this was just such a case. I probably should have just relied on my SLR for both photos and video on that trip. In the future I'll be more careful about how much equipment I haul with me on these hikes.

Anyway, here's an extra YouTube video that I created from the skipped images.

The Caudill Cabin just before I shut and latched the door and took my leave.

The extra footage that I missed when I was assembling the previous video.

A Tough Hike to See the Caudill Cabin at Doughton Park.

I made the hike up to see the Caudill Cabin. I left my house very early so that I could get to the trailhead around 7:30, 8 at the latest. However, my directions from NC 21 were not accurate, so I had to get on the Blue Ridge Parkway and go down NC 18 toward North Wilkesboro. This, coupled with a stop along the Parkway to take photos at the developed section of Doughton Park slowed me considerably.

Finally, I made my way down to Longbottom Road and began to trek toward the trailhead. But I managed to pass it by about three miles and had to turn around. By the time I got to the parking area it was almost 10:30.

According to the map and directions I had the hike looked to be about 4.5 miles each way with about 1600 feet of elevation gain. One descriptor I read said that there were seven creek crossings. I ended up discovering, though, that all mileages were off by at least a mile each way; and there were, in fact seventeen creek crossings! Seventeen! Add to this the fact that the humidity levels were off the scale and I ended up being put through the wringer on this hike. It was horrible!

The first 1.7 miles or so is on the Grassy Gap Fire Road which apparently is a jeep road that has been used for fire suppression and to get equipment farther into the forest for trail maintenance. It's a slow, steady, easy climb along Basin Creek. This is all National Park property. It forms a big pie shaped wedge of land from the Blue Ridge Parkway down to the parking area on Longbottom Road. There are over thirty miles of trails on over 7,000 acres of land. Most people see only the part of the Park directly adjacent to the Parkway. But most of it is very different from these open meadows and it is, in fact, very heavily forested by recovering stands of hardwoods and white pines. This is what you hike through as you leave Longbottom Road and head up toward Caudill Cabin.

I was extremely impressed with the forests here. They are not composed of vast, ancient trees, but they are still imposing. Some of the stands of white pines are rather grand, but it is the groves of various hardwood species that are the most stirring.

All of the two trails that I used to access the Caudill Cabin site are adjacent to rushing streams. But it is when you reach Basin Creek that you find yourself in classic, southern Appalachian landscape. Trees tower over you, rhododendron blossoms are all around, rocks abound, and the sound of water crashing against polished stone is everywhere. This is indicative of the great blue wall of the mountains that rise up from the Piedmont so abruptly here in my native South.

The climb to the cabin was pleasant in many ways, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't difficult for me. The route is steep, and the seventeen creek crossing took a toll on me whenever I'd encounter one that was too deep to rock-hop and had to take the time to remove my boots and socks and then put them back on once I'd reached the opposite shore. In high heat and humidity, minor things like that take a toll. By the time I got to my destination I was as drenched as if I'd been doused by gallons of water, but it was all sweat that had soaked through my clothes. Yeah, it was pretty miserable in that respect.

As you climb you pass through what had once been the old Basin Creek community. Not quite a town, it still held a population of farmers who lived along the banks of the creek, farming the land and earning livings enough to support large families. That all came to an abrupt end one day in 1916 when a flood came roaring down the tributary washing away most of the houses and killing most of the people who had lived there. The community never recovered and in the 1930s the National Park Service purchased this large plot of land that is now Doughton Park.

The principle reason I went to hike there was to see the historic Caudill Cabin, the last remaining structure from the days just before the flood. But I also went to enjoy some solitude while I hiked, which has been missing from most of the outdoor trips I have taken recently. And it paid off. I did encounter one group of ladies who were coming down the mountain just as I was passing a large waterfall, and they asked me to take a group photo of them with their phone cameras (which I was happy to do).

Even though the hike did me in, I had a great time, suffered some hamstring cramps when I got home, but physically did okay compared to what I suffered through from some other more recent trips tromping up and down the steep slopes of the southern Appalachians.

 

The trail map for Doughton Park. As I have said, most people only see the strand of land adjacent to the Parkway road. But journey into the trail system and into the forests and you will find a completely new world.

This is the only part of the buildings at Doughton Park that is still being used as a visitors center. It was closed when I got there.

The large building adjacent to the visitors center is the old coffee shop that once served meals as an old-fashioned grill. Like most of the rest of the structures at Doughton Park it is now in sad shape and unused. This nation has plenty of money to piss trillions into war machines, but can't take care of its National Parks. The old coffee shop has recently undergone some basic repairs, and there are rumors that it will once again find use, but who knows?

Typical groomed lawn along the Parkway.

Basin Creek as I hiked along.

Rhododendron in full bloom.

The following few photos are the ruins of farms that once lined the creek. Many were killed in the 1916 flood.

The waterfall where I met the nice ladies hiking down the mountain. 

My initial view of the Caudill Cabin as I emerged from the deep forest.

This one-room cabin once served as home for an entire family.

I travel to the cabin.

