Falls Creek Falls

Amazing weekend camping and hiking in and around Falls Creek Falls State Park in TN.  Gorgeous weather all weekend long and a heck of a way to kick off the spring camping season.  All of the waterfalls and creeks are easily accessed from scenic overlooks so it was a convenient, if not a bit lazy way to see the sights.  Here are some pics from the park.  Enjoy!

Hog Roast

Well folks, it was an eventful Saturday at the Hollar house.  Despite illness earlier this week, we had a non refundable hog on order and something had to be done.  As it was our first time attempting to smoke an entire pig, we were frothy with anticipation and excitement.  What began as a box in our bathtub (too big for our freezer):

...was soon unwrapped and this sad looking grey pig was placed on the grill:

Now the next step was smoking ole Wilbur here into a fall apart, delicious mess.  Aaron brewed up some of his famous Carolina style vinegar based sauce.  Here is the recipe:

white vinegar

apple cider vinegar

hot pepper sauce

red pepper flakes

salt and pepper

brown sugar (dissolved in vinegar stove top with the remainder of the ingredients)

This delicious sauce was injected into the pig for the ensuing 10 hour period while it smoked slowly with hickory wood and charcoal.  We got the smoker on clearance and it did us well.  Here was the (nearly) finished pig:

It was quite a feast, and we ended up saving a huge amount of pork for the coming weeks.  Nice kickoff to the first beautiful weekend we've seen in many months.

Pig Pickin

You could say we are finally coming out of hibernation.  With the move to Nashville, and the purchase of a new home, we have been busy to say the least.  But as winter thaws, we get restless and head back to the woods...or at least, the backyard.

This weekend we opted not to camp, and instead to stay home, cook a pig and watch the Final Four.  Now, when I say “cook a pig” I mean, cook an entire pig.  We ordered this 50 pound Wilbur from a local butcher about 2 weeks ago.  

The original intention was to have a blow out house warming party with all my new coworkers and Nashville friends.  We wanted to expose them to original eastern carolina BBQ.  But alas, flu and pneumonia this week struck the Hollar household with a vengeance.  In lieu of infecting all of our new friends, we opted instead to cancel the party.  Unfortunately, it was too late to cancel the pig reservation.  So...pig roast weekend it is!  I have no idea how we will possibly store all of the cooked meat in our tiny freezer, but somehow we will have to make it work.

Hog roast begins tomorrow at 8am.  Stay tuned for pics...

Nashville, Music City

A day before Thanksgiving we have much to be thankful for.  But before I pontificate on the meaning of family and good friends, here's the good news:  WE ARE MOVING TO MUSIC CITY!  TODAY!  The movers show up in a half hour or so.

Here are some things we are looking forward to in Nashville:

More to come as we contemplate purchases of whitewater kayaks (kind of like buying skii's in the summer time, should be cheap!), discover all the local hikes and music venues.  The blog is going to take a new turn I sense, as we enter the winter months.  More music, less hikes probably.  Stay tuned.

Mt. Mitchell, Revisited

Before I begin, let me just say that you will notice a conspicuous lack of video footage from the summit of Mt. Mitchell.  This is because we never made it to the summit, unfortunately, for reasons I will expound upon shortly.  I worry we have sacrificed what tiny fragment of hiking cred we may have had preceding this most difficult hike, but I can explain see, the packs were 40 pounds a piece, and we didn't get started until 4:30 and it was dark by the time we came upon the first campsite and the next morning the group was less than than motivated to pack the rest of our gear up the mountain and back down the vertical slope before dark.  Excuses...

So we got a late start, and were punished every step we took in the dark on this most treacherous trail.  Here is some footage from around the fire that night, as we were so exhausted after 3 hours of packing in that we failed to capture much of the way up the mountain.

