Day 15, Lone Bald to Fork Ridge

The first glimpse of human impact on the forest could be seen as soon as Polecat and I left our campsite this morning. We followed a wide trail up a gradual slope. I immediately recognized this was an old logging road. The type of road was unclear, however. When industrial logging first came to these high and rugged mountains, oxen and horses were used to haul out the lumber.

Most likely, however, we were walking on an old railroad bed. Locomotives were expensive but did a better job of accessing higher elevations. The area where we began our hike, around Lone Bald and Richland Balsam, was probably among the last of the forests to be logged, starting perhaps around 1920 or later.

A newspaper article published in 1934 and republished by a Sylva, N.C. newspaper seems to confirm we were walking on a former railroad bed. The article said tracks from logging operations that ended were being removed from these mountains.

"The railroad that is being removed was used for approximately 12 years to bring to the Blackwood mill many thousands of the finest saw logs that ever grew in the whole of the Southern Appalachian region," the article boasted.

The preserve doesn't cover the summit of Richland Balsam, which stands on the other side of the Blue Ridge Parkway. At 6,411 feet high, it is the tenth-highest mountain in the Southeastern Appalachians. An overlook near the mountain is the highest point on the parkway.

The trail was about 1,000 feet lower than the mountain's top. In reality, the trail didn't cross much of the preserve's land. It passed back and forth across the boundary several times. In one short section outside the boundary, the trail joined another old road. Here, water from Beechflat Creek spilled onto the trail, flooding the footpath. There was no room to walk around the water, forcing me to get my feet wet.

For all of the morning and most of the afternoon, the Mountains-to-Sea Trail remained outside the Blue Ridge Parkway's boundary. Another old road appeared around 2 p.m. This too may have been a railroad bed because it was wide and cut into a slope.

Before long, however, this road section became weird. First, large boulders were stacked on the road. A short distance farther, irregular mounds of dirt covered the road.

I can only guess what was going on here. Based on what I've seen on a few other trails, it's likely the National Forest Service intended these bumps to be obstacles to keep motorized vehicles off the trail.

After leaving Richland Balsam Preserve, the trail lost about 800 feet of elevation. It made up all of that on a climb in the afternoon, ending near the top of a mountain with an unfortunate name, Rough Butt Bald. The mountain's summit is at 5,953 feet, but the trail stayed about 300 feet below that.

The forest here was much different than at lower elevations. As is typical for mountain peaks higher than 4,500 feet in southeast Appalachia, red spruce and Fraser fir were the predominant trees. These types of trees are common in eastern Canada.

Just before reaching the Blue Ridge Parkway at Haywood Gap, the trail passed through a huge patch of trout lilies in bloom. It was the largest field of this variety of wildflowers I had ever seen. The number of flowers was stunning, especially when you know this plant does not bloom for the first four or five years of its life. A colony of these plants can live for more than 200 years.

We arrived at the gap at 4:15 p.m. This is where we were planning to meet Logan. He was dropped off by his wife and son shortly before 5:00. This timing was good, considering how difficult it is to estimate an arrival time on a hike.

I had not been able to backpack with Logan since I finished the Appalachian Trail. When I began planning a thru-hike attempt of the Appalachian High Route, I saw a chance to invite him to join Polecat and me for a weekend. He lives in Asheville, a little more than an hour from Haywood Gap. I was happy he agreed to join us.

There wasn't a scenic overlook or trailhead parking lot here, but it was the only place possible for us to meet today. Fortunately, the road had a wide shoulder and grassy berm, so the spot worked well.

After Logan said goodbye to his family, we left Haywood Gap and soon entered Middle Prong Wilderness. Three-tenths of a mile farther, the MST left the wilderness area and re-entered parkway land. This was a zig-zag pattern that repeated for the next mile.

The final place the trail crossed the boundary between the parkway and the wilderness area was near Buckeye Gap. The time was now nearly 6 p.m. We agreed to stop at the first campsite shown on FarOut, about 1.7 miles away. The app's waypoint said the site was only big enough for two tents, but we hoped it would be a little bigger than that.

The trail joined another old railroad bed, and this time, there was no doubt about its original purpose. Rotting rail ties were embedded into the footpath.

Most likely, this railroad was operated by Sunburst Lumber Company or Champion Lumber Company. Logging happened in this area until at least 1925.

Logs were cut from these slopes and hauled down to a lumber mill village called Sunburst. About 500 people lived there in support of the sawmill. For several years, the community included a post office, church, school, store, and other buildings.

The mill was closed in 1926 when it was moved to Waynesville. Sunburst’s post office was closed in 1928. A few years later, Champion Lumber Company built a dam across the West Fork Pigeon River to create a lake for an employee retreat center, flooding where the village once stood.

After a beautiful day of mostly sunny skies, clouds began to move in. Minute by minute, the sky darkened and the temperature steadily dropped.

Though we getting close to the campsite, we had to stop several times to check our location. A confusing array of trails went in different directions, and because we were in a federally-protected wilderness, we didn't have navigational help from trail signs and blazes.

Once we were sure we were heading in the right direction, we followed the trail up a steep climb up to a heath bald.

Oddly, when we descended the bald we found a sign pointing in the direction of the trail. I wondered if it had been placed there in sympathy with confused hikers.

Making matters worse, my FarOut iPhone app had a display bug that prevented it from showing the base map. I had to switch to my Gaia app to check our location.

We hiked until nearly 7:30 p.m., when we found the campsite near where the MST intersects with the Green Mountain Trail. As we hoped, we didn't have trouble fitting into the space.

Unlike the first half of the day, the second half was challenging, with short, steep changes in elevation. Tomorrow looked like there would be more of the same, though for now, that's not what was on my mind. I was mostly concerned about the darkening clouds during the last hour or so of our hike.

The last forecast I saw called for storms in a couple more days. I hoped they weren't arriving sooner than predicted. I didn't want anything to spoil this hike with my son.