Old Photos

One thing I love about digital technology has been the ability to take tremendous numbers of photographs that I can conveniently save on external hard drives to retrieve at some future date. This means that I can take thousands of photos that, when I used 35mm film, I had to be very careful about the shots I chose and took.

Today I was going through the files and stumbled upon a brief mountain trip Carole and I took that I had almost forgotten about. We went up to Lake Lure and Hickorty Nut Gorge to visit a friend of Carole's who lived there (at that time--she has since moved). We spent the night in their cabin and then drove up to Mount Mitchell and North Carolina's true high country. Then we made a leisurely drive back home.

I've actually been having a good time digging through old photo files. I'm sure I'll find other stuff of interest as I excavate the memories.

Taken from the summit of Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in the eastern USA. View looking toward Mount Craig, the second highest summit in the eastern US (and a mountain I prefer as it's undeveloped and I don't bump into many people over there. Also, it has a natural cliff face with phenomenal views.)

Craggy Dome. We missed the rhododendron display.

Some non-native Tiger lillies on Craggy Dome.

It was getting late as I descended Craggy Dome.

Down in Hickory Nut Gorge. If you've seen the Michael Mann film LAST OF THE MOHICANS then you have seen these cliffs. In the center of the photo is Hickory Nut Falls which is where Magua (Wes Studi) and Chingachook (Russell Means) fight to the death.

Down in the bottom of the gorge where the little town sits. I like it there, but it has become popular with the motorcycle crowd, so if you go at the wrong time you will be surrounded by bikes and their overbearing noise.

Roaming the High Country

Today here are just some various photographs I took yesterday between Bat Cave and the town of Black Mountain.

Click to enlarge this one. It's a stitched panorama of the cliffs of Chimney Rock which loom above the town of Lake Lure. This is where the final scenes from the film LAST OF THE MOHICANS was filmed. If you look on the far right, you can see the falls.

The entrance to Chimney Rock Park. For some reason that I've yet to understand, motorcyclists love this part of the state. They come here in droves. In fact, it often seems that the town of Lake Lure exists purely to cater to these folk on their noisy, farting, obnoxious machines.

This was at a spot on Shumont Mountain Road. This is a great piece of property. The people who own this land have their own sliding rock!

This amazing moth was on the cabin attracted, of course, to the light on the deck.

Because their house sits on a steep slope near the top of the ridge, it's difficult to get a comprehensive shot of the whole structure. This was from the deck that faces the gorge and Highway 9 far, far below. Bruce is an amazingly skilled craftsman and pretty much built this place by hand. He had a builder put up the shell and windows, but did everything else himself.

In the kitchen.

At Tomahawk Lake in Black Mountain. Tomorrow, details of the rest of the day spent power-hiking the mountains...