Two Days in the Blue Ridge Mountains
Rolling green hills and breathtaking overlooks every 5 minutes? Yeah, I think I’ll enjoy this ;)
We were out visiting friends in Charlotte, NC and decided to take two days to visit the Blue Ridge Mountains. What’s funny, is that I had never actually heard of the Blue Ridge Mountains prior to my husband, Joel, bringing it up. In the last couple of years, visiting national and state parks has kind of become a personality trait for the both of us… I mean, we LOVE it. We both agree that the most alive, joyous, and healthy we’ve ever felt has been on one of our many hikes through beautiful places (and maybe also ending the day with a local brew).
If you take even one second to google “Blue Ridge Parkway”, you’ll understand why it gets some admirable attention. We didn’t drive the entirety of this beautiful road, but because we were staying in Asheville it was only a quick 30 minutes before we were soaring high up on the ridge of the mountains. I’m not kidding when I say there was a breathtaking overlook every 5 minutes… for many of the photos posted along this blog, there was no hiking necessary.
Since we were only around the area for barely two days, we tried to squeeze in some good hikes. The first day we hiked the Looking Glass Rock Trail, roughly 6 miles round trip with some solid incline. The top of the hike surprised me because it was a smooth, slanted surface of granite that made you feel simultaneously uneasy you were going to lose footing, but also like you were tucked away in the most secluded and protected part of nature. You could hear a pin drop at the top of this rock. I was also in a great mood for this one because I got to test out my new hiking boots, which were a major upgrade from the $25 pair of Kohl’s sneakers that were ripping at the heel.
The second day, we did more hiking but on shorter and easier trails. We visited Craggy Pinnacle and Mt Mitchell, which is the highest mountain peak east of the Mississippi (which I now have memorized after seeing it on approximately 37 signs, lol). Mt Mitchell is very family friendly with food, restrooms, and a super smooth paved path to the top. The best part of it though, was because of the altitude there was a much larger population of spruce-fir trees, and it smelled of Christmas trees everywhere. Craggy Pinnacle is a short but rougher hike, however I think this view was my favorite of them all.
When we were at the top of Craggy Pinnacle (can we also talk about who names these for a second?? haha) there was a park ranger who we struck up conversation with for roughly 20 minutes. There are few things sweeter than watching someone talk about something they love. Matthew the ranger told us all about the area and made us feel like we probably should’ve spent a solid two weeks here instead of two days. Joel and I both agreed that he’s living the retirement dream.
We didn’t really get to spend a ton of time in Asheville itself, other than a tasty dinner at Pack’s Tavern where I got to enjoy the previously mentioned local brew at the end of a day spent outside. Although short, it was time well spent. Did I convince you to visit yet? :)
