Nature School :: Whatever the Weather

It was drippy and almost warm today, a sharp contrast from a week ago.  There are still bits of ice on the river and piles of it, here and there.  We traded our cold and dry for warm and wet, which we did need a little of.  We went to Linville Falls yesterday, quite the adventure for us, what with getting lost and all the fog and mud.

I had my sights set on the Ice Rocks in Doughton Park, but the warm weather made the Park Service decide to do some road work in that area.  The ranger was so courteous as to call me after I had inquired about access to the rocks, and we'll try again in a couple weeks.  The thing about the Blue Ridge Parkway is that it has many closures in the Winter months.  It's not feasible to plow the whole length or keep it all open when the high ridges are so inhospitable. 

Linville Falls, having been frozen pretty solid last week, seemed like a good consolation prize.  The Parkway was closed in that area, too, so I took an alternate route.  It was impenetrably foggy.  Like so thick you could run a stop sign before you saw it!  Not that I did, but it was close!  I was doing some very slow driving, to be sure.  US 221 is a beautiful road and there were giant boulders and frozen falls along its route.  Somewhere in all that fog, I got a little lost.  Back on track with the help of some locals, we found the trail head.

I was hoping to hike the Plunge Basin Trail, which would have put us waaaaay down at the bottom of this photo.  Its approach is from the Parkway side, so we couldn't get to it without an extra mile.  Instead, we walked to all the other overlooks.  There's one at the top of the photo, and a couple along the way, one being so far you can barely hear the falls! 

Everywhere, the frozen water and the frozen earth gave off so much fog.  It was pretty comfortable, though I hear it was sunny and warm in some places.  Forty feels pretty good right now, to be honest, though I am looking forward to some more ice-building weather.