(click on the links in the text for more photos)
(click on the links in the text for more photos)
Shining Rocks Wilderness Backpack, August 4-5, 2001
Pictures and text by Will Skelton
North Carolina’s Shining Rocks Wilderness is a busy place in August, no doubt in large measure due to its reputation as the premier place for picking wild blueberries in the southeast. The Harvey Broome Group has been doing August backpacks to the Wilderness since the early 1970s, and we’ve seen the crowds growing (and the sometimes concomitant overuse of the land). So this year I plotted a loop route designed to avoid the crowds that proved quite successful; we saw only 6 other people the entire weekend (including an Asheville doctor and his 6 year old son who were, it turned out, somewhat lost; they ended up at our trailhead just after we finished, 10 miles or so from their car; we did the right thing and gave them a ride).
For future reference, our 9-mile or so loop backpack turned out to be a really good one, lots of scenic variety from woods to creeks to mountain balds, good trails, great campsite. We descended from the Looking Glass Rock overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway to the East Fork of the Pigeon River, ascended Graveyard Ridge, then over to Ivestor Gap, down Grassy Ridge to Grassy Cove Gap, down Greasy Creek to the East Fork, then up the East Fork to the trailhead. The trails are shown on the National Geographic Trails Illustrated “Pisgah Ranger District #780” map, although the exact location of the trails, as is typical of their maps, are not always correct.
John Kilpatrick, Priscilla Watts, Ray Payne, Bill Collins, Townsend Collins, and Susan Birdwell made up our group (Susan was a first time backpacker and did great, with our only suggestion being that she do a little equipment tweaking, perhaps with HBG equipment guru Roger Jenkins). We started hiking with 100-yard visibility and a misty rain. But things cleared a bit, and the rain stopped, when we reached the high peaks that are covered with grass and blueberry bushes. We found some blueberries and blackberries but were unfortunately about a week or so away from prime blueberry picking.
At a high elevation trail junction we were taking a break when one of the weekend’s highlights came yodeling out over the ridge from the forest above: a perfect imitation of the famous Tarzan victory cry, three times, then no more. Ray went up looking but couldn’t find anyone. Was it a strange backpacker, or “Tarzan of the Shining Rocks?” We weren’t sure, although we did check out the “upper level” of trees in the area.
We cooked, dined, and camped at a nearly virgin campsite, unusual in this Wilderness, in Grassy Cove Gap. Much of the area, including the gap, was obviously a former grassy bald, with lush green grass still everywhere. And huge oak trees that somehow the loggers missed. Plus a spring and creek just 1/4 mile down the trail. Lots of hard rain during the night but most of us stayed dry, and the others (while reassessing their tent choice) only relatively dry.
