A Hiking We Will Go....

One of the many reasons I love living in the Asheville area is being surrounded by God's beauty.  This area of the Blue Ridge Mountains is covered in lush forests, beautiful waterfalls, many forms of wildlife and clean air.  On Friday, July 6, 2012 Elliot and I met up with our friends Pam, Mike and their 2 year old daughter Riley for a trip to Graveyard Fields, which is located along the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Supposedly Graveyard Fields gets its name from early settlers to the area noticing that some sort of windstorm wiped out the trees and vegetation leaving stumps, exposed roots and other plant life. This supposedly resembled gravestones.  I didn't really see much leavings of a long ago windstorm since forest is starting to reclaim the land.  You can find more information and pics here: http://www.romanticasheville.com/graveyard.htm.

We all met up around 10:00 am, which was great because there were still several parking spots left.  When we left, about 2 hours later, all parking spots and empty grassy area were filled and people were parking along the road. It is a very popular area due the mix of easy and harder hiking and the beautiful waterfalls.  You descend down some stone steps and onto a paved path that is covered with rhododendron along the sides and above, so much so that it blocks out a good amount of sun.

Elliot and Amy along the rhododendron path

You descend several flights of wooden steps and reach the top of the Second Falls/Lower Falls.  There is a nice wooden bridge that spans the top of the Second Falls/Lower Falls. While Pam and I took off Riley's shoes so she could feel the water and splash around, Mike took pictures and Elliot played mountain goat and took off upstream to take some pictures.

View on right side of bridge, top of the Second/Lower Falls

View on left side of bridge; walk upstream to Upper/First Falls

 Cross over the bridge and you reach 2 hiking paths; one leads to the Upper Falls/First Falls and other other to the Second Falls/Lower Falls. We took the path to Second Falls/ Lower Falls which leads to a swimming hole and lots of places to wade around in the cool water.  Most of the trail is dirt and leads down some nice wooden stair when you get closer to the water.

 

 Second/Lower Falls; in the lower left corner you can see part of the swimming hole

Pam and Riley

 Amy, Pam, Riley and Mike enjoying the many water pools created by the water moving around the rocks. There were mini waterfalls among the rocks. Pretty neat!!

  

One of my favorite pics from the day. Pam and Mike wanted to walk around on the big rocks near the swimming hole.  Elliot and I offered to sit with Riley, partly since I was NOT taking my 11 week clumsy pregnant body over big rocks. Riley and I had fun counting things, finding colors, and waving to Mommy and Daddy.

We played in the water for about an hours before heading back the path we came to get back to our cars.  We then drove to Devil's Courthouse, named because the rock formation looks like a devil's face??  We had brought items to have a picnic lunch of chicken salad on croissants, Pringles, watermelon, grapes, strawberries, cheddar cheese cubes, soda and chocolate chip cookies.  Delicious!Since it was noon time and a pretty steep walk, we chose to not do the walk, but I hope to one day, when I'm not pregnant. :-)

Riley by the sign

 Beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains!

We had a wonderful day with some great friends.  A few years ago we went hiking in a different location on the Blue Ridge Parkway and had lunch at Devil's Courthouse with Pam and Mike. Although we did not know it at the time, Pam was pregnant with Riley!  Hopefully we can ALL go hiking again some summer day with 2 more kiddies in tow.