Upon arrival we were told a bear was in the campground the night before trying to get into the food boxes. We know the drill, so we made sure the dry food container was in the cab of the truck each night. Our cooler was already in the cab to keep the ice's melt rate slower.
Clif doesn't waste anytime setting up camp. For me...it's more important to get the picture!
Nice and close to the bathroom. A must for those middle of the night calls. No electric though. Just cold water and solar lights. You learn how to be resourceful to keep yourself clean!
Enjoying what will be my home for the next 4 nights.
What was cool was seeing wild turkeys make their way by on the far side of the trees.
We didn't waste anytime scoping out the area. We decided to explore sights along the Blue Ridge within the vicinity and realized we had the perfect place to watch the sunset, The Doughton Park picnic area. Obviously that wasn't the only thing to observe.
I was glad we had this opportunity because every remaining night it rained! Actually, we had on/off rain and thunderstorms all but 1 day of our vacation!
With it being dusk, we drove around the grounds. Deer were everywhere. We counted a total of 14 deer our first day.
Clif was hoping to have photo opportunities of old buildings/structures. We had seen a cemetery the night before and decided it would be best with the morning sun rather than the setting sun.
I on the other hand liked the look of the 5 trees.
He got some shots of old structures.
We then ventured into hiking. Our goal was to hike 5 or more miles a day. We hiked anywhere from 3 to 8 1/2. The first trail we wanted to hike was to Caudill Cabin (3.3 miles). Unbeknownst to us, what we thought was a road we would be able to drive down to the trail head (5 miles) was actually a fire road (Grassy Gap) that you had to hike down, then pick up the Basin Creek trail. It was close to noon and we knew we would not be able to hike 16.6 miles before dark. We later found out from a local that if we would have taken Hwy 18 around 13 miles, we would have come to a creek where we could have hiked only a mile and half on the Grassy Gap to the Basin Trail from the opposite direction.
We opted to hike a portion of the Bluff Mountain Trail instead. What we noticed is that the Mountain to Sea Trail (MST) intermingled with many of the trails we hiked.
The scenery was beautiful from the trails to the flowers and the overlooks.
Bluff View Overlook.
We could hike as much of the trail as we wanted. We started at the Grassy Gap Trail, went to the summit and returned.
There were even wild blackberries. Although not fully in season, I did find some ripe ones that I enjoyed.
View from the summit.
When we finished there we headed back to the picnic area and did Fodder Stack which was only 2 miles round trip.
A quick view first from Wildcat Rocks overlook. Just down below somewhere is where the Caudill Cabin is. Unfortunately it cannot be reached from this direction. The same local that told us how to get there said he did go straight down from Fodder Stack and just about killed himself in the process because it was so steep and of course no trail. He won't do that again!
Fodder Stack trail is pretty much along the ridge. It is very steep at the beginning of the trail. Not bad going down, but Clif and I were quite winded making that climb at the end.
Here is a picture of how steep it is.
There are was a nice overlook.
And there was a beautiful area of fern that such swaying in the wind.
On Sunday, we went to Mass in Jefferson, NC which is to the west of the Blue Ridge. There was plenty to explore there as well. We started at New River State Park. You had your choice of which of the 3 access points to use. We chose the US221 access point. The park ranger looked a little stunned when we entered the visitor center. We were in our church clothes! After getting a trail map, we changed and headed onto the trail. It was a beautiful hike, not too strenuous. We hiked down the hill to the river's (almost) edge.
A little further down the trail and we were at the canoe launch.
If you canoe the river, there are plenty of camping opportunities along the way. We walked down to take a look. What a pretty area.
Once back up to the beginning of the trail, we noticed a small pond. Taking a closer look we saw frogs everywhere.
Then, the tadpoles were huge! There were hundreds of them!
I can only imagine what it sounds like at night when the frogs get cranked up.
When we finished there, we headed over to Mount Jefferson. We heard the views are beautiful from there.
We must have misunderstood because when we reached the summit, this was the only opening we could find for a view.
The entire peak was vegetation. At least we got proof we were there.
Blueberries were not quite in season yet.
As we drove down the mountain road, we stopped at the overlooks. Oh, this is where the scenery is!
The town looks intriguing from up here. We decided to visit it when finished. It was a nice little town with character. :)
Once back onto the Blue Ridge they had an overlook of Mt. Jefferson.
The 4th of July had rain scheduled for the entire day. We thought Stone Mountain State Park would be a good choice because they have 3 waterfalls, and what better sight to see than waterfalls in the rain. Well, lucky for us, the rain fell before we arrived, and then again shortly after we left. This was an unexpected gem for us.
The first waterfall was Stone Mountain Falls (.3 mi). They made the trail nice by adding stairs down the steep terrain. An area at the bottom allowed you to cool your feet.
Small cascades continued along the trail as we made our way down a lot more stairs.
242 steps later, we finally made it to the trails leading to the middle and lower falls. It was an additional mile to the middle and lower falls. Who would have thought we'd actually see a salamander on the trail!
We had to cross the creek.
We came upon a gate blocking the path next to where we'd have to cross the creek again. We were befuddled because it didn't state where the Lower Falls trail went. Fortunately for us, horseback riders came splashing across and stopped when they saw us. We just had to continue down the trail from where they came from.
The Middle Falls weren't that impressive.
The trek back up 242 stairs was daunting to say the least. 484 round trip. Only to decide to continue to the summit. We should have just done the loop! But with the unpredictable weather, we wanted to play it safe.
Came to the stone, but not quite to the summit yet.
Our surprise...someone put the American Flag in a tree at the summit. How fitting for July 4th!
After we were finished, we checked out the campsites. We saw a turkey along with her chicks.
Then, a deer with her fawn!
They had a homestead to meander through.
Within the State Park, there is even a Baptist Church.
And lastly, a look at Stone Mountain from the Blue Ridge. We actually had to wait until the next day because of cloud cover.
We truly enjoyed our time in the Doughton Park area. The only disappointment is that because of government budget cuts, only 2 sections of the campground were opened, the concessions in the area along with lodging have long been closed. It was a sad sight to see being 15 years ago it seemed to be thriving. It is our hope that one day, it will be restored and revived.
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