Miscellaneous Photos

Since I have begun selling my photographs professionally, I figured I'd post various images that I've been sending out that are forming the base of a body of work that is starting to earn me royalties. I tend to work on the portfolio every day and I get out and about to visit areas where I can add to my growing bank of photographic images. Being essentially retired now with reliable income to fuel jaunts for my ample leisure time I have found that I can--within reason--do pretty much whatever the Hell I want to do. And that is to ride around capturing digital images of things that I see.

Hell...as I get older, I think Laura Riding may have been right all along.

I'll be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning to travel to a National Park site to plunge into the wilderness and find my way to an isolated historic site. I'll let you know what I find.

Great Blue Heron, Mountain Island Lake, two miles from my front door where I go kayaking often.

Broadwinged Hawk, Hillsborough River, Florida.

Osprey with Speckled Sea Trout prey. Fort DeSoto Park, Florida.

Alligator on the Hillsborough River, Florida.

Abandoned farm building. Stone Mountain State Park, North Carolina.

Stone Mountain, Stone Mountain State Park, North Carolina.

It ain't a livin'. But it doesn't need to be. Gas money and lodging to my next journey--that's what it amounts to, so far. I'll take it.

And the World is Ending.

There's a term that the ancients used often. Hubris. I love that word. Somewhere along the way, after Constantine and his boys saddled us with monotheism, they essentially replaced it with the simple-minded word 'sin', which isn't really anything at all like hubris and in fact muddies the water so much that hubris sank and pretty much vanished from the popular psyche.

Which, I suppose, was part of the plan.

Mention the term to your average shmoe and you'll get a blank stare. And that's a shame, since your average shmoe is awash in it; is, in fact, drowning in it. Quite actually drowning.

Most people seem to while away their days sitting in a bathtub full of pop culture execrate. I'm not being too judgmental here, because I once did the same. Maybe not to the extremes as most other people, but I must admit that I had my own love affair with vacuous music, literature, art, and what passes as theater in the form of television and movies. (But no midget versions of the Great White Way down here in the small towns of the southern USA.)

However, I stopped watching our pop culture delivering a false message of immortality some time back. Now, I look for what the more religious among us call signs and portents. In their cases they're searching for indications that the anti-Christ is coming, that Armageddon is looming, that the Bible-defined end is nigh. Frankly, I can dig their attitude, even if my own curiosity for the end times comes from more technical locations and emanating out of sociological sources and not prophetic texts featuring Moses and his progeny.

I see humanity's termination coming in other ways. There is the inexorable march of extinction as our fellow travelers on this spinning globe vanish into the black hole we have dug for them, thinking that by filling it with all of those sacred creatures we are somehow hiding the fact that we have, in all actuality, carved out our own final resting place. We're just tossing our animal buddies in the tomb preceding us so that we won't go alone, as if we're some kind of multi-headed pharaoh. Every few days the news is there. Some other wonderful animal that has tread the planet for millions of years is no more. Maybe it's a precious species of rhinoceros. Or a type of gazelle. Or maybe some long-skulled gavial, or a blind dolphin that used to ply the muddy depths of a silt-laden river eating a shrinking population of fish.

Those who walk about with their cloak of hubris don't see it. Feh. Some stupid critters went out of style. Who cares? Humans will go on without that fucking rhino as if it had never existed. Or so they think. They're so wrong. They don't know how wrong they are, but that doesn't prevent them from being so very, very wrong.

I don't mention the web of life to these people. There it goes, another strand missing, the weight of Homo sapiens hanging onto the weakening filaments that bind what remains cohesively. I can see the anchors straining away, trying to hold up our collected mass of almost eight billion naked asses extruding shit as we eat every goddamned thing we can grab.

Hell, we even consume the crust of the planet, gouging it out, pouring it into the seas, despoiling the aquifers that we need for fresh freaking water.

Hubris. Frack that bitch. Get that oil. Draw out those metric gigatons of natural gas.

Sociologically, we are a horrid mess. I have watched as even the edges of our popular culture have withered and curled and become desiccated waste that is about to go up in flames. And no one cares because that very culture is throwaway and was intended as such and has already been tossed aside for the next big thing. The beauties of older days are forgotten and been rejected for the latest and greatest pussy du jour.

I recall times when bookstores were a given. If you lived in a town of even modest size there was a bookstore where you could go and shop. Yes, it was likely to be packed with insipid romance novels and silly potboilers and goofy fantasies. But there were always good books mixed in with the escapist fare where one could find them. And in the smaller towns you had libraries. Even in the tiny burgs where I sometimes lived I could go to a library and while away the day searching through books of geology and history, fiction and fact.

But now bookstores are fading. Even the vast factory chains that were supported by investors pouring billions of dollars into those brick and mortar walls are going away, company by company, chain by chain, location by location. Poof. Mr. Hubris grins stupidly. The stellar constant stares into the knowing void while we yammer away, thinking ourselves as persistent as being. Alas, nope.

If you'd told me when I was a kid wandering around the shelves of my parents' bookstores that there would be a time when finding even a used bookstore would be difficult, I'd have laughed at you. Are you loony? You should be bouncing around a cartoon cel with Daffy Duck!

