The Grandfather Trail

The Grandfather Trail

Grandfather Mountain, NC

Saturday, August 20th, 2011

After enjoying an awesome Sunrise from on top of Grandfather Mountain I decided to go for a hike!

One of my favorite trails anywhere is the Grandfather Trail. Since I have written about this trail several times before, I won’t go into a lot of detail. Instead I will just post some photos.

View of the Mile High Swinging Bridge a short distance up from the trail head

Approaching McCrae Peak - Very Steep Climb Ahead!

A series of Ladders Lead the way up McCrae Peak

A more distant view of the Mile-Hile Swinging Bridge from a bit over a Mile High!

The last Ladder up to the Summit of McCrae Peak

Iggy Crawls out of my pack on McCrae Peak

One of my favorite Rock Formations along the Grandfather Trail

In the past, I have only hiked this trail as far as Calloway Peak, but today I would go a little further.

A short distance past Calloway Peak, I spotted something in the woods. Being the curious person that I am, I had to go investigate. It soon became obvious that scattered around were the remains of an old plane wreck.

Plane wreck a short distance off trail near Calloway Peak

I later learned that the wreckage has been there over 30 years. On May 12th, 1978 a pilot flying solo took off from the Asheville, NC airport in a Cessna 182Q. He got lost in the thick fog and crashed into the tree covered mountaintop near Grandfather Mountain’s Calloway Peak. The pilot did not survive the crash!

I continued east along the trail a short distance to the “Viaduct View” which offers a nice, but distant view of the Blue Ridge Parkway’s Linn Cove Viaduct.

The Linn Cove Viaduct along the Blue Ridge Parkway

I hiked about 3 miles in which would make for a total of about 6 miles. However, this 6-mile hike feels more like a 10-mile hike!  Because of my nice early start I didn't see a single other person on the hike out, but saw about (50) others on the hike back in.

A couple of other hikers on top of McCrae Peak