Day 22, Fryingpan Mountain to above Walnut Cove Overlook

My campsite was perched on a narrow ridge that extended from the top of Fryingpan Mountain. The mountain's unusual name may have come from a spot where herders supposedly hung a communal frying pan on a tree.

A decommissioned fire lookout tower still stands on the top of the mountain, but I could not see it from the trail. Too many mountain laurel shrubs blocked my view of the summit. The 70-foot tower was constructed in 1941, and it remains one of the tallest lookout towers in Western North Carolina.

Eating breakfast and packing my gear took a little longer than usual, and I didn't get back on the trail until after 8 a.m.

The trail made a steady climb of about 975 feet, leading to the top of a ridge where Pisgah Inn was located. About halfway into the ascent, I began to see glimpses of the inn. It was partially visible through the trees, which were still bare at higher elevations.

I knew I had reached near the inn when I saw a row of rocking chairs on a ledge just below the building. People have been coming up to this mountain ridge to escape summer's heat for more than 100 years. The first Pisgah Inn opened in 1918.

A modern building was added in the early 1960s. The original inn was torn down in 1987 when it became too costly to maintain.

Work crews were everywhere when I made it up to the inn. They were making repairs and alterations in preparation for opening day on April 1. Rooms are often booked months in advance. The same was true with a national forest campground located nearby on the other side of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The site of the inn and campground was a short distance from Mount Pisgah. The mountain and surrounding land were owned for many years by Thomas Lanier Clingman, a North Carolina politician and Confederate general.

Clingman sold his land in 1888 to George W. Vanderbilt, a wealthy grandson of the railroad tycoon, Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt added it to several other large tracts of forest land he was acquiring in North Carolina. His holdings eventually grew to about 125,000 acres.

I followed the trail where it crossed the inn's parking lot and passed a campground store. If I had been here a week later, I could have refilled my water bottle at the store, and probably wouldn't have needed the water cache waiting for me up the trail.

Leaving the parking lot, the trail started another climb. Along the way were a couple more viewpoints. I stopped at one to eat a snack. The time was now 10:15 a.m.

The Mountains-to-Sea Trail climbed to the top of a ridge. Other well-manicured trails crossed here, which I'm sure are heavily used by tourists in the summer months. For now, I was alone.

One of the other trails went to the summit of Little Bald Mountain (5,271 feet). A sign pointed in that direction. It also pointed to Mount Pisgah and the campground but made no mention of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. There were also no disc-shaped white blazes showing where the MST went.

To make sure I followed the correct trail, I had to stop and check the FarOut app. It showed I needed to hike toward Little Pisgah Mountain (4,412 feet), which was before Mount Pisgah.

After passing through a tunnel of rhododendrons and navigating around a couple of ice patches between rocks, I reached an overlook with some benches. A rock retaining wall here was one of the few remaining features of George Vanderbilt's hunting and summer retreat, Buck Spring Lodge.

Vanderbilt's main home, Biltmore, was an opulent palace with 250 rooms. It was built in the style of a French Renaissance château. His lodge was far more modest and rustic, though it didn't lack amenities. The main building was two stories tall and constructed with chestnut logs. A broad porch overlooked the Blue Ridge Mountains, supported by the retaining wall that I saw today.

Construction of Buck Spring Lodge began in 1895, the same year Biltmore House was completed, and was finished a year later. Besides four bedrooms in the lodge, nearby cabins accommodated guests and servants. The kitchen was in a separate building, which reduced the risk of a fire destroying the lodge. Other outbuildings included a springhouse and horse stables. The site was large enough for 10–15 guests and staff.

Guests would have arrived at the lodge after traveling several hours on a narrow carriage road across the rugged ridges. Today, the same trip can be made on the Blue Ridge Parkway in less than an hour.

Past the lodge site, the Mountains-to-Sea Trail followed the footpath of the Shut-in Trail. Much of this section used a 16-mile carriage road that Vanderbilt and his guests traveled on to reach Buck Spring Lodge. It was called Shut-in Trail because of the closed-in feeling travelers felt being surrounded by rhododendrons.

It didn't take Vanderbilt long before he realized the massive expense of maintaining a large tract of land and operating a luxurious mansion was straining his inherited fortune. An opportunity to ease some of the financial burden came about in 1911 with the enactment of the Weeks Act, opening the possibility of selling some of his land to the U.S. government.

Vanderbilt began negotiating to sell some of his forest tracts, but died suddenly in 1914 following an appendectomy. His widow, Edith, completed negotiations with the government the following year, and about 86,700 acres were sold at a price of about $5 per acre.

The total cost of the sale was $433,000. That was much less than what Vanderbilt paid to acquire the land, but it was enough to provide some financial relief to his family.

It is because of this land transaction that I could walk across these mountains, as it seems certain they would have otherwise been sold to logging or other commercial interests. Vanderbilt's land formed the nucleus of Pisgah National Forest, the first national forest in the eastern United States.

