Another vacation spent hiking mountain trails

For the second year in a row, my wife and I chose to take our vacation the third week in September and to spend that time thousands of feet above our usual location down here in the Coastal Plain. Last year, we began in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and worked our way down Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway to Mount Pisgah, southwest of Asheville. This year, we headed straight to Mount Pisgah and made only short drives from our base as we sought out different hiking trails and landmarks.

Both years, we spent most of our days on hiking trails, working our way up steep slopes and through dense forests. Our rewards for these treks (nine miles or 22,000 steps in one day on three different trails) were majestic views of the mountain-ridge-rumpled horizon or waterfalls or simply the enjoyment of walking deliberately along rock-strewn paths.

This year, cloud and fogs rolled into the southern Appalachian mountains and obscured some of the sights we had wanted to see. The fog, sometimes so thick that I could not see 20 feet in front of me, even made it difficult to get to our destination, the Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Once there, the clouds obscured our view of the great vistas the inn's location provided. But the fog did not linger all day, and the sight of the sun peeking through the clouds and shining spotlights on small segments of the landscape made the views even more appealing.

During our resting moments, I managed to read two novels. But even in the mountains, with spotty cellular service and very limited Internet access, I responded to several business emails and one business phone call (taken while I was halfway up a mountain trail). Being able to keep in touch with the world is a great advantage over just a few years ago, but it has its negatives as well.

Already, we are thinking of where we should go next ... back to Shenandoah or Mount Pisgah or perhaps to some trails we've never seen at Acadia National Park or Rocky Mountain National Park, or even Yosemite. As John Muir said, "The mountains are calling, and I must go."

The mountains are calling, still

In Wilkesboro, at the edge of the Appalachian Mountains, this weekend, I came across a John Muir quote I had seen before: "The mountains are calling, and I must go."

Driving downhill Sunday afternoon toward the Coastal Plain, hundreds of feet below the place where I had spent two days and three nights, I thought about the Muir quote and felt the tug on my heart for the places I had been, where the horizon rises up, reaching for the sky. The mountains are a different place, not just a different topography but a different environment and a different culture.

The hardwood trees are leafing out now, giving an opaque green cloak to the hills and mountains. In the fall, they will wear different colors and in winter will shed their clothes and stand like starkly naked skeletons against the sky. We walked along a gravel road and crossed a burbling mountain stream, falling over rocks to make a soft song of comfort and ease. We sat on the screened porch and listened to the creek's lullaby.

Trees crowd the steep hills all around us, their roots giving aid to the granite stones to keep the hills in place. Here and there, a pasture interrupts the forest or a house peeks through the trees, but mostly the landscape is covered in trees, unlike farther east, where housing developments and huge farm fields erase nature from view. The sight of mountain trees beckons me and reminds me how long it has been since I visited.

Anyone who has spent any time among the hills knows mountain culture is different — simpler, earthier, less formal, some would say less refined — than a few hundred miles to the east. I am a part of that Coastal Plain culture and relish it, but still the mountains call. And when I go, I know I've been away too long. The arduous hike to the peak to look all around at hills and knobs and prominences is worth the effort. You can hear the mountains calling and feel the tug on your heart.

Mountain goodbyes are always sad

Faced this morning with the prospects of leaving the mountains after two relaxing and awe-inspiring days, my daughter appealed to her parents: Wouldn't you like to take Monday off and stay another day? The cottage at Montreat had worked an extraordinary change in her children — they slept nine or 10 hours after a couple of long, sleepless nights. Their parents and grandparents likewise relaxed to the point of limpness. Whether it was the serenade of the cicadas or the mist floating between the mountain peaks or the view of sunlight dancing off the mountains while all below was in shadows or the cozy screened porch with views across the valley, it had been a truly relaxing couple of days. Regardless of age, from 1 to 61, we all hated to leave.

As I shifted our car into a lower gear to hurtle down the steep Appalachian slope just east of Asheville, my wife in the passenger seat noted that this stretch of interstate with its frequent warning signs and runaway truck ramps always saddens her. It means she's leaving the mountains. Although we've lived east of Interstate 95 for 30 years, we still love the mountains, and this weekend, when we went to Asheville for a family reunion, reminded us just how much we've enjoyed our lifetime of visits to western North Carolina and western Virginia. A hike at Linville Falls Friday and another at Montreat Sunday invigorated us. The air is different there, and the light filtering through hardwood leaves is different. To stand on a mountain peak and look back on the valley where you'd begun your hike carries a sense of accomplishment too often missing in modern life. To see the thick forests and rock-strewn paths of the Appalachians unites us through some genetic memory connection to our Scot-Irish ancestors, who found the ridges of the Appalachian range reminiscent of their Scottish Highlands. Those ancestors fell in love with these mountains and valleys, and our own passions are infused with that love of place.