Carolina Mountain Club

Hike - Save trails - Make friends

June 6, 2007

Hiking News | CMC Calendar

        Please send me your hiking news, hike and maintenance reports by Monday evening at 9 P.M. before the newsletter comes out, that is, by Monday evening June 18 2007 to Danny Bernstein danny@hikertohiker.com. Include your email address at the end of your story. Thank you.

       The CMC Calendar is meant to answer the perennial question "When is this happening again?" It is also meant to prevent conflicts between competing CMC events. Please check it often.

How to join the Carolina Mountain Club
1. Go to www.carolinamtnclub.org
2. Click on “How to Join” (upper-left on web page)
3. Print out the “CMC Application Form”
4. Fill it Out, write a check for your dues and ...5. Mail to CMC, PO Box 68, Asheville NC 28802

       For CMC members only - Send all address and email changes to Jean Gard at jeangard@charter.net. If you are a non-member subscriber, you need to go back into "subscribe" and change it there yourself.

What's Happening in the Next Two Weeks

Paula Robbins book signing - Friday June 15

Members of the Carolina Mountain Club are invited to attend a reception at The Captain’s Bookshelf, 31 Page Avenue (across from the Grove Arcade), Friday evening, June 15, from 5:30 to 7 PM, with signing of copies of Paula Robbins’s new book The Travels of Peter Kalm, Finnish-Swedish Naturalist, Through Colonial North America, 1746-1751.

See http://www.catskill.net/purple/kalm.htm.

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Green Ways to Hike - A National Trails Day Celebration in Charlotte

Date & Time: Saturday, June 16th from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM

Location: Jesse Brown's Outdoors, Sharon Corners Location, 4732 Sharon Road Suite 2M, Charlotte, NC 28210 - 704.556.0020, http://jessebrown.com/

Join our National Trails Day Celebration as we explore "Green Ways to Hike"! Learn the latest about day hiking techniques, hiking resources and trail conservation. Information on local environmental issues, greenways, great day hiking trails and several long distance trails, including the Appalachian Trail and the new Great Eastern Trail will be available. Free "Day Hike Check List" bookmarks and other literature will be available to all participants.

Exhibitors will include:
The American Hiking Society Author Danny Bernstein, "Hiking the Carolina Mountains", Central Piedmont Sierra Club Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Greenways, Carolina Mountain Club, Friends of the Mountain to the Sea Trail, Fit City Challenge and the Carolina Raptor Center.

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Other Important News

CMC Annual Dinner on Nov. 3

Be sure to reserve the evening of November 3 to attend our Annual Dinner. Notice that a lot of the details are different. We’re meeting on a Saturday evening at the First Baptist Church in Asheville, social hour at 5:00 with punch and appetizers, full buffet dinner at 6:00, vegetarian entree included. Our annual business meeting will be at 7:00, followed by our program which this year is the finale of our photo contest culminating in the awarding of prizes to all the winners and placers, presented by our own Gerry McNabb and featuring the club’s new projector. Dress is “Comfortable to Dressy”, you decide.

COST for the event will be in the $15-17 per person range. We’ll help set up carpools as needed. No alcohol is permitted at this venue.

Please consider participating in our photo contest, as this could be a very exciting event. There will be some great prizes awarded with several placers in each of five categories. With lots of possible winners, you don’t want to lose out by not even trying! Details are at Photo Contest .

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Photo contest announced - Deadline is October 1

Enter the CMC photo contest. See all the details.

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A night at LeConte Lodge

Mount Le Conte boasts the tallest face (distance from base to summit) of any mountain east of the Mississippi and eight CMC members spent the night at the top. See the whole story with pictures.

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Hut to Hut in New Hampshire

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Hike scheduler needed

CMC has an immediate opening for someone to schedule the Sunday afternoon hikes, obtain leaders, and write the descriptions for the four quarterly issues of Let’s Go. Computer skills and ability to work with Word are required. The scheduler also is responsible for providing leaders with sign-up sheets and filing the completed ones. The scheduling task is vital to the Club and gives the scheduler a chance to expand his/her friendships and learn about the many hikes in our area.

We ask anyone interested in this project to contact either Paula Robbins (paularww@bellsouth.net, 281-3253) or Bruce Bente (bbente@bellsouth.net, 692-0116).

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Five guys in Spain are now home.

Here are last minute words on their experiences.

There are so many beautiful experiences on this hike that I could not do justice to in words. Being a people person some of the best experiences were meeting individuals that were strangers when you first said "hola" and instantaneously became friends. There is a certain camaraderie amoungst the peregrenos that is hard to describe. There are a multitude of reasons for hiking the Camino. For me it was the experience and challenge of just "doing it". It has certainly giving me the desire to explore more of the same type of activity. I will hold many memories of this hike for many years. Carroll

I met a number of people whose Camino was primarily a personal quest of one sort or another. People in an uncertain transition period who were hoping for some clear direction by the end of their walk. Some people were walking as an expression of gratitude for some gift, either divine or earthly that they had received. Many of them were solo walkers, although they were happy to meet and talk with others as their Camino proceeded. These were the people who most inspired me and made the trip worthwhile for me. Charlie

