Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain seen from the Blue Ridge Parkway outside of Brevard, NC; the summit at Cold Mountain seems tantalizingly close from down in the big timber; a massive hemlock blocks the trail between Sorrell Creek and Deep Gap; ferns occupy their own niche in a warm microclimate on the slopes of Shining Rock Ledge; Ryan Holder and his dad, Chris, pick their way back down the trail after spending an icy night on the peak of Cold Mountain.

Charles Henry Sowell photos


Sometimes the mountain wins.

North Carolina’s Cold Mountain, of movie and novel fame, did recently which proves that Tinsel Town and fiction writers often miss the real story.

In this case, more than four miles of spectacular climb on the Art Loeb Trail in Shining Rock Wilderness can humble; particularly when you’re north of 50 and the mountain seems made for those 20-somethings that thrive on thin air and float feet above the rocky ground as they climb.

Well, they float going up the mountain; all are footsore and slow when coming down.

Several lessons stand out from the aborted climb up one of North Carolina’s difficult 6,000 footers: Older persons can still make the hard climbs (they just take longer to do it) and stick to your plan.

People don’t get to be more than 50 years old in the outdoor world without picking up a thing or two along the way. Knowing your abilities – in this case with gratifying accuracy – on how long it will take to retrace my steps, saved the cost of a cold night on a big mountain.

If you believe the hiking guides, one ought to be able to climb Cold Mountain on Art Loeb and come back down in about seven hours.

Perhaps that is true, if you are very much in shape and are counting your hiking success by a clock.

Measures of that kind defeat the purpose of visiting a wilderness. Stopping to listen often will give you the joy of (perhaps) catching a glimpse of a Pileated Woodpecker. This increasingly rare bird thrives on the kind of big-wood mature forest found on the slopes of Cold Mountain.

Pileateds are the size of a crow with a scarlet topknot and black bill. They excavate a characteristic rectangular hole in trees to feed and nest in very large mature trees. Their feeding holes can be so big they cause smaller trees to break in half well up the trunk.

In the United States, only the Ivory Billed Woodpecker is larger and that rare creature (it was thought extinct for decades) has not been reported in North Carolina in a long, long time. Part of its historic range touched on the North and South Carolina coast.

Ivory Bills have a characteristically white bill and distinguishing white rump patch when seen from behind. Nesting Ivory Bills were discovered in the deep swamps of eastern Arkansas in recent years.

On Cold Mountain there are the more subtle surprises than raucous woodpeckers. Mountains in this part of the world are well noted for their biodiversity. Typified on this trip by thriving fern colonies perched atop small boulders in the otherwise winter-dead woodland. Microclimates are very much a part of the Appalachian biosphere and are not startlingly evident, except for the plants.

March is a good time to visit Cold Mountain since the worst of winter weather is done (hopefully); trees are not year leafed out and vistas are unobstructed. But be warned, in addition to a 2800-foot elevation gain from the Art Loeb Trailhead at the Daniel Boone Boy Scout Camp there is always the chance of bad weather and evidence of it abounds all along the trail in the form of downed trees.

Some of them are huge (particularly the hemlocks) and block the trail. Hemlocks in have suffered greatly from Wooly Adelgid an invasive insect that has decimated trees all along the Eastern Seaboard.

Downed trees aside, would-be hikers on the Art Loeb at Cold Mountain should be aware this is not a marked trail. The only maker you’ll see is at the trailhead. No blazes of any color are used in wilderness areas and it is easy to make a wrong turn, although not so much on Art Loeb.

Learn to use a compass and a topographical map before you go. Learn your pace on steep trails and leave plenty of time for mishap. Go prepared to spend the night and let someone know where you’ll be and when you’ll be back so that help can be sent if you’re late.

The Art Loeb Trail from Daniel Boone is the shortest trail to Cold Mountain at 10.6 miles, roundtrip. There are three other trials leading to the top. All of them are much longer and will lead you to Deep Gap on Shining Rock Ledge at 5,200 feet. From Deep Gap you’ve less than 1,000 feet to climb to reach the summit of Cold Mountain at 6,030 feet.

I’d been on the trail for six hours and had climbed to between 5,600 and 5,800 feet when I ran out of hours. It’s frustrating to be able to see your goal and know there’s no way to get there short of spending the night on the mountain.

As it was, I reached my truck at Daniel Boone with about 10 minutes of usable light left in the day. Be sure to take a flashlight even if you’re planning on only a day hike at Cold Mountain. Dark comes early in the deep valleys that make up the slopes.

The Daniel Boone Scout Camp is located off NC 215 about 30 miles from Asheville. Topographical maps of Shining Rock Wilderness are available at most local outfitters.

For more information go to http://www.hikewnc.info/trailheads/pisgah/pisgah/shining.html and for views of actual conditions on the mountains see http://webcam.srs.fs.fed.us/. Odds are the weather there is quite different and a little knowledge can make all the difference in a trip.

Contact me at csowell4@gmail.com for more information on the Art Loeb trail to Cold Mountain.