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Sun, Feb 10 2013 - Arkaquah Trail & Brasstown Bald Sunset Hike (View Original Event Details)

Trip Leader(s): Amy, John L
Participants:John L, Amy, Michael Richter, Bill Xu, Karel V, James Perry

Write Up:

Wow, what a day!  

Well, admittedly, the weather was crappy.  But we dodged a major bullet on today's hike.  First off, we learned this morning that a part of Spur 180 (the road leading up to the Brasstown Bald visitor center) had washed away on Feb. 6th and was closed.  I happened to discover the news this morning, so we simply altered the hike and did the traditional route (started at Track Rock Gap, went up and back).  Had we not known this information, we probably would have had to cancel the hike all together.  

We left the Track Rock Gap trail head around 12:10 and made it to Brasstown Bald in about 3 hours.  (We moved slow).  We arrived at the Brasstown Bald visitor center, then hiked up to the observatory and ate a quick lunch.  The cool thing about the road being washed out was that we were literally the only people on top of Brasstown Bald.  It was kind of eerie actually.  The winds were howling at 40-50 MPH and a storm front was approaching.  Everything was closed...so while the large building offered some shelter from the wind and cold, we knew we couldn't stay long.  The rain started coming down, so we wolfed down our food, threw on the rain gear, and headed back towards Track Rock Gap.

Shockingly, we ran into a solo hiker about an hour into our return hike and he was heading to Brasstown Bald at 4:00 pm.  He was wearing jeans and a cotton fleece, with no rain gear.  We stopped and asked him what his plan was...he had no idea the visitor road was washed out.  So he said he would just walk down the road once he got there and call a friend.  Sure hope he made it.

It was a tough and muddy stretch for the last mile, but we all made it back to the cars just as the heavy rain moved in.

Maybe we'll get to see the sunset next time....I am sure there will plenty of clear days ahead!