When my mother passed away at age 72, a wise friend told me there would be a time each year that she would be on my mind and it might not be when I would expect it. Truth: while Mother’s Day and her birthday bring a tinge of remembrance, it’s the anniversary of her passing that carries significance for me. It has become a tradition to take the last few days of January to retreat alone and reflect, look back and look forward.
This year I stayed in a cabin on the South Toe River in North Carolina, equipped with coffee, my journals, and my yoga mat. On my way to the cabin I took a walk in the mountains.
Green Knob Lookout Tower, 5 miles north of Mount Mitchell on the Blue Ridge Parkway in NC, was built in 1931 as a live-in tower. It was occupied until the late 1970’s, rehabbed in 1996, and restored in 2013.
On a clear day back in 2010 I hiked to Green Knob as part of Carolina Mountain Club’s Lookout Tower Challenge. The route I took then was a one-mile round trip accessed from the Blue Ridge Parkway. I didn’t see anyone that day and I walked on the tower’s catwalk (not accessible since the 2013 restoration).
Today I tackled the big climb to the tower from the South Toe Trailhead, where many trailheads converge at a large parking area at the entrance to Black Mountain Campground. The Mountain Mitchell Trail and the Mountains-To-Sea Trail pass through here. No restroom facilities, though.
Start out on Green Knob/River Loop/Mountains-to-Sea Trails running together. [Note: this section of the MST didn’t exist when Danny and I hiked it, we took the road for a couple of miles.]
Trail signage and blazes were better than I expected. Within the first half-mile the two trails turn off and the rest of the way was just the long haul following the white diamond blazes up Green Knob Trail. I referred to my GAIA app for distance but didn’t need it for navigation.
Not far from the trailhead I noticed a man off-trail in the woods to the left, carrying a blue tarp. He didn’t acknowledge seeing me, although he couldn’t have missed my orange shirt. Stay tuned.
Whew! As the trail follows Lost Cove Ridge, the grade is moderately steep, flat for 50 yards, then very steep – repeat, repeat, repeat. I love the winter forest, tangles of high bare branches making room to exist together and allowing views of neighboring slopes. Dead of winter, no flowers, gray sky, stillness, no breeze at all. That description sounds unappealing to some, but I find beauty in the winter woods, glimpses of birds, the pick-up-stix placement of fallen trees and upended root balls.
I let my breathing dictate my pace, sometimes counting steps and then resting while I checked my position on GAIA. As I slowly plodded upward, I worried about how I would get back down those slopes without falling – a little bit of mud and a lot of wet leaves. My legs grew tired, emphasizing a lack of training.
Did I mention that I’m planning to hike the Centennial Trail in South Dakota in June? Training!
A little sprinkle almost gave me a reason to turn around – I don’t want to get drenched out here all alone – but it fizzled to nothing and I kept going, fighting the inclination to quit because it’s hard. Isn’t that a life lesson that we are continually learning?
The ridge narrowed for the last push, tall trees gone, now scraggly mountain laurel, vegetation changed to galax leaves in profusion.
There were more rocks, small boulders, a couple of places where I had to choose footholds carefully. The higher the trail rose, the slower I went. For those of you who calculate such things, this 3-mile hike gains about 1,000 feet in the first 2 miles, then 1,000 feet more in the final mile.
Close to the base of the lookout tower, a trail came in on the left. This is the unmarked trail from the Blue Ridge Parkway that I hiked up over a dozen years ago. Or was it just yesterday?
as blue sky breaks out above
I ate my lunch sitting at the base of the tower with the intermittent sun on my back. The temperature today ranged from 45 to 55, paired with overcast skies, perfect hiking weather.
The hike back – is this the same route? Now that I was not looking at my footing and laboring for breath, I soaked in my surroundings and enjoyed the quiet stillness, the color of decaying wet leaves and lichen.
View from Lost Cove Overlook 
The return hike took 1.5 hours, side-hilling carefully on the precarious downhills with numerous “oopsies” when I’d slip a short ways. Feeling the decreasing range of motion of this aging body, I descended boulders carefully, sitting down and lowering myself rather than hyper-extending my knees. Of course some movements are more limited as I age, but that doesn’t limit my brain. I remind myself, “Just be more careful and you’ll get there.”
Near the trailhead again I saw the same man in the woods, and on the trail was a big pile of twigs tied into bundles. Around the bend, another fellow walked up and said hi, very friendly, hastily explaining that they were harvesting birch whips, which they have a permit to do every year to sell in bundles to florists.
My personality of crossing things off lists, tallying miles, making “progress” and relishing a sense of accomplishment is a paradox to my feelings at the end of the hike: breathing the cold air, working my body, I felt both depleted and renewed, an indescribable feeling of connection and just being.
Retreat time.
“And into the forest I go,
to lose my mind and find my soul.”
~John Muir
