Camping on the Blue Ridge Parkway

This is what most of the parkway looked like, pretty with changing leaves and lots of clouds!

Niels and the boys at the lower falls
Christian and Aricin hanging out near the lower falls
On our way to the lower falls
Niels the Chef making pancakes for all of us

We spent the weekend enjoying some of North Carolina's most beautiful country. The mountains off the Blue Ridge Parkway in "peak" (color) season. We were camping at about 4300 ft (which is high elevation around here!) We arrived on Friday night about 9:30pm. It was Niels' second time putting up our new bigger tent, so that took about an hour of us fumbling around it the dark. We didn't get to bed until 11pm and it rained pretty much all night.

In the morning the weather didn't treat us much better. It was cold (in the 50's) foggy, rainy but not down pouring thankfully. We got up for a meal of pancakes and sausage from Dad the chef! (Note to self, no more pancakes while camping, they are messy to clean up!) We decided after breakfast to go for a bit of a drive and see what was further up the parkway. On our way out we stopped at the camp station to see about what we were supposed to do with our dishes.

There were signs on all the water spigots that read "not for dishwashing, for drinking only" so we weren't sure what to do with our dishes since it was supposedly "black bear country" and we weren't supposed to even have clothes we had eaten in in the same tent with us, and no food left out anywhere, and no food or personal care items that could smell like food in our tent at all.

This is the funny part. Niels and I had figured they just posted the "bear warnings" and had bear proof food containers and trash cans because there is a possible risk of bears, not because there really are any. So Niels tells the boys it is no problem there really aren't any around. But on the way out when we ask about the dishes the ranger informs us that they are trying to trap a black bear that got a taste of human food from some campers in our campground that left their food out. Apparently the bear isn't afraid of humans anymore. So much for the idea there aren't really any around!

So back to us driving. We always come to almost the same point when we drive up there on the parkway because of time constraints and then have to turn around and come back. Not this time! Off we went! And we found waterfalls! Not just one, but a trail that went to two different falls. The "lower falls" and the "upper falls."

We decided to hike the lower falls trail on Saturday because it had been raining so much and that trail was much shorter, only .30 miles one way. The upper falls trail was 1.6 miles one way. Off we went and the falls were beautiful! You could climb the rocks all around the bottom of them, too.

When we got back we had some lunch, then Niels and I were tired so we went in the tent while the boys played with the acorns outside and we took a nap. Ahh, I can't even remember the last time I took a nap! It was nice! After that we realized with all our driving that we hadn't filled the car up with gas before we got on the parkway on Friday night so we had to head down to Asheville and get some gas. We figured we'd grab some dinner while we were there and some eggs (since the ones we packed didn't make the journey so well). I also ended up getting us a fire starter set of logs. We had bought firewood but there was NO tinder around to get it started and if we could have found any it wouldn't have worked anyway because everything was so wet! The boys of course wanted S'mores so a fire was a must!

When we headed back up we were on our way back to the campground to attend a campfire presentation by the ranger on global warming and how it is affecting our area. Aricin lasted about 10 minutes into the charts and graphs. Niels took him back to the tent. Christian on the other hand was fascinated and took in the whole lecture! He even went up after and was talking to the ranger about endangered coral reefs. He got a junior ranger packet to do with lots of activities. After that we headed back and had S'mores around the campfire.

We put the boys to bed around 9pm and then Niels and I were standing around the fire waiting for it to burn off so we could go to bed. At 10pm Niels gasps a little and says "Is that a BEAR?" to which I look and confirm that YES, there is a black bear about 6 feet away from both of us wandering through our campsite! YIKES! All the while I am thinking to myself "I hope this isn't the one that is not afraid of humans that they are trying to trap!" Whew! That made for an interesting evening but of course he was gone before I could get the camera which I suppose is a good thing!

On Sunday we got up and broke camp and then went hiking again, this time the 1.6 miles to the upper falls. It was so foggy driving up there I could hardly see 5 feet in front of me in the car! When we finally got there we figured the parking lot would be empty. Boy were we wrong! There were way more people there than the day before!

Christian got a little upset about the fog and didn't want to go at first but Aricin and Niels got the ball rolling and off we went. Minus Christian getting a bit wet falling into one of the several creeks we had to cross, it was a pretty and uneventful hike. The sun even graced us with its presence off an on during the hike. At the falls we hung out and had snacks and drinks and then headed back. Christian and Aricin were both troopers. I only had to carry Aricin on a little of the last stretch on the way back, his poor little legs were getting tired!

And that was it, we headed for home from there and thoroughly enjoyed our wonderful weekend get away in the mountains, bears and all. (PS don't tell the boys about the bear in the campsite! We didn't tell them because we didn't want to scare them on their first camping trip)

:)

Below are the videos of the boys' acorn fight and a glimpse of the beautiful scenery and fast moving clouds!