The Summer 6

 April 2-5, 2021 We are on a quest to fill more pages of our National Parks passport book and also to see more NC waterfalls so we decided to do a Covid-safe trip to a house near Cherokee, NC to see some of the GSMNP for spring break. We hit a cold snap and didn't do any long hikes but we saw a few waterfalls and a lot of the park so all in all it was a success! The day we arrived we went to the Deep Creek area of the park near Bryson City, NC. First we went to Juney Whank Falls on a 0.6 mile loop. There is a bridge across the falls which puts you right next to it but it's hard to take a picture of the whole thing. It is about 35 feet high.  Next we continued to Tom Branch Falls. This was very picturesque, a 75 foot high multilevel cascade. It flows into the Deep Creek on the opposite side of the bank as the trail. We thought this would be a wonderful place to cool off during the summer. It was about 0.2 of a mile from the parking lot on an easy path. After passing Tom Branch,...

 March 14, 2021 A few weeks ago we went to Crowder's Mountain with Ben's Cub Scout group to do a little hiking. We have been here before but every time we come we don't seem to remember how steep and difficult the trail is! We parked at the Linwood Access to do the Backside Trail. It is labeled as strenuous but only 0.9 miles to the top. That doesn't seem too bad but it's a pretty steep incline and includes 336 stairs! I'm not sure if anyone in our group measured but according to the internet, it is 666 feet of elevation gain and total of 1.9 miles. There is a reward of nice views including the Charlotte skyline but it's also a steep drop over the edge so we needed to keep a close eye on certain children. We did it and don't plan to come back again real soon!

CONCORD, NC- On a nice Saturday afternoon, a family was set and planned to go to a park called 40 acre rock  in Kershaw, South Carolina. However, a slight change in plans caused the Summers to travel to the Concord Greenway, beginning at Les Myers park. Approaching closer to downtown Concord, something peculiar was on the ground: a dead possum.   By far the highlight of our trek, Ansley was not pleased with the dead critter that was lying on the sidewalk ahead of us with its disgusting, maggot-filled mouth wide open. As we neared the entrance to a graveyard we were to pass, we noticed something lying on the sidewalk. I thought it was a king-sized rat, but as we got closer it became apparent that the silhouette alee was not a rat, but rather a possum. According to Summer family internal speculation, the possum was run over by a car, then scurried off to the side of the road, then to end up on the sidewalk. Upon further research, we discovered that possums do not generally ...

 The search for waterfalls shows no signs of slowing.  On a nice November day, we hooked up with friends and headed north to Stone Mountain State Park.  The park is an easy 90 minute drive from home, straight up I-77.  We took the Elkin exit, drove past exit for Carter Falls, and pulled in to the Upper Trailhead Parking Lot.   From here we made a strategic error. We knew our whole group didn't want to make the 4.5 mile loop with >1,000 of elevation gain.  The main waterfall was a short distance on the map.  So we left the parking lot on a 0.3 mile trek to the falls.  We were greeted by the top of a 200 foot beautiful waterfall.  We were also greeted by roughly 300 stairs.  We climbed down, down, down through one landing on to the base.  There were lots of places for the kids to play and they enjoyed climbing on the rocks.  However, we had to go back up those stairs to continue out way to the summit. After making it back...

Our oldest son's Boy Scout Troop headed down to Lumber River State Park November 13-15.  Lumber River State Park is south of Lumberton, NC, north of Dillon SC, right on the NC/SC line.  It is about 2:20 from our home.   The trip was in flux due to Hurricane Eta, the 28th named storm of the 2020 year (2020 always with the records).  A lot of rain was dumped in the region Thursday, with Charlotte seeing over nine inches that day alone.  We watched to see how the river would hold up, as it had notoriously flooded back in 2015 with another hurricane.   We had a group site at the Princess Ann access.  Two other sites ended up being inaccessible.  Otherwise, though, we had no issues for our campout.  There was also a large filed for "overflow" group camping that would have been sufficient had our site flooded.  The overflow site was the spot for the town of Princess Ann, chartered in 1796.  The town site was up on a hill over th...

 On May 9th, after 6 weeks or so of quarantine, we were ready to get out of the house!  We were just starting our outdoor adventures, so we loaded up the jogging stroller and headed to Mount Pleasant NC for the Buffalo Creek Preserve.   The trail is 4 miles round trip with a swinging bridge near the end.  It travels through an area that has recently been logged, but is being being reforested for oak trees. It is part of the Carolina Thread Trail .  There was also a portion of the trail that followed the edge of a field, which was interesting to see. The trail terrain was not very suitable for pushing a stroller.  It had loose rocks which was tough for the stroller wheels.  It also could have been muddy if we went after a rain.  After this we switched to the backpack child carrier.   The trail was a nice outing after being in the house for a long time.  Playing in the water was great and the bridge was neat.  The bridge was...