Black Rock

It had been twenty years since I last hiked to my favorite place in the smokies. With surprisingly little cajoling, I got my wife up at five o'clock yesterday morning, and we headed to the mountains.

Blackrock is as spot that is infrequently visited, but is often observed by travelers to Sylva, North Carolina. As you drive into Sylva from Waynesville, a ridge towers over the town to your right. This ridge is known as the Plott Balsams, and at nearly the highest point as you walk down the ridge starting at Water Rock Knob on the Blue Ridge Parkway, you come to Black Rock. It is a rock formation as big as a small house that sits atop of the mountain. You make way the last 50 yards through a Laural hell, and then step up onto the top of the world.

Below and to your right, you see the town of Sylva, and in the distance, Webster and Cullowhee. Turn 180 degrees, and you see the deep wooded valley that drops down to Cherokee. As you scan the horizon, first looking back from your starting point, you can see many of the most well known peaks in the smokies. To the east, away in the distance you see the steep peak of Mt Pisgah with its tower on top. Scanning from there you see Richland Balsam, the highest point on the Blue Ridge Parkway, Then, farther to the south, Whitesides and Scaly Mountain, and to the west, Standing Indian. To the North You see Clingmans Dome, the chiseled sides of Mt Leconte, then Mt Guyot, and the high pastures of Cattaloochee.

My first trip to Black Rock was a real adventure. There was no trail guide available, in fact, there was no real trail. My friend Mickey and I arrived at Water Rock Knob late on a fall afternoon in the early seventies. I had a topo map and a compass, and a vague idea of which way to go. Following a wooded ridge seems like no brain er from the perspective of a map, but not so simple in reality. We crossed the parkway and stepped into the woods, following a faint trail up the hill. When we came out onto the brushy side of Yellow Face, trouble and twilight began. It was early in the fall, and frost had not killed and beat down brambles. They were head high and obscured any sign of a trail. We camped on a slope so steep that we had to push upright sticks into the ground to keep from sliding down into the fire in our sleeping bags.

We awoke the next morning stiff, but determined to continue our trek. Let me point out that the distance from Water Rock Knob to Black Rock is only about two and one half miles as the crow flies, and we had already spent several hours wandering around on what would be a forty five minute walk up Union Street. After a good deal of fumbling around with the map and compass, we got our bearings and headed on out the ridge line. We only got seriously lost one more time. This time we came to a wide heavily wooded gap were the slope we were facing was covered in blow downs which obscured the trail, and made walking difficult. We bushwhacked our way up the slope, and finally came out on the knife edged ridge that leads the rest of the way to Black Rock.

This ridge is truly spectacular. Huge boulders are stacked and balanced along the ridge top as if placed by some gigantic hand. We made our way up, over, and around these obstacles until we came to the Laural slick that leads up to the main attraction. This slick was so thick, that you could not stand upright, but instead, we crouched and crawled, following a path created by a small man or some four legged animal.

We came out into the bright sunshine atop of the rock. A golden day, the maples, poplars, and oaks below reflected the sunlight. Just below us the scattered blueberry bushes were bright red among the waxy green Laural bushes. A raven soared just above us, and a hawk glided along below. We spent the remainder of the day perched on top of that rock, and, even though there was not a level spot on the entire rock, we rolled out our sleeping bags and spent the night there as well. A beautiful but hard bed, the stars above, and the distant lights of Sylva made up for the discomfort. The next morning we woke on a sunny island in the middle of a sea of fog. Below us the valleys of Scotts Creek, and the Tuskaseegee river were immersed in fog, probably as a result of the smokestacks of the Meade Paper plant at Sylva. Back then, Meade Paper made Sylva a dismal and smelly town, as evidenced from the backstreet scene in the movie Deliverance, but at least on this day, Meade redeemed itself by creating the view that we witnessed.

I made a lot of trips to Black Rock during the seventies and eighties, with friends and wives, and my son. All of the trips are memorable, though not always as beautiful. Three friends and myself hiked in from Fisher Creek one January, in snow that became so deep that we could not make it all the way to the summit. We camped on a logging road below the peak in at least thirty inches of snow and temperatures that dipped close to zero. A wild and windy, fearful night. The next morning we put on our frozen boots and , thankfully, got the hell out of there.

I was camped on the rock late one afternoon when the Hennessee Lumber Mill caught on fire way below us down in the valley. We watched the fire trucks make their futile way up Scotts Creek from Sylva. The smoke rose up thick from the fire below, and we paranoidly wondered if the whole mountain would catch fire.

I learned to camp just below the next rock down the ridge where there was a level spot on the ground. After a grueling search for water on the slopes below, we found a spring that we had passed in a little switch back of the trail less than a hundred yards below the ridge. Next trip, and there after, I carried an eighteen inch lenght of plastic pipe to insert into the spring and create a drip of fresh water we could catch in our canteens.

I took my new wife to Black Rock with promises of bright stars and beautiful vistas, and we hiked in drizzle, and woke up in fog and freezing rain.

This trip was better, we did not camp. My years, and my knees don't let me carry a forty pound pack up and down the mountains. If I had proposed a camping trip, it would have been a solo trek, my wife and friends have become leery of "Eudy Adventures". The hike was tough enough with just a small day pack and a stick. The trail has been somewhat cleared, and marked, but it's a lot more strenuous than I remembered. That short two and one half mile walk took two hours in and two and one half out. The sun was bright and warm. Although the leaves were slightly past their peak, it was a beautiful day. We met several other hikers on the trip in, and there were about ten people on the rock when we got there. There was plenty of room for all of us, and I'm actually glad to see that more people are aware of this unique place.

We set on the rock, ate some cheese and salami, and drank some wine. (Traditional fare for a trip to Black rock.) After an hour or so we started out hike out, and arrived at the car, worn slap out. We took the Park Way back to Asheville, ate dinner at the Pisgah inn on the way, and made it home by about ten last night. A long day, but one of the best.