Blue Ridge escarpment Hiking Orchids South Carolina Wildflowers
Hikes, wildflowers and waterfalls: Ashmore Heritage Preserve
False Solomon’s seal- Maianthemum racemosum
Appalachian Ranger District Hiking North Carolina Orchids Pisgah National Forest Wildflowers
Weather: Go with the flow in the Southern Appalachians
Day One: HIKING-weather or not? Hike, see spring wildflowers, repeat….again and again, but always a thrill! There are not many weather events- springtime or not- that deter our hikes. However, predicted high winds, heavy snow and lightening are weather conditions that cause re-evaluation of the best laid plans. During the Read more…
Appalachian Trail Hiking North Carolina Tennessee Wildflowers
Fork Ridge, Appalachian Trail & Baxter Cliffs
3-29-19 The Fork Ridge trail leads from the Shelton Laurel backcountry to the Appalachian Trail, near the Jerry Cabin Shelter. If you want a good workout, this is your hike. Along the way, there is a side trail to Baxter Cliffs- well, sort of. It’s not much of a trail, Read more…
Hiking South Carolina Wildflowers
Blue Wall Preserve
bearna gbaoithe- Irish for “wind gap in the mountains” Robert Macfarlane- Landmarks This hike includes sections through the Blue Wall Preserve within Nature Conservancy land (575 acres), as well as the Palmetto Trail. The Blue Wall Preserve is adjacent to 22,000 acres of protected watershed lands in South Carolina, perched Read more…
Hiking South Carolina
Foothills Trail: Laurel Valley
Faoilleach: a Gaelic term used to describe the last three weeks of winter and first three weeks of spring 3-10-19 Wildflower season arrives earlier in the Blue Ridge Escarpment, prompting us to travel to the Foothills Trail in the upstate of South Carolina. We arrived at the trail around 10, Read more…
Appalachian Trail Hiking Tennessee
Iron Mountain Gap to Cherry Gap Shelter
A theme seems to be evolving around winter hiking over the past few weeks: bone chilling mist. The weather forecast was sixty degrees and sunny for Saturday March 2, so we set off to combine views and sunshine. That was optiMISTic. In reality, the temperature began with damp, fog and Read more…
Hiking mosses North Carolina
Shelton Laurel backcountry: Jerry Miller Trail
2-16-19. We were greeting by a cold, rolling fog as we set out on the Jerry Miller Trail around 9:15. The Shelton Laurel backcountry is a gorgeous setting in any season. The green of the rhododendron leaves and mosses were a contrast to the grey mist enveloping the cove. Intersecting Read more…
Hiking North Carolina
Winter Hiking
February debuted quite mildly here in Western North Carolina, with many of us seeing temperatures around 60 degrees. So we headed up to the Big Butt trail (one of the many trails with the not-so-descriptive term “Butt”), that stretches between Route 197 at the Buncombe/Yancey county line and the Walker Read more…