RATtreks

Mountains To Sea Trail Hike – 6-21-2013 to 6-23-2013

I recently reconnected with an old friend whom I have not seen in over 20 years. It was good to see my long lost hiking buddy, Sam Kilby who was an original member of the Rat Patrol Hiking Club back in the good ole days. We celebrated by doing a 3 day hike and I was given the task of choosing the location. The only criteria I was given was that it had to be somewhere that Sam had not been before. Since we did A LOT of hiking back in the old days, mostly in TN, I chose to do a section of the Mountains to Sea Trail in North Carolina. I chose part of a section that my friend Bol’Dar and I had hiked last year on my annual birthday hike of 2012. Sam and myself  started on a Friday at Beacon Heights along the Blue Ridge Parkway and the plan was to come out on Sunday just beyond Huntfish Falls on FR464 (Pineola Rd). It was a beautiful sunny day with a postcard blue sky with fluffy clouds and there was no chance of rain for the week so we had a great time catching up on the past 20+ years while enjoying something we both love doing which is backpacking through the wilderness. Our first stop was the two rocky overlooks on Beacon Heights.

View from our starting point, Beacon Heights

View of Grandfather Mountain from the Beacon Heights overlook

View from Beacon Heights

View from Beacon Heights

From there we hiked down the mountain into the Gragg Valley. Since we had several hours of daylight left we did not stop at the campsite where Bol’Dar and I had camped on my last trip through this area, but instead made it all the way past Old House Gap where we took a short detour down an old forest road where the little known Gragg family cemetery is located. This is a very old graveyard that has Civil War headstones along with dozens of others from babies to adults. It is hidden well and alienated by Forest Service land on all sides and many of the graves are marked with only rocks, some of which are very unique. This is a large site, chain link fenced in and there is not room for any other graves as they are literally toe to toe throughout the entire space. We made our visit very short and tried not to step on any of the graves out of respect for the deceased, which is very hard due to the growth and sheer numbers of graves. It was getting evening time and we certainly did not want to camp anywhere near this place so we made our way back to the MST and continued down the Gragg Creek to a nice campsite about a mile or more down the trail.

Nice ferns growing along part of the MST

Friendly little watersnake we came across laying in the trail

One of the civil war graves in the Gragg family cemetery

A very old tombstone in the Gragg family cemetery

Mr Turtle. He lives in the graveyard

Nice waterfall along the Gragg Prong just above where we camped. I tried my best in the low light with no tripod

Waterfall just above where we camped. Very low light and no tripod.

We had a nice campsite beside the creek and it was a really nice night for sitting around talking about old times and catching up on the last 20 years. The next day we continued down Gragg Prong Creek on the old forest road until we reached and crossed Roseboro Road to follow the creek down to where there are a couple really nice waterfalls and cascades. Since it was the weekend and it was a hot day, there were hordes of people in the woods and many were enjoying a swim at the falls. We watched this for a while before moving on down the trail.

Lots of people enjoying the local swimming holes along Gragg Prong Creek

These are some really nice falls with several swimming holes

Girl in mid air jumping into the swimming hole !

Gorgeous dog patiently waiting on its owner to get done swimming

Another very nice set of falls downstream from the ones where the swimmers were

same waterfall along Gragg Prong

Looking down the small gorge from the top of the falls

This will be beautiful in the Fall

After the falls there are a couple of tricky creek crossings but luckily we managed to figure them out and before long we made it down to the intersection of Gragg Prong Creek and Lost Cove Creek. The trail takes a right and follows the Lost Cove creek, crossing several times until you eventually reach Huntfish Falls. It was also crowded here with all kinds of people swimming and hanging out and there are not many places to camp here but luckily there was no one at the secret place I had discovered on my first trip here with Dave a couple years ago which is where we setup camp at. We went for a swim and watched the people, some of which were doing stupid things and letting their kids do stupid things so we decided to go back to camp and cook some supper so we would not have to witness anyone getting hurt. Luckily no one did. There were other people camping in various places around and above the falls and I could see at least two fires but, it was a nice night with a large moon for the short time we got to see it.

Huntfish Falls

Feeder falls beside Huntfish Falls. These are about 100 feet high !

Upper part of the feeder falls at Huntfish Falls.

Huntfish Falls

Sam admiring Huntfish Falls

Huntfish Falls

Huntfish Falls

People enjoying the cool waters of the falls

Cool dog checking out the falls. I seen this dog dive in earlier to retrieve a camera lens cover for its owner.

An attempt at long exposure without a tripod

Another attempt at long exposure without a tripod

Huntfish Falls

Huntfish Falls

Sam adjusting his hammock at our hidden campsite near Huntfish Falls

Rock chair I built at our campsite

The next day was to be our third and last day in the woods and as always we hated that it was going to be over. On my annual birthday hike through here the year before, we had spent five days on this section and went several more miles past many more waterfalls to come out on hwy 181. It was too bad we both could not just keep on going but, I had to work so we packed up and said goodbye to the falls and climbed the mile long ascent up to the road where the car was parked. It was a hot sunny day so the first stop was an old country store to get something cold to drink. I can not wait until we can do this again as reconnecting with old hiking friends is always a pleasure and I foresee many trips to the back country in our future.