Test Run - South Mountain - Memorial Day Weekend

We are in the final stages of planning for the trip. We came up with a packing theory of compartmentalization. Everything we bring is going to fit into either a bag or a drawer or the glove compartment.....but no floaters (a floater is defined as anything that has been loaded into the element but not in it's compartment).

Memorial Day weekend we loaded up the element and headed to the NC mountains to test out some new gear and take a dry run.

When we first moved to NC, the first state park we went to was South Mountain State Park (http://www.ncparks.gov/Visit/parks/somo/main.php). We didn't get to explore the whole park and wanted to go back and spend a couple days. So we drove the three hours west on Saturday morning and set up camp at a private place about 10 miles from the park (http://www.goldenvalleycampground.net/). The campground was relatively empty for memorial day weekend and was a real nice place. Their gimmick is that the stream that runs through the property can be panned for gold. They rent all the equipment and apparently if you work hard you can pull out some nuggets.

We got there around noon and asked for some firewood. The lady who ran the place told us that her son was saving for a truck and he would bring us down the wood and we should pay him directly. As we set up, we heard a tractor coming down the hill and this little kid pulled up and dropped off some wood. His name was Joey and he was a home-schooled (i guess technically campground-schooled). He told us about the property. And about all the wild animals that roamed the property - a 500 lb brown bear, a 6-foot cottonmouth, a bobcat he shot with a '22. While he was filling us in on the lay of the land, he spotted a little snake and told us he'd squish it for us. He picked up a little rock and then aimed for a bit and chucked it across the creek at it. I couldn't see if it hit the snake, but Joey assured me that he did in fact squish him. He then sat down and looked very seriously at us and told us that he had a bit of an issue - it is what is known around the mountains as 'dead-eye syndrome'. No matter what he shot with or what he was aiming at or how far away the target was, he always hits it right where he's aiming. Never missed. Just a straight up dead-eye. Then he told us he had a 37 year old dog. And that the vet told him his dog had another dozen good years left in him.

We had the campground to ourselves when we left. We got over to south mountain around 3 in the afternoon and picked out about a six-mile loop. The park is laid out so that you can only drive into the park about one mile to the trailhead. From the single trailhead, all the trails ascend in different directions and then go for miles and miles. The park seems to be designed primarily for equestrian use. Most of the trails allow for horses and are lengthy. Once you get beyond the first mile or so the small crowds are gone and it is rare to see anyone at all.

These pics are from the chestnut knobb lookout. This is the highest point we got to Sunday - about 2,200 feet. It was hot on the way up but once we got to some elevation it cooled off. On the way down we walked by an area that had recently been part of a controlled burn.

We got back to the campsite after a few hours of hiking and stopped at the office to shower. Some country bumpkins were unloading a banjo and guitar and were getting ready to play some music. They asked us to let the other campers know they were going to have a jam session so we headed down to the campsite. We had some new neighbors - a crew in a conversion van - a family with about 5 kids and a dog with a bad limp (the conversion van had run over the dog a couple weeks earlier). I told them about the music up at the office and met charles (the father of the operation). About an hour later my new friend charles came over with some contraption and told me that i was welcome to borrow his 'gold-finder' while they went into town for some supplies. I politely declined and he said suit yourself.

The next morning we woke up and the family was panning the creek for gold and having a good time. But they didn't have any luck so they went to another part of the campground to hit it rich. About 1/2 an hour later, their van came back to the campsite with just charles wife in it. I asked her if they had any luck and she told me that charles wanted her to go up to the shop and tell the proprietor that the gold-finder they had rented wasn't working. He told her to either get their money back or fix the gold finder. This drove us to consider how the conversation between charles and his wife went over the broken 'gold-finder':

Charles: Honey, I have no idea why this gold-finder keeps going off where there is no gold to be found. I swear I didn't drive up here and give that lady $15 for no gold.

Mrs Charles: It's ok honey, the kids are having fun and we should just enjoy the day. Maybe it's broken.

Charles: No, I've tried everything - and when i pull the trigger to 'find', this meter keeps pointing at the gold nugget on here but there isn't any gold or even a ruby to be found. God Dammit!

Mrs. Charles: Charlie, can i talk to you away from the kids? Ok, it's going to be a long day if you are going to get frustrated with the 'gold-finder' doesn't work. Let's just enjoy ourselves out here.

Charles: That is bs - take this damned thing back and get it fixed or get my money back. And load up the van, we are going home.

So after they took off, we ate some breakfast and headed back to the park. We picked out a nambitious route and loaded up on food and water. We walked up the stairs by the waterfall and were amazed at how steep the ascent is. The waterfall loop right by the parking lot is only a mile or so but it is straight up one side of the waterfall on stairs then down switchbacks on the other side. The proximity to parking leads to a large number of folks starting the loop without knowing what they were getting into - some with little kids, some with flip-flops, some old ones and some carrying some extra pounds. We got to the top of the waterfall and made a turn away from the parking lot.

About 1/2 a mile from the waterfall trail, Christine pointed out a brown/gray beast up ahead. I looked and about 50 yards away was some type of wildcat. Lucky for us it was heading the other way and lucky for the cat, the deefurs didn't see it. It walked up the trail about 20 yards and then turned off into the trees. We were convinced it was a mountain lion until we talked to the ranger. He said that unless it was a pet that got away from someone, it would have to be a bobcat - but regardless it was a big bastard and would have been trouble. This prompted us to come up with a plan for encounters with wild animals that could roll us. It involves dee as bear/cat/snake/eagle/alligator bait.

We kept walking, stopped for lunch, came to a crossroads and decided to take the long way. It turned out to be a bit steeper than we planned on and we didn't know how long the gallon of water would last us. We started at 800 feet and got to ~2,500 feet a couple different times. With about 3 miles to get back, we ran out of water. It was a bit nerve-wracking to get back, but we took our time and planned to bring more water the next time. We did find an additional bottle in my backpack about 1/2 way back and savored that. We ended up doing about 10 miles in about 6 hours.

We got back to the campsite and ate a good porkchop dinner. As we were sitting around the fire, we heard some commotion on the other side of the creek. After convincing ourselves that it was another wildcat or bear, we finally identified a very large rabbit drinking from the stream. Then we went to bed.