Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Chimney Rock Park

This past weekend, we went to the Southern Highlands to Chimney Rock Sate Park, which is a little more than an hour's drive from our house. Of course we drove because--everyone say it with me now-- in America, that is about the only way to get anywhere. I suppose one could walk or bike, but with so many cars on the road... . The weather was lovely, breezy and about 25 C, and once we got to the park, we hiked the Hickory Nut Falls Trail to the base of the second largest falls east of the Mississippi River, the 404 foot (123 meters) Hickory Nut Falls, where several scenes in The Last of the Mohicans were filmed. I could say, that because we had watched the film in the car on the way up we were all appropriately melodious when we arrived at the falls, but we weren't. We haven't even seen Last of the Mohicans, and we really aren't the kind of people to go gah gah over either acting out parts from movies or treading the ground that stars have walked on. We ate the lunch we had packed. Bram climbed around and up the side of the rockface a couple of times, and I joined him for the third one. See the tiny orange dot in the photo to the left? That's Bram. You can click on the photo to get a better view.

We hiked back down from the falls to the base of the 315 ft (96 meter) high rock (with an elevation of more than 2000 feet, the Chimney Rock that the park is named for. We cheated and took the elevator to near the top (hey, I am not supposed to be hiking at all!) and climbed the stairs for the views, which were worth every bit of the 30 second elevator ride.


Just kidding, they were amazing. We went back down to the base and did a quick hike of the Outcroppings Trail through that acro/claustrophobic's nightmare, the Needle's Eye, (think Kutna Hora silver mine, except going up, not down, and at an steep near 90 degree incline) the Subway, across the bridge from the Rock Pile to Pulpit Rock, out onto the spiral staircase and back down again, a different way this time. Then back to the car and home to plan Bram's birthday celebrations.

No comments: