High Pointing
May/June 2021
May 23, 2021 Sunday
First leg of this road trip was from our home in
Our campground for our short stay here is Greystone RV Park,
one of the newer RV parks in the area and quite small with only about 12
spaces. Each site has an unobstructed view of
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| Pilot Mountain |
In the Andy Griffith series, Sheriff Andy would often tell
his less than capable deputy Barney to watch over the town while Andy rode over
to
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| L-R Andy Griffith as Sheriff Andy Taylor, Ron Howard as Obie Taylor, Don Knotts as Deputy Barney Fife and George Lindley as Goober |
We arrived early enough in the day that after we set up camp we had enough time to drive to Mt Airy. Being Sunday the town was all but shut down but we drove around and saw all the tourist traps that claim some connection to the show. I didn’t think I would be all that interested in the town and my hunch was right.
May 24, 2021 Monday
The highlight of our stay in the
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From the little pinnacle there are numerous viewing areas that look across to the big pinnacle. There is a trail, maybe a ¼ mile long that runs along the crest of a ridge that connects the two peaks of the mountain.
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| On the pinnacle trail |
Once at the base of the stone tower that tops the big pinnacle there is a trail that runs all the way around it. Although the trail was rough and uneven in places Millie and I decided to hike all the way around. It’s a very cool experience, panoramic views of the countryside off one shoulder and a towering rock wall at the other.
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| Greystoone campground from 1 1/4 miles away. |
One unexpected surprise when we got about ¾’s of the way around was we could see the campground and our RV way off in the distance.
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| Sony pocket camera 30x digital zoom from over a mile away |
May 25, 2021 Tuesday
On the road again today we drove to
We stayed at Creekside RV Park, which is smack in the middle
of
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| The creeper trail |
We stayed in
We had planned on running the Creeper Trail again, but on our last full day here the weather did not cooperate and we didn’t want to ride wet, for safety on the downhill trail and comfort.
We did explore by truck and found a rock formation with a highway tunnel thru it. We hiked to the top using a series of steps cut into the rock. Millie counted them on the way up, I don’t remember the number of steps but it was a lot. There wasn’t much of a view at the top, but it was an interesting rock feature. We saw it, we climbed it, we will probably never return.
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| A lot of old stone steps |
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| Ridge that crosses the road |
Down the road a piece were signs for a waterfall, once we entered the forest there were no more trail markings and I was beginning to doubt we were going the right direction. I was thinking about turning us around, but just then we came upon the falls. Like the rock tunnel, it was just so-so as an attraction. It would help if some organization took over responsibility for maintaining the trail.
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| small waterfall just outside of Damascus Virginia |
May 29, 2021 Saturday
We started our trek to Gatlinburg on I-81 which is the main
throughfare here in the mountains. There was heavy truck traffic on the
interstate so when we got to
Like our first two stops on this trip, this was a new campground for us. We stayed five nights at Twin Creek RV Resort. It is located just on the outskirts of town. It’s a nice park, not as pristine as the online pictures depict, but that’s true of all campgrounds. It was convenient to the grocery store and had a shortcut one lane road from the back of the campground to the other side of town beyond the constantly congested junction of 321 and 441.
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| Gatlinburg |
Speaking of congested, Gatlinburg’s recent popularity has caused
it to reach an inversion point whereas it is no longer worth visiting. The
little hamlet itself is just jam packed with people. We were here on a holiday
weekend but others have told me it was shoulder to shoulder when they were
there at other times. It’s a shame you have to go through the town to get to
the
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| On the trail to Laurel Falls |
The park is also overcrowded to the point that it is no longer worth the effort. All of the trail heads, all of the points of interest areas were just overrun with people. I will not go back to this side of the park unless something changes, and I don’t see that happening.
Gatlinburg
We nixed our plans to rent a UTV, I didn’t want to add to the mayhem on the mountain. I just wanted to ride one, its something we’ve not done yet. It’ll have to be in another place that is less crowded.
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| UTV |
We drove into Pigeon Forge one day; we had tickets to the “Soul of Motown” show at the Majestic Theater. The black entertainers that do all the Temptations style song and dance numbers were very good. It’s the same show we see every time we come to town and we always enjoy this genre of black music from our younger days. This year however the females that do all the black female hits from the Motown era were all white. This was quite frankly, very weird!