We woke up on day 2 with a group of 6 other campers/hikers and made our way back down, taking a brief detour onto the Higgins Bald Trail and then meeting back up with the Mt. Mitchell Trail.  The Mt. Mitchell trailhead begins at the Black Mountain Campground.  You can find more info at this link:

http://www.hikewnc.info/besthikes/toecane-ranger-district/mount-mitchell

A word to would-be backpackers on this trail - the best bet for breaking this hike up is to do what we did not do, and take the first fork you see for the Higgins Bald Trail.  There is a small marker that has a red tag pointing up the hill to Mt. Mitchell.  At this junction, if you head to your left you will find several palatial camping spots before linking back up with the Mt. Mitchell trail.  If you proceed on the Mt. Mitchell trail however, it will be another mile of rough switchback hiking before you reach the first camp worthy spot, and it's a tight squeeze for more than a couple of tents.  It's also not exactly flat, as we found we were constantly awaking with our feet pushing through the nylon at the bottom of the tent.

Some commentary regarding the condition of the trail:

Day 2 was infinitely more enjoyable once we found a good car camping spot down the hill near the Black Mountain campground.  Black Mountain closes on November 1, so don't plan to camp there if you are doing a late fall hike like we were.  However, there are multiple GREAT spots just off the road proceeding past the campground on the right by the river.

We set up camp and enjoyed a late night of laughter (and fire puns, see below) and sore muscles before packing up the next morning and heading back to Raleigh.

Were we to do it again, here's how it would have gone:
Begin hike at 9am, hike leisurely to Higgins Bald Trail and camp night 1 off the trail
Leave our campsite up and get an early start morning 2, around 8am to the summit
Get back down by 2 or so and pack up, hike the rest of the way to the sites near Black Mountain campground
Enjoy a big meal involving grilled meat by the river

Mt. Mitchell, Tallest Peak On The East Coast

Well folks, it's an exciting week of anticipation here at the Hollar household as we prepare for a backpacking weekend at Mt. Mitchell.  Mt. Mitchell is the highest peak east of the Mississippi.  The last time we were there was the day that Aaron proposed marriage, and that was quite a day let me tell you.

The headline might have read something like this:
Well meaning boyfriend fails to make camping reservation for intimate evening proposal, she says yes regardless!

We left on July 3rd, 2010 for Black Mountain after a Phish concert the night prior.  The drive to Black Mountain is roughly 3 hours from our then hometown of Charlotte, however as we got lost once on the way up, it really took closer to 4 hours before we slowly crept through the packed Black Mountain campground. Aaron had read online that this was the penultimate spot for camping in North Carolina, but since the campground did not take reservations, it was completely full by the time we arrived and we had no recourse but to drive on to try to find another spot.  Mt. Mitchell State Park was the closest to where we were, but driving from Black Mountain to Mt. Mitchell took another hour on the already packed Blue Ridge Parkway. With our dogs cramped in the backseat of Aaron's Chevy Trailblazer we made our way slowly to the peak, noting as we drove that the air was getting cooler, and it was getting foggier.  On a clear day anywhere else in NC, Mt. Mitchell remains typically fogged over and when we arrived at the visitor center, the surrounding hills were all shrouded in a dark mist.  It was, suffice it say, less than romantic.  Aaron, having the good sense that he does, elected to turn back back down the mountain in hopes of a better spot.

After roughly 6 hours in the car when it should have been 3 and with daylight quickly fading around us, a decision was made to turn into the parking lot of "Bob's Fish Farm" where there appeared to be some tents set up near a creek on the same property.  "Bob" was perched in a fold up chair outside his main building, and though I understood little of his grunts as we asked "can we camp here?" somehow we negotiated the reasonable rate of $10 per night to camp on Bob's land.

Let me tell you about Bob's land.  On Bob's land, there were several 1970's trailers and RV's, clearly no longer functional yet clearly occupied by some of North Carolina's finest.  There was a gorgeous creek that sat back about 100 yards off the main road and a couple of picnic tables by the river that suggested one might camp in those spots.  And so we proceeded to set up camp.