Although Buck Spring Lodge remained on this mountain ridge for several decades, it was only used sparingly and eventually fell into disrepair. The lodge and outbuildings were torn down in 1961 as the Blue Ridge Parkway was being developed.

Except for a large tree lying across the trail in one spot, the trail was smooth and easy to follow.

When I stopped at noon for a 20-minute lunch break, I met a day hiker who was training for a trip to Peru. A short time later, some young men passed me. They said they were looking for some boulders to climb, but soon turned around and passed me again when they realized they had gone the wrong way.

The trail descended to Mill River Overlook but didn't cross the road. I arrived there at 1 p.m.

The morning's temperature had remained chilly, and I was still wearing an insulated jacket and wind pants at this time. It wasn't warm enough to remove those layers until about an hour later.

Another downed tree across the trail posed a challenge. It was too tall and large to walk around or climb over. The only way past it was to remove my pack first and then crawl under it.

The trail crossed another car pullout on the parkway at Beaver Dam Gap. This was where I left a gallon of water yesterday before starting my hike. I arrived there at 2:50 p.m. and found the jug where I had stashed it behind a rock off the trail.

Conveniently, a trash can was here. After I filled my water bottles and drank about a liter, I dropped the empty water jug into the bin. I also ate a snack while I was there, but had to put on my insulated jacket because of a chilly, gusty wind.

At this point, I had only a rough guess of where I would camp tonight. That spot was about five miles away. It looked promising on the map, but there was no way to know if it would work until I got there.

After passing under another downed tree, this time without needing to remove my pack, I began a climb to the top of Ferrin Knob (4,027 feet). The distance from Beaver Dam Gap to the top was 7/10ths of a mile and an incline of about 450 feet.

When I reached the top, I noticed that the thick layer of clouds was beginning to break up. They had kept the day chilly, and I hoped it would get warmer.

I could have camped legally at the top of the mountain because the trail was outside the parkway boundary. The FarOut app said no camping spots would be found for the next 34.4 miles. Still, with close to four hours of sunlight remaining, it was too early to stop. I decided to continue hiking and hope to find a stealth site.

A steel fire lookout tower stood for many years at the summit of Ferrin Knob. It was constructed in 1933 by one of the first crews of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and was one of the first towers built in Western North Carolina. The lookout was torn down when modern firefighting and sighting methods made it obsolete. All that there was to see of it today were four concrete pedestals.

The trail crossed a gravel road at Bent Creek Gap. I could have followed this down to a campground at Lake Powhatan Recreation Area, but that seemed impractical. Hiking there would have taken me four miles off the trail, burning up time I'd rather spend getting to tomorrow's destination. I planned to meet my wife near Asheville, and then spend the night with our son and his family.

When I left Bent Creek Gap, I met a day hiker, so I asked him if he had seen anything that looked like a campsite. He told me he hadn’t walked very far and didn’t see anything in the direction I was heading. I soon passed a site that might have worked, but the time was still too early to stop.

Sleepy Gap was 3.6 miles farther down the trail, and that was where I hoped to find a campsite. The gap was near the parkway, but a side trail led away from the road. I followed it for a short distance, far enough to see that there was no flat ground in that direction.

I continued to look for a reasonably stealthy spot to camp as I backtracked to the MST, even though I was now getting closer to the parkway. One spot seemed to work, but as soon as I pulled out my tent to set it up, I realized I could see the road. That was too close for comfort.

I repacked my tent and continued up the trail. It passed Grassy Knob without climbing it. A mile farther was the start of a 250-foot climb to an unnamed knob.

The outskirts of Asheville could be seen in the distance as I neared the top. Daylight was fading into evening, and the lights of businesses and homes were starting to appear. I hadn't realized until now how close I was to the city.

Just as I hoped, the trail flattened out at the top of the knob, which was above Walnut Cove Overlook on the parkway. According to the map, the trail was outside the parkway's boundary as it crossed the knob.

It didn't take long to find a space for my tent. It wasn't far off the trail, but at least it was a legal site. I was also pleased to find this site now because the time was 7:30 p.m. and the light was quickly fading.

As a bonus, I found a bench about 40 yards from where I pitched my tent. This was a perfect place to cook dinner.

My campsite was 16.6 trail miles from the Southern Highland Craft Guild's Folk Art Center, which was located on the Blue Ridge Parkway outside of Asheville. During my hike planning, I thought this would be the best spot for meeting my wife tomorrow. It now looked like it would work perfectly.

Knowing I could reach my goal tomorrow added to my already upbeat attitude. It had been months since I last walked as far as I did today, and yet I wasn't feeling worn down. Plus, I now knew I could meet my wife at a decent time tomorrow and at a spot she could easily reach.

Best of all, I had achieved a small victory. My campsite wasn't marked on a map, but it was likely the only place to legally pitch a tent in a stretch of nearly 35 miles.