A few days ago I saw that Mad Magazine is effectively ceasing publication. Once the most successful magazine on the planet, it was closing up shop. Yes, it always was a crass, crude, working class kind of silly pop culture. Why should I mourn its passing? I suppose I could spend tens of thousands of words educating you as to why it bothers me, but then I'd be as guilty of hubris as those who never saw that coming. So I'll boil it down for you:

It was, to a couple or three generations of US citizens a constant. It was always there, on the newsstands. Alfred E. Neuman staring out at you with that misshapen ginger face. Mad Magazine for all of its crude sensibilities had spawned an occasional blip of brilliance. Harvey Kurtzman created it. Wally Wood gloried in it. Don Martin swam through the pages. William Gaines profited from that glorious thing like crazy.

It was everywhere and permeated US society without really advertising itself. It was self-evident and mildly subversive. It may not have spawned revolution, but it presaged its coming. In a nutshell, it taught kids and overgrown adolescents that grownups and society lie to us constantly. And in that simple lesson it thrived and was--as I said--everywhere.

Well, until now. Now, it is gone.

Bill Gaines probably saw it coming when he emptied all of those mint condition back issue EC comics from his storage bins. When he sold off every page of original art that he'd ever published. (Yeah, he kept all of that art, that forward thinking capitalist bastard!) I think he saw it coming when he foisted off the magazine upon a corporate behemoth and shuffled his own fat ass into retirement, chuckling gloriously all the way to the bank, maybe not thinking too much of Harvey Kurtzman as he fled this mortal coil.

What does Mad Magazine have to do with mass extinction and the coming end of Homo sapiens? Frankly, I'm not sure myself, except that one got me to thinking about the other. And of that musty, ancient idea that those instigators of western thought came to term as hubris.

A world without Mad Magazine? A society that doesn't even know who Alfred E. Neuman is? You must be daft!

Our own existence is pop culture. Homo sapiens is just Earth's latest fad. We're the trilobite frozen in shale, the dinosaur locked in stone, the rotting mammoth carcass being vomited out of the melting permafrost.

Someday--and it will be soon--we'll follow Mad Magazine and that rare type of rhino down into the sucking black hole where existence ends. We won't terraform Mars and flee to that dead, toxic ball of frozen rock. We're not going to build starships and travel the galaxy. To paraphrase a certain pop-culture villain, the Universe expects us to die, Mr. Bond; and that's an expectation that will be fulfilled.

Hubris, or not, we're goin' down.

Don't say we weren't warned.

Elk Knob State Park.

North Carolina's newest state park is Elk Knob State Park. It was formed mainly due to the efforts of local residents and land conservation groups. The slopes and summit of this 5,520-foot summit were going to be developed as residential subdivisions, but instead have become the latest addition to the state's park system.

The park consists of 3,680 acres of forests. It has been minimally developed with a road leading to a visitor's center, a trailhead parking lot, and a picnic area. There are some back country campsites but no traditional tent and trailer camping sites.

Since the park is less than eight miles from the center of the college town of Boone, it can get pretty crowded up there on a weekend. So don't go expecting to find much in the way of solitude unless you can go on a weekday. One cool thing about the park is that it's one of the few reliable areas in this part of North Carolina where you can go snowshoeing and cross country skiing when the occasional snowstorm hits the high country. And at over 5500 feet above sea level, this park does get its fair share of heavy snow.

Stone Mountain State Park

As with Georgia, North Carolina also has a Stone Mountain State Park. Ours is run by the state, whereas the one in Georgia is highly commercialized and operated by a private concessionaire. Ours is relatively wild, but the one is Georgia (my native state) has basically been reduced to a hideous amusement park about as vile as they come.

Normally the park here in NC is very crowded if you go on a weekend or holiday. It is one of our most popular parks and is readily accessible to people who live in places like Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Raleigh. The hiking there is good because of a very well maintained series of trails and a number of waterfalls and mountain summits that offer exceptionally nice views.

I think I have visited this park more times than any other in the state with the exception of Crowders Mountain State Park. Stone Mountain is only 70 miles from my home so I can be there in about an hour and a half. I chose to drive up very early on a Monday morning and the journey only took an hour and fifteen minutes. I got there before seven am and found that I had the trails all to myself. It was three hours before I finally encountered another hiker as I was taking a rest on Cedar Rock and preparing to head over to the trail that would take me to Stone Mountain.

At any rate, following here are some photos and video of my latest day-hike there. 

I thought that I would mention one thing that is important to me. When I go hiking I very much enjoy encountering wildlife. For some reason I never have much luck viewing wildlife at Stone Mountain State Park. I do see a lot of whitetailed deer, and I almost always have the opportunity to photograph turkey vultures. Beyond that, though, I rarely see anything else there in the way of wildlife. No bears, no coyotes, no snakes, very few birds (even though I hear a lot of bird songs). I don't know why this should be the case, but it is.

Part 1 of the hike. Over Wolf Rock and Cedar Rock.