Friday night I met up with Jonathon and and we headed off to Shining Rock Wilderness for a little overnight hike. We got to Big East just after 6 and it was raining. So, I put on my rain gear and we got ready to head out. But by the time we were ready to go it had stopped raining so I took the rain gear off and we headed up Big East Fork. Our plan was to all the way to Bridges Camp Gap trail and then pick a campsite somewhere out of the wilderness where we could have a fire. Somewhere along the way it started raining again as we made our way up the river:
It has been raining for a week here and there is a lot of water moving down Big East which made for a very exciting trip up the trail. Somewhere along the way it got dark and we left the Wilderness:
I had remembered a very scenic spot along the trail with a bridge over a pretty spectacular section of white water and had thought there was a good campsite there but in the rain and the dark we pretty much just picked the first campsite we found. It had stopped raining for a minute and I scrambled to get my gear set up while Jonathon tried to get a fire started. Everything was very wet and the campsite was well used and heavily picked of any dead wood and our attempts at a fire were in vain and we instead huddled under my tarp and picked our route for the next day.
At 4am Duma decided he wanted in Jonathon's tent and started barking his demands. This continued intermittently all night but my added luxury of a piece of a sleeping pad meant I was able to stay warms and did get some sleep.
8:30 am and we were headed back down the way we came for Greasy Cove:
It wasn't raining anymore and was a very nice morning to be out on a mountain. We passed this old rail trestle near the bottom of the trail:
Many cascades along the way:
Dogs and Rocks:
Sun and trees:
I'd wanted to take the connector trail up to the Art Lob and have had a hard time following it before and our attempt this time was just as unimpressive. We started out on a trail and then it sort of faded away and I decided we should be headed more westward and we set off on and all our bushwhack. Poor Jonathon had a wide pack he warned me would not be good at bushwhacks. He has a good spirit though and when we hit the Art Loeb he was smiling:
We quickly headed for the 6k summit of Grassy top:
If you've never been to the section of the Art Loeb from Black Balsam to Shining Rock you need to go. The place is amazingly beautiful. As we made our wany down into Flower Gap I spotted a tarp the appeared to have been abandoned and I knew we would have to carry it out
It was abandoned and was very big and very wet. We got it folded and lashed to my pack and I went from traveling light to twice the weight. Hard to believe someone would leave such a thing in a place so beautiful.
From there it was on up to Shining Rock itself. First the summit for a second 6'k peak of the day:
Then down to the rock itself:
On the way down Shining Rock Creek our packs were heavy and we were tired and the going was slow. But still quite scenic:
Somewhere near the bottom it started raining again. Not just sprinkling but really raining hard. Great big huge buckets of rain.
I don't think it has stopped since.
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