reason to believe

My knee still hurts. Not only does it still hurt but there for awhile it actually seemed to be getting worse even though I was doing less than ever. I haven't ran in forever and my biking has been quite limited and my knee still hurt which is discouraging. I think it is just taking awhile to heal as my idea of 'rest' still has plenty of activity and each time I have been foolish enough to try and run probably puts me back another week. Of course I'm self employed and don't have insurance so an mri isn't something I want to pay for just quite yet. But we made it through December and like Merl Haggard says I know everything is going to be alright.

I have still managed to get out in the woods and do some stuff (which is probably a bad idea, but bad ideas are one thing I am good at). For example, on New Year's Eve I took Duma out for a real quick and easy walk to Moore Cove Falls and Jack's Falls. It is a mile round trip and as easy as you can get in Pisgah. Perfect.





We made it to the waterfalls which had these really interesting ice formations at their base:



It was unique but proved to be a photographic nightmare. Impossible to keep them from washing out. Moore Cove Falls:



From there it was on to Jack's Falls. This is off the trail, which dead ends at Moore Cove Falls, and requires a tiny bit of work to find.



I know there is a loop that goes back to the parking area from there but in the snow it was difficult to locate. I spotted an obvious old rail grade and some old blazes and headed up that even though it was heading in the wrong direction.



It was a nice trail that is maintained and had lots of old trestles and other logging relics like this knotted cable. Probably not easy to tie this stuff.



I took it nice and slow, looking for arrowheads and whatnot, and along the way found these interesting markings in the snow across the trail.



There were probably 20 sets of these evenly spaced down the trail and no other disruption to the snow (the other tracks in the picture are thanks to Duma who didn't understand not to mess them up). There was an unmarked hunting trail that broke off to the West right in the middle of the set of markings which had me thinking that they were human made to indicate direction to a hiker following another hiker. Except there had been absolutely zero sign of any human activity anywhere on the trail past Jack's Falls. So they have to animal tracks, but what animal makes such a track? Hunting dog? Black Panther? Brave readers, please help me identify these tracks!

So, anyway, I kept working my way up and the higher I got the thinner the snow got before it was gone completely from the sunny South slope. I knew I was headed the wrong direction and knew I was climbing a mountain but when I popped out onto a road I was a little surprised and had to dig the map out to see just where I was.



With Looking Glass Rock looming behind me I knew I was on FR5012 just below Bennett Gap. There was a cairn on the other side of the road showing the trail which I'm sure goes on up the short distance to Bennett Gap but I decided to go ahead and turn around there.

The return trip started with a steep descent (imagine that) that was exactly what my knee doesn't need but I went slow and it handled it pretty well. In the end what was supposed to have been a flat and easy mile walk turned into almost three miles with a thousand foot elevation gain.