Welcome to the last video of this year! In October of 2023, my mom and I set out to thru hike the Art Loeb trail in Western North Carolina. We had a bit of a change of plans on trail, but we still had a great time. We climbed mountains, enjoyed the fall foliage, and planned future travels as we walked along the trail together.
After driving to the trailhead, day 1 was an 8 mile day full of boulder scrambling, route finding due to many landslides, and climbing almost 5,000 feet on technical terrain up to camp. We leapfrogged with a couple fellow backpackers through the day and enjoyed some casual trail chat. I was having a blast, but I knew about halfway through the climb that our ambitious goal of a 15 mile day would put us hiking late into the night. So I made the executive decision to look at the map and choose a new route that both of us would find more enjoyable. (Side note: ALWAYS carry a map that contains more than just your route in case you have to make last minute adjustments due to unforeseen circumstances!)
Day 2 was an 11 mile quasi-loop through the Shining Rock Wilderness up and over to some scenic balds where we enjoyed lunch and 360 views of the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains. The views were absolutely stunning, but the day hikers were plentiful as we approached the parking lot off the Blue Ridge Parkway. That was our turnaround point. We followed a new trail to loop back about .5 miles from where we had set up camp the night before. *Because I’m super nostalgic and you can’t make these things up: I took my first backpacking trip EVER to one of those mountains we went over on day 2 EXACTLY 7 years prior to the date. I’m glad my Google photos reminded me!
Day 3 was our “get out / get back to the car” day where we enjoyed a slow morning at camp (ok, the truth is that neither of us wanted to get out of our sleeping bags into the 30 degree weather haha) before hiking just over 6 miles downhill through some of the most beautiful forests I’ve ever seen! This trail down isn’t super popular, so it was quite overgrown in some areas. But it was stunning. The last 2 miles followed the East Fork Pigeon River; though most of the water sources on the trails were dried up for the season, the river was low but lightly cascading over the many rocks.
I hope you enjoy coming along for this adventure!
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14 окт 2024
