It is grey, cold and very unwelcoming outside at the moment. It might rain with mix of snow later in the evening. I was looking through my photos and wanted to post something with bright green colors, full of summer life. We took a good hike back in middle of July, somewhere around Blue Ridge Parkway. I felt like this one is nice choice to counterbalance todays weather. The only part missing here is the actual noise from the running creek, it is so peaceful and comforting. Enjoy.
We were coming back from a hike at Stone Mountain park and decided to check out sunset from the Blue Ridge Parkway. If you ever been on the BRP in NC then you might remember that pretty much every overlook with long range views are east facing, so they might be nice for sunrise, but you have no good views to the west. We got on parkway from HW21 and drove south for about 15-20 miles and didn’t see any west facing overlooks with sunset view. After while I started to worry that sun will go down and I won’t take a single shot. At one point I saw a potential opening and pulled the car off the parkway. To the west were hills with tall trees, to the east some fenced in farm field with nice incline. So I grabbed the camera, climbed over the fence and quickly climbed up the hill to get better view. Wiff joined me as well.
As I was taking pictures, a few cars passed by, one of them was one of those car towing tracks. He slowed down as he passed our car, disappeared behind the turn and then we heard him stopping and turning around. I guess he thought that our car was abandoned or something. He could not see us, we didn’t see him. I had no intention to go down to the car, sunset was going in full motion. What did I do? Yep, just pulled out my car key and pressed the lock a few times – lights go on and off, on and off. Couple minutes later we heard him turn around again and he left. Anyway, that was interesting side disruption as I was trying to focus in to the sky and push shutter button with my right hand while making car look alive with my left hand. Some multitasking for you.
Here is one of the images that came out from that photo shoot.
A few weeks ago we went to hike around Grandfather Mountain. There are a few ways to get up here with spectacular views. There are couple free choices which require a lot of strenuous hiking, with about 3 hours to get here. One is from Profile hike parking area on HW105 and the other one is from I believe “Daniel Boone” hike parking area on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We done both of those in the past, it takes you about 2 to 2.5 hours just to get to the ridge. you can then hike on the ridge for another couple hours and enjoy some spectacular views, some with 360 access. This time we actually drove into the Grandfather park, paid $15 each, it is pricey, but it saved us at least 4 hours of hiking from the Blue Ridge or from the 105 parking.
Below photo is 180 Panorama View over Grandfather Mountain “Valley”. My first try at making panoramas. It is not bad as long as you can see it on a huge screen with details shown. On the left is the main Grandfather mountain with all attractions and their bridge. Down in the middle is the Grandfather Country Club, then Linville Ridge with its multimillion dollar estates, then Sugar mountain with that ugly white apartment building on top of it, then is Banner Elk and the Beach Mountain. To the right is the next peak we hiked after taking this photo(s). Click on the photo to see it large.
It was hazy day. We hiked a lot but the views were not that great. So far this summer in NC is not very good for long range views. Every time we go to the mountains it is hazy. Maybe it will clear in October, November time frame.
This picture was taken back in June on one of our hikes. Can’t remember which one it is and where exactly is the place. Somewhere near Blowing Rock, that’s for sure. Sometime I like to stop by for a few minutes by these creeks and listen to the running water. It is peaceful and very relaxing. Then back to our next destination and next creek or waterfall.
