Into the wilderness we go.......
Trip Start
May 24, 2011
1
3
Trip End
May 29, 2011
Brevard, North Carolina
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The place we decided to camp was in the Pisgah National Forest, in the Pisgah Ranger District. The past couple of weeks I had been scouting the area for camp sites and hiking trails. Since it was Belkis first time camping I didn't want to be in a campground, for obvious reasons. The great thing about this part of the forest is that there is numerous roadside camping spots and you can pitch a tent anywhere as long as your 500 feet off the road.
We made a quick stop at the Ranger Station, to get some suggested hikes and also check where the most disperesed camping sites were. The Ranger lady was a great help and we were off.
Now we were on a bit of a time constraint, considering we had a late start to the day and the drive was a bit longer than expected. I wanted to be in the forest by 1pm at the latest but we made it in there around 3:30 instead. First on the agenda was to find the best camping spot we could! We took the first Forest Road we found and headed up this dirt road on the side of the mountain. Definitely not in Florida anymore! Now this road was only about 2 miles long but took about 45 mins to get all the way through it. We had passed a couple suitable sites along this road but it was still somewhat early and we decided to check a couple other forest roads. Long story short we ended up back on FR477 and found a great spot right along the creek!
First order of business was to get the tent set-up before dark. We had plenty of time to do so until we ran into problems with the tent. When I went to go put the tent poles together all the strings had rotted on them and snapped (thanks Uncle haha). The poles kept falling apart as we tried to setup the tent!! After about an hour or work and a whole lot of cussing we finally managed to rig the tent up and make it work!
Now that our sleeping quarters were set up we decided to go explore the forest a bit!
We didn't feel like getting involved with a huge hike, considering we had been driving all day and it was already about 6pm. So we decided to drive through the main road in the forest and see some of the sites off of that road. The first place we came to was Looking Glass Rock. It received its name from the massive granite face you can see from miles away. Now we didn't do this hike on the trip but definitely one we will do when we go back.
After taking a few pictures we moved on to the next stop just up the road which was Looking Glass Falls. The great thing about this waterfall is that you don't have to hike at all to see it. It is located directly off the main road through the forest. This was a beautiful plunge waterfall that was about 60' high. Swimming is allowed at this waterfall but the water is ice cold and we didn't dare to get in. After about 30 minutes of walking around and taking pictures we decided we should head back to camp and start the fire and cooking before dark.
I'm happy we decided to bring the little grill because it just made cooking a breeze. The first night we made some steak sandwiches and drank beers by the fire. It was a perfect night out. Temperature was about 68 degrees. The great thing about our campsite is that we were directly along a little creek with about a 3' ft waterfall, so all we heard all night was the soothing sound of this creek. Being from a pretty populated city we don't get to see many stars at all but this was totally different. There were stars everywhere you looked just peaking through the trees of the forest. The moon was huge and lit up the sky. Our dogs got spooked a couple times because of fireflies flying around them and both would start barking at them lol. After a few beers and a good dinner it was off to bed because we decided to do a 6 mile hike to a couple waterfalls!
