Tourist in his Own Town: 2021-12-17: Brasstown Bald

My ride home from college, travelling from west Florida to upstate New York, takes me straight through the Appalachian Mountains, and I find it most appropriate to stop and hike each time I make the lengthy trip. Last week, I stopped at Brasstown Bald, the 4784' peak that claims the title of Georgia's highest point. Known to the native Cherokee as Enotah, the mountain is the center of their flood myth, the highest point where the great canoe rested once the flood had ended. While a road to the summit exists, I decided to take a longer, six-ish mile hike that also ascended the nearby Wolfpen Ridge.

I spend the night at a hotel in nearby Blairsville and headed out late in the morning for the hike. Unfortunately, as soon as I reached the trailhead, a fog began to descend on the mountains. Remaining hopeful that it might lift, I began my hike. Fighting a head cold, asthma, and air full of water, I had a bit of a rough time on the fairly steep trails, but soon reached the top of Wolfpen Ridge.

Fog clouded the path ahead as I hiked upward into the cloud deck.

Bright fog and bare trees gave a spooky look to the 4561' summit of Wolfpen Ridge.

After descending from Wolfpen's summit, the trail spit me out into a parking area. A more easily accessible, less steep, and paved pathway leads the final half-mile or so from here to the highpoint. The massive parking lot was almost totally empty and shrouded in cloud, making adding to the exciting eeriness of the the hike.

Stumbling upon the obscured parking lot felt like reaching an area of a video game that was outside the normal map boundaries.

The hike up the shorter pathway to Brasstown Bald was relatively quick and comparatively easy. I arrived at the summit to discover, much to my dismay, that the fog here was even thicker than that farther down the mountain. Any hopes of a view overlooking north Georgia were dashed by the cold fog, but strong winds gave me false hope that it might blow away. I stuck around at the summit for awhile, exploring the area and the buildings there, before returning on my way back.

A sizeable complex of buildings is located at Brasstown's summit, offering unobstructed views in clear weather and historical information in the summer months.

I stopped to rest after my climb on a bench built by the Highpointers Foundation, a charity dedicated to the conservation of state high points. Their registers and infrastructure at other high points have caught my attention over the course of the last year.

An observation tower, closed during the off-season, stood out just at the edges of visibility in the fog.

From atop the main observation deck, the tower's silhouette loomed ominously over the silent summit.

Some form of evergreen trees at the edges of the summit clearing were some of the only views that the peak sported.

Magnolia bushes were nearer to the summit clearing, and therefore appeared clearer than the more distant, scraggly bare deciduous trees.

A historical plaque just below the summit explains the etymology and history of the peak and its surrounding areas.

Magnolias enclose the paved pathway leading between Brasstown Bald and the parking area, arching overhead to form a tunnel through the fog.

This large boulder is covered in bright green moss; its spring-like greenness stuck out in the dull December forest.

Layers of bare branches twist out into the cloudy sky, disappearing into the clouds with distance.

As this point I was resigned to the fact that I would see no fantastical views on this hike, and decided to just have fun with the creepy ambiance that the foggy, silent environment provided as I headed back over Wolfpen Ridge to the car.

Denser fog on my return to the empty parking lot made the area seem even creepier.

The overlook atop Wolfpen Ridge afforded no views on this day, only the tops of trees reaching out into the cloudy ceiling.

An old, decaying national forest sign slowly being consumed by a tree along the trail.

The trail down Wolfpen wound through some dense magnolia forests, where the (to me) unfamiliar and twisty trees reduced visibility off the path.

A white pine seedling (Pinus strobus) emerges from the leafy carpet. Here at the southern extent of the tree's range, it was odd to see white pines, so ubiquitous in the Northeast, growing alongside the southern pines more common in Georgia.

A shot of nearby Henry Knob through the treetops, just below the cloud deck, was the closest thing to a view I got all day.

With my hike over, I assumed that any chance at an impressive mountain view was gone for the day. And regarding the state of Georgia, I was correct. However, unbeknownst to me, my trip home from here would take me through Nantahala National Forest in southwestern North Carolina, along a scenic highway through the mountains with plenty of stopping points and overlooks.

Clouds cover the mountains in this view from an overlook along US-64 in western Macon County NC.

Dobson Mountain takes center stage for this grey December view over the southern Appalachians.

Looking behind me, the bare trees allowed me to see the outline of the nearer mountains all around the overlook.

A view of houses and fields along Smith Hill Road down in the valley below.

US-64 winds past an unnamed knob outside of Franklin NC.

Mountains to the southeast scraped the bottom of the clouds, their tips flattened by the low ceiling.

An overall wide-angle view of the whole overlook, looking east over Dobson Mountain and the higher mountains in the distance.

As I continued homeward, I stopped at one last overlook in North Carolina, this one right along I-26 in Madison County. This overlook had a trail leading up a hill to a higher, more extensive overlook, but time constraints (I didn't get home until 4 AM) kept me stuck at the lower, vaguely less impressive viewpoint.