Once it got dark I didn't mind the camping spot so much.  The threat of a crystal meth tweeker/wife beater seemed a tad less ominous, though we did overhear a man yelling and pounding on one of the trailer doors "I know you're in there you slut!"

Aaron made a delicious meal of lamb and potatoes and we relaxed by the fire.  Then I knew something was up.  Aaron was putting all of the firewood we had procured on the fire, for no apparent reason, and was suddenly acting very strange.  He came up next to me, got down on one knee and proposed.  Never saw it coming.  I said yes.

Now we are returning to Mt. Mitchell with backpacks, which is a handy alternative to counting on accessible car camping.  We will venture up about 3 miles to the Commissary Ridge Campsite, which will be no easy feat.  The Mt. Mitchell trail leaves the Black Mountain Campground parking lot trailhead and climbs roughly 3600 ft in 5.5 miles.  A small price to pay for adding the east's highest peak to your list of hikes, but let's just see how we feel shall we?

Best B&B Ever>Whitefish Bar Crawl

What to do when one's tent is irreparably bent by wind overnight?  Hike out and get the hell out of there is what we thought.  The hike out was exciting - we saw a moose and a marmot, and talked about all the things we'd rather be eating than dehydrated backpacker food.  We arrived back at the car at the Many Glacier Hotel in one piece, and just in time to catch the spray off of while caps on Lake Sherburne.  2 hours later off Highway 2 we called the owner of the Bad Rock Bed and Breakfast in Columbia Falls to confirm they could accommodate us for an unexpected early check in.  Not only was Mark accommodating, he recommended a phenomenal place to stop on the way in - Perfect Cuts.

Bad Rock Bed and Breakfast, Columbia Falls MT

Perfect Cuts

With fantasies of dry aged Montana beef in our heads, we picked up speed to try and beat the clock to their door before closing time.  Couldn't have been a better experience - two gorgeous rib eyes and a rub suggested by the proprietor and we were on our way to the most comfortable stay of our lives.  A word about Bad Rock B&B - they have thought of EVERYTHING.  Literally, everything.  Need to know how the beautiful place was built?  Check your binder in your room.  Need to know where to eat?  In the binder.  Need hiking suggestions?  In the binder.  Need a razor or bear spray?  Check the basket by the mantle in the big house.  And the breakfast?  PHENOMENAL!  Need entertainment?  There's a pool table, fire pit, even magnetic poetry, for your enjoyment.  Here is someone who truly takes pride in what they do.  I find that to be somewhat rare in the hospitality business.


So, what to do with our extra day that was originally intended for hiking in and around Logan Pass?  We toyed with paying a fly fishing guide about 375 bucks for a half day on the Middle Fork of the Flathead River, but when it was raining when we woke up, we decided instead to head up to Whitefish which we had heard was a cool little ski town with a lot of great places to watch Saturday afternoon football.

We began at The Bulldog and made our way to the Great Northern Bar and Grill and Caseys before the day was finished.  Met a couple of guys traveling up from San Francisco, as well as a local who informed us that in 15 years living and hiking around Glacier Park, he had never seen a single bear.  That made us feel particularly special.  Also met the head of sound for The Bachelor - tough life for her, traveling the globe and all.  Now if we could just get our own show...

We had originally planned to dine at Tupelo - had heard great things - but alas the afternoon got away from us and we returned to Bad Rock for our final night in Montana.

Reflecting on this trip, were we to do it again, I think an early September arrival would have made more sense.  We would have been able to do Going to the Sun Road which we missed, and hopefully had better weather.  But all in all, as far as our adventures go thus far, this trip beat all we have experienced to date.  Though we aspire to see all of the nation's National Parks before we die, we know Glacier National Park will always hold a special place in our hearts for its rough natural beauty, sense of mystique and danger, and raw wilderness.