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| Soul of Motown? |
June 3, 2021 Thursday
We departed Gatlinburg on route 321 driving east to I-40. We
drove the interstate down the mountain on the
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| Table Rock |
Table Rock is an older park and made in a time of much smaller RV’s. They have recently improved one area of the campground and we were able to get a site there. It was still a bit of a challenge backing uphill on newly laid loose gravel while turning into the camp site. This is the first time I’ve had to use four wheel drive to maneuver the travel Trailer.
There is a day use area in the park that has a small lake
and some sort of lodge type building, probably for weddings, etc. For some
reason I neglected to take any pictures in
June 4, 2021 Friday
We only have one full day here so we got right to our reason
for our visit, to summit the
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| Short hike to the South Carolina high point (Sassafras Mountain) |
The mountain is shared by North and
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| High point of South Carolina (3560 feet) |
We also hiked to two waterfalls in the Table Rock area on Friday. One was a short distance off the road and because of that there were numerous people there. It was nothing like the crowds on the north side of the Smokies, but ideally you always want these wilderness experiences to be solitary. It was a minor waterfall if I remember correctly.
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| Small unnamed falls |
The 2nd one was harder to find, we drove a good ways into the mountains, the road getting smaller and smaller, finally it was just two ruts in a dirt lane.
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| Trail to Falls |
The hike from the small parking area was maybe ½ mile long. It was mostly a flat dirt trail that followed a small stream. At one point along the trail there were snakes sunning themselves on the rocks in the stream and one right in the trail. I shoed him (or her) out of the way with my hiking stick.
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| A very special place |
When we finally got to the waterfall, we were amazed at its beauty and just as moved by its tranquility. It was the kind of place you whispered your words so as not to break the magical feel of the three side by side waterfalls.
Those falls are about 40 foot tall
It was deep in the forest and there were very few visitors while we were there. Millie and I sat and admired the natural scene for a good while and maybe two couples came and went.
On the way back to the truck, the snake was back on the trail, like he owned it. And I guess he does.
June 5, 2021 Saturday
From
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| Our truck and RV at Mountain View Campground |
Our campground for this stay is Mountain View Campground. It came highly rated on the internet; in fact I don’t think I read anything negative about it. It is an old campground with new owners, who have invested time and money to make it a very nice place. Once again our campground choice is on the small-ish size, this one with maybe 35 spaces. It is lightly wooded with camp sites mostly dispersed around the perimeter. In the center is an old building with a big porch that they have turned into a theater. They have musicians every weekend and the show can be indoors or out depending on the weather. We had a perfect evening when we were there and enjoyed old time music by Doctor Paul, who once was a contestant on “the Voice”.
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| Campground entertainment |
The husband and wife owners of the campground, I forgot their names at the moment are still very enthusiastic about running the business. The gregarious couples were constantly about; doing things, checking things, conversing with the guests and making them feel welcome. We wish them well in their adventure and will definitely stay here again if we are in the area.
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| Mountain View CG. |
Brasstown Bald is the name of
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| Georgia's high point Brasstown Bald (4784 feet) |
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| Trail to the high point |
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| Tourists at the top |
There were lots of people at the top, thanks to the shuttle,
like most of
At the top of Georgia's high point
A note of interest: When we neared the top of the mountain we started seeing Chestnut tree saplings growing in the forest. Unfortunately the fungus that wiped out all our chestnut trees will kill them before they become much larger.
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| chestnut trees |
We stayed at Hiawassee for three nights, two full days. We
drove around the town and circled around the southern portion of
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| Helen Georgia |
We also drove down to the town of
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| The bottleneck in Helen Georgia |
The problem is its too close to the large population of Atlanta and the basically one street town was jammed tight with cars, buses, pedestrians, pedal and power bikers. Even the creek that runs thru town was overrun with kids tubing on giant pink or blue floats, depending on which outfitter they rented from.
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| The river runs right thru town |
Saying it was surreal is not an exaggeration. This is definitely not our kind of amusement. We never got out of the truck; there was no where to park even if we wanted too. We followed the snail’s pace traffic thru town and then drove about a thirty mile loop out into the country so we would not have to go back up the only thru street in “Bavaria”!
June 7 2021 Monday
We departed Hiawassee and back tracked to
The high point road trip
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