Mom, Sprout and I headed out this morning to go for a hike before the forecasted rain was supposed to arrive later this afternoon. We had an awesome hike and have yet to see a raindrop on this beautiful last day of June. We drove up through Catawba Valley, parked at the Dragon's Tooth access, and hit the trail.
Here's how far we walked to connect up to the Appalachian Trail (AT), and
here's how much further we had to hike along the AT to get to Dragon's Tooth. It's only 7/10 of a mile along the AT at this point.
I'm pointing to where we are (the red arrow corresponds too). The next arrow to the right is where we started scrambling on the rocks. The binoculars in the upper right corner of the map indicate where the awesome views of Dragon's Tooth abound.
We crossed streams. We took little snack breaks. We talked about the flora along the way: sassafras, Indian pipe or corpse plant (pictured below),
mushrooms of all colors and sizes, leaf with teeth and leaf with smooth edges, blooming wintergreen, snags, and many more. We walked almost all the way to the top when we got to this -
a vertical obstacle Mom was not comfortable navigating with Sprout and me. In the above picture, you can see Sprout at the bottom left, me at the top right, and a few white blazes marking the trail going straight up on the left.
It was steep. Mom calls this picture, "The Stack". I was disappointed by Mom's decision at first, but while we rested
(note Sprout's BIG pink tongue), we talked about all of the smaller dragon's teeth, claws, wings, and other body parts that we had already traversed. In the end we concluded that we were afraid Sprout may have gotten eaten by the dragon, so we had to turn back. That was a more entertaining version than "we almost made it to the top". Of course we made friends along the way. I warned the ones trekking S towards Dragon's Tooth of the HUGE vertical obstacle that lay ahead. And one couple we accompanied all the way back down the Dragon's Tooth access trail.
It was a great morning/early afternoon and required a little nap on the way back home.
