Cory and I visited my sister and her family in North Carolina for a couple weeks over Thanksgiving. We crafted, played with the baby, went to the beach with my parents while they were also in town, and we hiked a couple of places. One really cool and (I think) noteworthy hike Cory and I did was Mt Mitchell. We had gone to visit a friend of Cory’s while we were in NC and I looked up nearby trails. We were staying in a small town outside of Asheville and were only an hour away from the highest mountain peak (elevation 6,684 ft ) east of the Mississippi River! And it had a trail to the summit! And our first Appalachian hike! Win win win!
-Old Mitchell Trail-
I wasn’t really sure what to expect as from the lists of places to hike where Mt Mitchell popped up (even the state park’s website) the information was a bit confusing, especially surrounding difficulty and projected length of time (one site said 4 hours to hike the Old Mitchell trail.. )but at 4 miles round trip it looked short enough so we brought lots of water, wore good shoes & went for it. We started hiking right at 2 and were back at the car at 420, with having spent about 20-30 minutes at the peak drinking water and taking pictures. The trail starts out from the office going up with some minor drops but then had a significant drop before the final climb to the top. Officially you gain 300ish ft in elevation, but hiking on rocks with lots of tree roots and the constant climb up and dropping back down (plus a lot of stair-step type rocks) makes it a good workout.
*Oh, and I don’t know how this trail normally is, but when we went on December 1st we were the only people on the trail the whole time! The weather was cool and dry, it was a Wednesday, but with being the highest peak & off the Blue Ridge Parkway we expected some crowd. It was a nice surprise!
The drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway to get to Mt Mitchell State Park was amazing and they actually have it set up where you can drive almost to the summit if you aren’t able to do the hike. I would recommend going if you can (and doing the Old Mitchell Trail if you are able), it’s beautiful!