Crowded Mountain

It only takes me about twenty to twenty-five minutes to drive from the house to Crowders Mountain State Park. Over the decades that I have lived here it is the park where I most often end up when I feel like hiking on steep terrain but don't have the time to head for the real mountains.

So it was today when I took my second trip there in two weeks.

Today I hiked to the top of King's Pinnacle. It's the highest mountain in the park at just a tad under 1800 feet above sea level. Yeah, I know. Pretty pathetic even when compared to a park like South Mountains. But the summit does stand over 900 feet above the surrounding terrain and there are cliffs all around the top, so it's an impressive little mountain.

One thing about Crowders Mountain State Park is that I never really see any wildlife. The only creature I can expect to see are Turkey buzzards. Other than those, the only wild animal I have ever seen in the park was an otter. This was really strange because there is almost no water there...just a couple of small streams and a very small man-made pond. What this otter was doing in this dry, rocky terrain is a mystery. It crossed the Pinnacle Trail in front of me, paused very briefly, and hurried along. I suppose it was headed for a decent creek or river somewhere and was just passing through.

I think the reason I never see any wildlife there is because of why the park is affectionately known as "Crowded Mountain". Since it's so close to Charlotte and Gastonia, a lot of people go there to hike. On a busy day you will encounter hundreds of people. This was a mid-week hike for me and I still met up with well over twenty other hikers. So don't go there expecting anything like solitude. You won't find it, unless you decide to leave the trails and go bushwhacking through the woods.

All in all I had a good time today. Climbing up there was a decent little workout. The wind was brisk and the skies were thinly overcast and the temperatures were very mild. It was a fine day to be out in the forests climbing mountains.

There are a butt-load of rocks in that park.

They're not kidding. It seems hardly a year passes by without someone falling and getting killed on the cliffs on King's Pinnacle and Crowders Mountain.

This is the most popular overlook on King's Pinnacle. Not quite the summit, but it does offer a view of the high mountains far to the west on a clear day. You can even spot the Black Mountains from there when the conditions are right.

King's Pinnacle. Good for an infusion of hiking upward.

The Otter

When I first started hiking and backpacking it was hard to find some wild animals that were historically a part of the South. They'd been hounded by over hunting and habitat fragmentation to a point where some of them were genuinely rare. It's hard to believe, but even alligators were once scarce throughout parts of their former range.

One animal that always eluded my quests was the river otter. I would keep my eyes peeled for them, but never so much as a glimpse. You just didn't see them because they were few and far between. In fact, I didn't spot one in the wild until I was almost 20 years old, and it was at the edge of Liptrott Island in Brunwick, Georgia. Because I'd been waiting for such a thing for so long I could hardly believe what I was seeing. Yes, they were that rare.

These days I do encounter them when I'm in the low country. But because they're aquatic and also extremely active, they are very difficult to photograph. Usually when I see them I'm actually on the water in a canoe or kayak and that's when I have one of my cheaper cameras along. So I've never been able to get a nice photo of a wild river otter.

So, when we arrive in the panhandle of Florida in few weeks I will look--as I always do--for the elusive and hyper-active river otter. Maybe, finally, I'll get a nice photograph of one.

Sadly, the clearest shot I've ever taken of a wild otter. This one had just caught a fish and was chomping away on it. Taken on the Rainbow River below Rainbow Springs.

This is about all I ever see of otters when I'm on the water. Generally their heads popping up or their backs as they roll and dive. They move like greased lightning through the river.