Black Mountain Crest Trail Trip July 4th weekend

“The down hills are really steep. We can take it slow. I take tons of photos.”

“Good, after a mile or so of solid downhill, the knees start to whine about it - slow and steady saves the day.”

“Slow and sticks for the downhill.”

“never used the sticks, but I can see how they take the pressure off the knees.

plannin on shopping for some soon.”

“Sounds like a great trip, but I'll be most likely sitting on a boat catching stripers up in Maine around that time.”

“Yeah the poles make a big difference on this trail. They saved me a bunch of times. Coming down off of Balsam Cone and Potato hill (I don't know why they call it Potato Hill, maybe someone at the visitor center can answer that question) is quite steep and coming off of Mt. Craig is a rock scramble.”

“http://ils.unc.edu/parkproject/visit/momi/momi.jpg

This is a link to a map of the park from Deep Gap to Black Mtn Camp Ground which is the second day. The trail used to be the Deep Gap trail, it's now called the Crest Trail.”

“hey MarkO, are you signing up for the trip?”

“a link to a website devoted to this area

http://www.math.uncc.edu/~droyster/vtec/crest.html”

“When we climb down off of Mt. Mitchell we will lose close to 4,000 feet in 5 miles. It's not tremendously steep though.”

“I'll try to make this trip and maybe bring others along.”

“that sounds awesome J0. Where are you coming from?”

“Baltimore”

“Marko is coming from Baltimore too and I am coming from DC. Maybe we can all go together, or caravan down there.”

“nashvillehiker, got the invite, thanks. I see a lot of us Baltimore dwellers (Balmer, hon) are coming. I'm interested, but not sure if its going to fly with my wife - she likes doing the 4th stuff with our kids.”

“"Sounds like a great trip, but I'll be most likely sitting on a boat catching stripers up in Maine around that time."
lumberzac
12:19:10 PM

SlumberSlack!!! >8^P~~~~


techntrek, tell the wife and kids to have agood time !

OK, more Baltimorons!!

We should kidnap lyra too!”

“this trip is picking up steam!!”

“Thanks for the info and invitation.. I'll go ahead and put myself down as a maybe ..”

“it would be great to have you along TD”

“I posted some new threads on the trips page.”

“man , nash, i would absolutely love to go. i was checking out the pictures, awesome. i had no idea NC had all those mountains.

i'm sorry to say it's way to far for me though. we just cant afford to fly and driving us would take too long.

i very mush appreciate the invite, hope to hook up with ya'll some other time. maybe some of you would like to do the OHT sometime.

thanks again, have fun”

“NC is high country in the east. Totally cool strat.”

“it is cool strat, you'd love it. The high spots around 4,500 ft to 6,500 have forest a lot like the northern woods.


I lived up there for a couple of years and it has become my spiritual home.”

“yeah, I love when you get up to the higher elevations and the trees are all stunted. It looks like christmas tree farms on the higher elevations”

“yeah, I love when you get up to the higher elevations and the trees are all stunted. It looks like christmas tree farms on the higher elevations”

“I'm gettin' tuned up for this one!”

“bump, for the new folks in Carolina”

“are there newbies in NC?”

“yeah man, they came over the last couple of days, from the other side

rox1
Carlette
BearCrossing (she's out west though)”

“rox1, you are in NC and I have read your trip reports from Linville. This would be a good one for you!!”

“....I will be returning June 27th from a week of maintaining work on the AT at Tri-Corner Knob.

May be beat down...still figuring.”

“Buck up, Carlette!

You can do it!

I might just drag my young bones along for this one.”

“This will be an awesome trip, just hope earthNsky doesn't fall off any thing.”

“MarkO I thought you were def or are you a defmaybe?

cool, Carlette.

I am working on building an invention that will prevent me from being a clutz. It's top secret at the moment.”

“That you, nashville?

Dang, I thought EarthNsky might be some groovy chick!

I was speaking/typing figuratively, Earthy.”

“EarthNsky is gonna have airbags attached to his pack!

lol”

“for those of you who want to car camp on Sunday July 4th night following the hike:

I called Black Mountain Campground at the base of Mt. Mitchell and the terminus of the backpack today. Camping there is first come first serve but they have alot of camp sites there. The sites are $13 per night and they allow 6 people per site, two tents and two cars per sites.”

“We can listen to the Beatles the entire way down and back up on this trip. I just thought about that.”

“EarthNsky, what kinda vee-hickle do you have?

Beatles is cool.”

“Hey roamaround I am not new I have been here for 3 yrs this is just my new name since it was what I am called anyway...but hey does having a new name qualify as being new?
I was clem35yeah...don't ya remember me?”

“I have a honda civic. It has a big trunk. I can probably get you and JO down there. Two packs in the trunk and one pack on the back seat.”

“MarkO that would be cool. Come on! This will be a...what did Nashville say? Oh, a bust your balls kind a hike!! Should be fun. I guess I still have to grow some of them though...
last time I checked...well I didn't have any balls.”

“EarthNSky (did you know it's a #&%!$ to type that name??)

anyway, I have an mitsubishi eclipse, and I fit mapleleaf, scorchfire and 3 full overpacked backpacks in it. Ask them how much room we had...LOL”

“there is a crashed airplane off the summit of Mt. Craig. We should look for it. I think it is not far off of the trail.”

“oh man, yeah let's look for it. that would really be fun. It was already found though right??”

“yeah but the remains are still there. I don't think alot of people know about it. It crashed it 1989. It's just a little puddle jumper of a plane.

Gem you should check out this backpacking forum. Alot of the people on it are from your area.

http://www.griztrax.net/gtforum/wildcountry.html

GT is the guy who hosts the forum and he is a great guy.”

“I know the name is all thats really new, but I haven't seen clem posting here in ages until the last few weeks at least. Guess you were on sabatical (sp).

Just wanted to make sure you and all your CH buddies saw this since its gonna be such a cool trip and all.”

“i'll check out the forum right now. what you mean from my area?? Nobody in SC or Columbia hikes. LOL

Roam, she didn't post for a long, long time. That makes her a newbie!! LOL”

“lots of people from Eastern TN, NC and I think a few from SC.”

“the people on that thread know their shist too. Good people!!”