Started at the foot of this mountain:


Ended up here, looking down at where I took the first picture from:

Here's a look off the other side of the mountain up the Linville Gorge:

That's where I stopped for lunch, and started back down the mountain. Took about 3 1/2 hours to make the trip.


Just a shot of my ugly old mug with some nice scenery in the background.

That's a nice long walk.

Beautiful Country Todd. And Yeah, quite a walk. GOOD FOR YOU!

You can't really tell it, but the trail runs right along the edge of the cliff face most of the way around. I was within 50 feet of the edge all the way to the backside.

It probably wasn't all that long ago that you couldn't have done this, eh?

No, a year ago I couldn't have walked out of the parking area. Much less the two miles up the mountain. I was looking at my topo map and best as I can figure it's about 1800-2000 feet in elevation plus the distance. And it's not like walking down the block. It's rough terrain. I saw a guy snap an ankle as I was going up.

It's all loose rocks and sand. Really tricky to walk on. The guy that broke his ankle was with a couple other guys, they splinted it up and started carrying him out. I they they were military.

Two miles uphill is a tough walk. Good for you!

My father told me tyst he used to walk files miles to school everyday. And it was uphill in BOTH directions.;)

I remember those days too. Man was it hard!

I too remember those days as a kid.

But it wasn't the distance that bothered me, it was dodging all the broken glass along the goat path. Did I mention we were so poor we didn't have shoes?