52 Hike Challenge

There's this thing, maybe you've heard of it; take one hike a week for an entire year. Or 52 hikes within a years time, the schedule is all your own. Call it a challenge, and I'm interested. Accepted.

I've decided to start my year of hikes the first week of April, surrounding my birthday, knowing that one year from now I'll be entering my 30th year with 52 more hikes under my belt. Sounds like a badass kickoff to me. So among the other things I gifted myself this year, I'm giving myself a challenge, a goal, peace of mind, exercise, and a little bit more freedom.

Speaking of freedom, I took a bit of that this last week and drove to NC to visit Hiccup, my trail soul-sister and greatest hiking partner. We took several killer hikes during the week, but I'm choosing to count them all as my first hike of the 52 Hike Challenge.

4/4 Hike 1.1 Grandfather Mountain ~12 miles

Third time's the charm! I've made my way to the Boone, NC area twice before with the intent to hike Grandfather Mt, but both times been waylaid by bad weather. This time it was bluebird skies and sunshine. And since we didn't actually plan to hike Grandfather, it turned out to be the perfect opportunity. We staged some vehicles at trail heads and started up the Profile Trail. I guess I forgot, but hiking is HARD! Several miles uphill and a wrong turn later had us at unbelievable views and scrambling over rocky outcroppings. This is an adventure hike for sure. We climbed ladders and hoisted ourselves up with cables. Getting to the Mile-High "swinging" bridge (it did not swing- major disappointment) was only half way. Back through the rocks, up and down more ladders and a quick view off Calloway Peak took us to the Daniel Boone Trail. A few more miles down hill was our reward for being sunburned, hungry, and happy to find the bus.

4/5-4/6 Hike 1.2 Mountain to Sea Trail: Linville Gorge ~6 miles

I'll just throw out there that these were our main hiking plans and they were the least successful, in a certain perspective anyway. We spent the morning staging cars again for a planned 20 ish miles and 2 nights on the MST through the Linville Gorge and over Table Rock. We maybe didn't do our best research on this one...  After a few miles of hiking down the steep, muddy gorge trail in a pretty persistent rain we got to the "river fjord" What river fjord? Yes, that's exactly what we said. This is why you should read your guide books. As if the described 60 yard, knee deep crossing didn't sound fun enough, the weeks worth of rain leading us to the river made the realistic crossing about 100 yard across and waist deep at first step. We laughed a little. Hard pass, please. The good news is, the rain had temporarily stopped. We back tracked to a spruce forest campsite with a killer view of Table Rock across the gorge and set up for the night. I scavenged some decently dry wood and after struggling for an hour to light a fire, cheated my way to flames with some paper and hand sanitizer.

That night laying in my tent, rain beating the nylon, I watched lightning silhouette the frail structure keeping me dry. Thunder echoed through the gorge with enough power to shake the mountain under my sleeping bag; the heaviness of it shook me a bit too. I was warm, dry, and curled into a very pleasant sleep despite my exposure. Our morning was just as incredible as the the nighttime storms cleared to sunrise beyond Table Rock and lightened my disappointment of not walking over those distant ledges. Not this time.