My Campsite on Cattail Peak.

When I planned to do my first overnight backpacking trip of 2017 I was supposed to leave on Thursday night. But some household chores came up and I promised Carole that I would stay and do them if she would wake me up on Friday morning at 4:30 am (when she gets home) so that I could haul ass for Mount Mitchell State Park. That would put me at the trailhead at around 7:30 am and give me plenty of time to get to Horse Rock, or to Deep Gap if anything else came up to delay me or slow me down.

As it turned out, she forgot to wake me up. So I slept until 8:30 am and didn't get out of Charlotte until 9:00. That had me at the trailhead after 11:00 am, so thoughts of making it all the way to Horse Rock were right out. So as I set out I figured I'd erect my tent in Deep Gap.

However, for years I have wanted to camp on the summit of Cattail Peak. Right at 6,600 feet above sea level, it is one of the highest mountaintops where you can legally camp. Since I had gotten such a late start on my backpacking trip I didn't even feel like heading to my secondary choice for overnight (Deep Gap) and opted to just drop my pack and pitch my tent on the top of Cattail.

And so, that's where I camped. I had brought lots of water. Because one thing I had learned after five previous hikes on the Black Mountain Crest Trail is that you can't bring too much water. Since the trail follows the absolute crest of the Black Mountains, you don't pass any springs or creeks since the route is always far above any access to the aquifer. The only reliable water source on the whole trail is at Deep Gap, and even there you have to drop off the slope somewhat to locate the spring.

I have to say, the quiet and solitude were striking. Only two small groups of people passed me after I got to the peak. A couple of guys heading to Mitchell, and a group of four young women who had hiked to Deep Gap and were also going back to Mount Mitchell. Other than that no other person passed by. I had the mountain to myself.

While I'm glad that I camped there, I later read in a news article that 2,000 additional acres had been added to Mount Mitchell State Park and it indicated that the summit of Cattail Peak was now within the park borders. Which means that I may have camped illegally. I'm not sure. The park map still shows the park boundaries ending before you reach Cattail Peak. So I'm not sure.

The most level and protected area that I found on the summit. Some enterprising camper had even erected these windbreaks there.

Grarly old spruce trees. I suspect these are true old folk of the mountain.

At my campsite looking out at all of the dark spruce forest.

Relaxing in the tent as the last rays of the sun paint the summit.

Finding my campsite, setting up, and enjoying the solitude.

Favorites

Among my favorite hiking areas are the highest mountains in western North Carolina. I've always had a strange feeling of euphoria when I'm in the peaks here in the South that exceed a mile in elevation. It's not actually the altitude--most people claim that you don't really feel altitude until you climb up to around 8,000 feet or so where the air begins to really get a little thinner. This feeling is something else. I can't explain it. You'd have to experience it, or perhaps it is something unique to me. All I can say is that a combination of sensations join to give me an overwhelming sense of well being when I'm up there.

One of these places where I like to hike are the summits and ridges north of Brevard in the Pisgah National Forest. Here there are many miles of trails that meander among the coves and peaks of this high country. I can travel there and make camp among the Fraser firs and watch twisted birches swaying in the winds. As long as I avoid the crush of the crowds around Shining Rock I can also find solitude and silence broken only by the breezes and the trickling of springs and creeks and perhaps the odd call of some bird sitting in the tight mazes of rhododendron.

Sometimes I go backpacking there and spend several days and nights tucked away among the grassy balds and hiding in evergreen forests with my tent pitched near a crushing stream. I need to go back, and often the desire to return is in the midst of winter when access to the higher trailheads is impossible due to roads closed by ice and snow, or sometimes just by nervous forest rangers afraid some idiot will get stuck up there in case of a sudden storm.

Just now I feel a really deep and almost overriding need to pack up my camping gear and head for the heights.

My two-man tent pitched deep inside Middle Prong Wilderness. It's heavier than my one-man tent, but sometimes I take it with me for the extra room.

Taken along the Black Mountain Crest Trail, the highest in the eastern USA.

Panorama looking toward Shining Rock Wilderness.

Man in wilderness.

In the cap between the double summits of Sam Knob.

Sam Knob from the meadow below.

A high summit in Middle Prong.

The summit of Mount Hardy, which I failed to climb.

In a red spruce forest at 6,600 feet on Cattail Peak.

Football??!!

Today we're going to a professional football game. I have not been to a pro football game in decades. Once upon a time I was an avid sports fan...Atlanta Falcons football and Atlanta Braves baseball. But as the years went by I lost interest in pro sports. All sports, really. I even stopped watching the Olympics.

But Carole got the chance to get two tickets to the home game between the Carolina Panthers and the Atlanta Falcons. So we're going.

A far cry from what I normally do on my weekly day off.

Cattail Peak, 6,600 feet above sea level, far from the madding crowds.

Today's experience will be much different from this kind of silence and solitude. I hope the game will be a good one.

Crest Trail Part III

The hike back to the Mount Mitchell parking lot was a bit of a torture for me after I left Cattail Peak for the last time. The thing about the Crest Trail is that you hit each of these amazing 6,000-foot summits, but after each of these you have to plunge down into the deep gaps that separate them. Thus, you are constantly losing and then having to regain that lost altitude.

I've never seen a profile map of the trail, but it has to be extreme. The constant up and down really works your muscles and lungs even when you don't have a bum knee and a really bad back. For me, it's exceedingly tough and by the time I was less than halfway back I was struggling. Fortunately, I'd started the hike early enough so that I didn't have a problem with daylight and for the first time ever for this trail I'd brought more than enough water.

So, the last three miles for me consisted of LOTS of stopping to rest and LOTS of water breaks and LOTS of extra photography.

Someday, when I'm recovered from all of these injuries, I hope to be able to do this trail as I used to be able to do it when I was in better physical condition. When that happens, I'll do another overnight traverse of the Black Mountains and camp in Deep Gap, one of my favorite campsites in North Carolina.

It was cold up in them thar hills! First icicle of the hiking season!

Some of the best views are from Potato Hill.

On the top of Cattail Peak.

The almost constant moisture on these peaks produces a LOT of moss.

Green, my friends.

The trail is like a tunnel through the red spruce.

Everywhere the moss.

Trees grasping for purchase anywhere.

This is why the trail kicks my ass.

Gnarly snag on Mount Craig as I hit the home stretch.

A last, longing look back where I had been.

Fall paints the lower peaks.

This peak below was interesting because of the difference in vegetation from one side to the other. Evergreens on the north-facing slopes, hardwoods south-facing.

The picnic area just below the summit of Mount Mitchell is EXTREMELY nice! I highly recommend it. They have dozens of picnic tables for the huge crowds that often gather on the mountain to enjoy the scenery and the natural beauty of eastern USA's highest peak.

I took this one between Mount Craig and the parking lot. And there she was: Mount Mitchell. The highest summit in eastern USA. Yeah, it has a road carved into it; a restaurant near the top; a museum just below the summit; a tower on the very top; housing for the park rangers, etc. But even all of that can't wreck the beauty of this amazing peak and its associated range.

Quiet time on Cattail Peak.