Whatever passes for tourism has no comparison. The French refer to la France profonde and this is Espana profonda, the profound, the real, the authentic Spain, encountering everyday farmers, shepherds, deliverers, town dwellers and the world they inhabit. Spain is its history, and you pass through countless towns and cities, full of buildings covering the past 1000 years or more, up to the present as you enter a city walking by factories, warehouses and high-rise apartments. I love best the small villages which seem right out of the Middle Ages with their rock houses, churches, civic buildings and cobbled streets. The variety of environments is awesome -- woods of various kinds, fields, vineyards, up and down hills, in and out of towns. At any given time ahead of you or behind are others doing what you're doing, this army of people with packs on their backs walking along. You pass or they pass. You say Hola or Buen Camino and often Where are you from? and then on to a conversation. Tom

Read all about it on the CMC message board. The start of the message thread is on the CMC website at :http://www.carolinamtnclub.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=18&posts=2&start=1

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Conservation

by Danny Bernstein From the Mountain Xpress on 05/30/2007

Good things come to those who wait—but sometimes they have to wait almost 60 years. Last week, Dale Ditmanson, superintendent of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, announced that the National Park Service will recommend paying a cash settlement to Swain County instead of building the so-called Road to Nowhere in the southwestern corner of the park. The proposed road from Bryson City to Fontana Dam was meant to replace one flooded in 1943 by the Tennessee Valley Authority to create electricity for the war effort.

“I feel real glad that NPS finally decided on the preferred alternative,” said Claude Douthit, a retired TVA employee who lives in Bryson City. “I retired in 1974, and working on a financial settlement for Swain County has been an everyday job since [then] for me.” Douthit is an active member of Citizens for the Economic Future of Swain County, a group backing a $52 million settlement to Swain County.

Greg Kidd of the National Parks Conservation Association’s Asheville office felt the recommendation was long overdue. “I’m extremely excited,” he said. “Thanks to the leadership of Congressman Heath Shuler and Sen. Elizabeth Dole, we’re moving ahead, and that’s great. Now it opens the door to legislation for Congress to actually appropriate the money.”

The road drew strong opposition because it would have harmed the natural habitat in one of the most pristine areas in the East and cost almost $600 million. However, construction of a North Shore Road is still advocated by some descendants of those who moved out of the area in the 1940s.

Linda Hogue, president of the North Shore Road Association, which supports building the road, was not pleased with the announcement. “I think it’s no surprise,” she said. “The Park Service had no intention to build the road, if they could help it. But we’re not giving up. Our group is looking at our future options.”

The area north of Fontana Lake was not part of the original Great Smoky Mountains National Park, formed in the 1930s. Until the 1940s, several communities lived in and north of the current lake location. The only access to and from their homes was a narrow, twisting road, from Bryson City to Deal’s Gap. The TVA dam flooded the road and several communities, and the residents had to move out. The land north of the lake was then amalgamated into the park.

The federal government promised to build a road on the North Shore of Fontana Lake after World War II if Congress appropriated the money. The NPS constructed less than a mile of road west of Fontana Dam and about six miles from the eastern boundary of the Park. In 1971, construction stopped when builders hit acid-bearing rock that would cause serious water contamination. The road now ends in a tunnel outside of Bryson City.

No further federal funding was received for the road until 2001, when then Rep. Charles Taylor revived the issue by obtaining $16 million for further construction, thus triggering the current process. For those who wish to visit cemeteries where their ancestors are buried, the NPS provides free boat transportation across the lake and a shuttle as close as vehicles can get to the cemeteries.

The Final Environment Impact Statement, which will recommend the cash settlement, will be published in September and then be available for public comments for 30 days. Regarding the early announcement of the NPS plan, Ditmanson explained that “even though the FEIS will not be released for several months, we wanted to be responsive to the intense public interest in the status of this undertaking.” [Photo by Ted Snyder]

See the official press release from the park.

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Heard on the Ground

June 9, 2007 -Blue Ridge Parkway – South Ashe Task Force:

Construction continues on the MST section between NC 16 and US 421 along the Blue Ridge Parkway on the second Saturday of each month. The next workday will be Saturday, June 9, 2007 . Meet at 8:30 AM near milepost 262 just south of the NC 16 junction with the parkway (about 3 miles south of Glendale Springs). Look for orange “MST WORK” sign and vehicles parked on shoulder of the parkway. Some tools are provided but you may bring loppers, rakes and hand bow saws if you have them. Bring plenty of water, sturdy work boots, gloves, suitable clothing and raingear. Lunch, energy snacks and a light day pack with first aid kit may also be helpful. The worksite is near the parkway so access to your vehicle should be easy and nearby. Future workdays are scheduled for the second Saturday of each month through ovember with the third Saturday as a rain date. More Information: Jim Hallsey - (336) 877-8831 or jhallsey@skybest.com

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Adopt an MST Section

The following sections of the Mountains to Sea Trail are available for adoption:
1. FS Road 816 to Dark Prong Gap(1.6 miles)
2. Haywood Gap to green Mountain Trail Junction (3 miles)
3. Green Mountain Trail Junction to NC 215 (4 miles)

These are all beautiful sections that provide great personal satisfaction in caring for them. Contact Don Walton at donwalton@bellsouth.net or 654-9904.

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Maintenance Reports created by Don Walton

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Heard on the Trail

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