Roads Closed!

When Carole and I decided to take the sled up to the high country to try some hills, our plan was to hit a state park where there are plenty of hills and no worry about trespassing on private property. The nearest park where we knew there to be appropriate grassy slopes covered in snow was Stone Mountain State Park. Upon arriving we found the gate lowered and the park closed. At this place the snow was about ten inches deep. Bad, but not horribly so. And it was still snowing at that time. Still...we were disappointed and headed to the next possible park: New River.

However, while for some reason the park service had opted to plow the road and open the park, we found that there were no good places to sled. Too many trees and no open fields. Okay, fine. We then headed toward Mount Jefferson State Natural Area. It used to be a state park, but was downgraded to "Natural Area" for various reasons (park size being one of them). At first it looked as if the park was going to be open. We drove up the road until we saw a barrier and a sign indicating that the road (and the park) were closed. Shit.

We didn't discover until later that snowfall totals at most of these parks was in excess of two feet. Too much snow for the parks to safely open. In fact, Mount Mitchell State Park not far from where we were at one point, recorded 66 inches of snowfall during the storm. Impressive.

Still, we had a good time walking around in the snow and taking photos.

Park closed. Alas.

White pines in the snow.

Deep snow (about fourteen inches here, we were told. But no good spots to sled!

I started the video just a little too late to catch a pair of white-tail does running across the road in front of us.

Goodbye till later, New River State Park!

We thought we'd visit the dairy in downtown West Jefferson and buy some fresh butter. But they were closed. Everything was closed.

The creaking noise was made by two hardwood trees growing so close together that their trunks were grinding against one another in the wind.

New River Ice.

Carole and I stopped yesterday at the New River State Park here in NC to check out the campground. All of the other state parks were closed due to the snow, but for some reason the state had plowed the roads for this one and had opened the gates. I haven't a clue as to why they opened this one.

What was interesting to us was that the New River was in the process of icing over. There were unending rafts of snow and ice floating on the surface of the river. Given several days of this kind of weather I'm sure the river would freeze over or produce ice jams (I've seen it, but not in a couple of decades). But the weather is supposed to break, and warm up. No ice jams this year.

That's the New River down there. covered in floating ice and snow.

I'll try to post some other video tomorrow.