About a year ago, I booked a room at The Swag for this past weekend to celebrate our anniversary. Our anniversary is May 27, but it's tough to get a reservation for Memorial Day weekend, even a year in advance. We took off work Friday and took a leisurely drive to Waynesville over Mt. Sterling out of Waterville so we could stop and check for elk in the Cataloochee Valley. We did finally see one elk! She was kind of hiding behind a tree, but it's the best we could do in the heat of the afternoon.
We also saw a cute mama bear with three little cubs. The grass was so tall that you couldn't see the cubs unless they were jumping around following her, but one of them stood up on its hind legs while we were watching them, and I was lucky enough to catch that shot.
I will always, always mention that this shot is very much zoomed, as I would absolutely never get this close to wildlife (on purpose, anyway). As you can see, the mama isn't too concerned about our presence.
After our drive through Cataloochee, we drove up to The Swag and checked into our room and then promptly opened a bottle of wine and sat on our balcony to relax with this amazing view.
The Swag is just a wonderfully relaxing place, and at 5,000 feet of elevation, it was a fantastic place to spend what was a 90-degree weekend in the lower elevations. The plan for the weekend was to relax, hike, and eat; and we spent the weekend according to plan.
Saturday morning, we got up before daylight and hiked eastward on the Cataloochee Divide trail to catch sunrise at Purchase Knob. Or near there, anyway, as the trail out to the actual knob is no longer maintained.
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| Pre-sunrise from Gooseberry Knob, which is part of The Swag's property |
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| Good Morning Waynesville and (further out) Canton! |
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| The best sunrise vantage point from the Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center at Purchase Knob |
We have hiked the western portion of the Cataloochee Divide trail between Purchase and the Hemphill Bald end of the trail but had not hiked further east than that. The goal for this hike was to make it all the way to the other trailhead at Cove Creek Road, but we didn't quite make it. The Swag does a huge picnic at Gooseberry Knob at noon on Wednesdays and Saturdays. We've been to the Wednesday picnic a few times and knew that we definitely didn't want to miss lunch. Because we had some climbing on the way back, I told Ben we needed to head back no later than 8:30 so we'd be sure to get back in time for the picnic. I figured that leaving The Swag by 5:30 would give us plenty of time to get to the end; however, I didn't account for the extra half-to-three-quarters of a mile (round trip) offshoot from Cataloochee Divide to Purchase Knob, or the time we spent looking at the sunrise, or the time I spent stopping to take a bunch of wildflower pictures. So, unfortunately, we had to turn around about a half mile before the end of the trail, and I'll have to go back and hit that tiny little section some other time. We did get almost 12 miles in before lunch, though, so it was a solid hiking day.
And it was a great hike. As I mentioned, one thing contributing to our rush to get back for lunch was the fact that I stopped a lot to take pictures of wildflowers. There was a whole patch of pink Lady's Slippers, which was insane! I've only seen them one other time, and there was only one that time. We saw 10 within about 200 feet on this hike!
We also saw a bunch of red/purple trillium (on which the flowers grow below the leaves, so I had to turn it up for the photo):
A few flame azaleas:
And a mayapple flower!
I see mayapples all the time but have never gotten to see the flower. They don't make it easy with the flowers hanging below the big umbrella-like leaves.
There aren't a ton of views off this portion of the trail, but we did catch a couple.
And there were a couple of interesting things that I don't typically see on trail, including a road sign (for a dirt road that came up beside the trail)...
...and a real estate sign!
The Cataloochee Divide trail is on the Park's boundary, and there was actually one house that backed up to the trail. It looks like some dirt roads are being or have been cut in to develop part of the ridge for houses. You could see where the one house was that it had amazing views, so I don't blame them, but it's a little disheartening to see a potential neighborhood lining up next to the trail.
Anyway, we made it back to Gooseberry Knob a few minutes before the lunch picnic and rested in the adirondack chairs under an umbrella, taking in the views, for a bit before eating.
After lunch, we went back to the room to shower and change clothes, and we met this bird who was fighting itself in our window. In related news, we had a couple of gorgeous rhododendron outside our window.
After we had cleaned up, we sat on the front porch of the Swag House and watched the rain come up the mountain, then we took a nap while it stormed for about a half hour.
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| We had a little bit of hail! |
That night, we had what was our only less-than-stellar experience at The Swag. The Swag is a very nice, luxury, all-inclusive resort. As such, I kind of expected that some of the guests may be entitled brats. However, that was far from the case with almost all of the guests we met (and we met most of them because there are only a few dozen people there at any time). Everyone was just relaxed, chill, and enjoying the environment.
Then there was a couple who was sitting fairly close to us at the Gooseberry picnic lunch. One of the staff members asked if they were planning to hike later that day, and they said, "No, we're having a little trouble acclimating to the altitude." I'm sorry, what? This is North Carolina, not Cuzco. We thought that was humorous, but whatever. Fast forward to dinner, at which the Acclimators were sitting at a table next to us. They basically made out throughout dinner, which was annoying. They ordered "mocktails." Again, whatever. I'm actually glad they weren't drinking alcohol because, given their lack of inhibition in making out at the dinner table, I don't think I wanted to see what they would do with a couple of glasses of wine in them. I just don't know how I feel about people who use the word "mocktail."
Then they ordered extra rolls FOUR TIMES during dinner. And olive oil to go with their rolls (the rest of us were cool with the butter that was provided on the table). Listen, I love bread, but the staff couldn't get anything else done for running carb duty for these people. Apparently bread is the cure for altitude sickness.
The Acclimators also ordered an EXTRA ENTREE (because I guess all inclusive means just keep freakin' eating). Then the wife was "too full" for the dessert that she had ordered from the menu and asked for "just a bite of sorbet" instead (mind you, sorbet was nowhere on the menu). After the staff somehow found some sorbet for her, the Acclimators then ordered A THIRD DESSERT. The staff was incredibly gracious and catered to their every stupid whim, but they took a ridiculous amount of advantage of the resort's hospitality, and it was really annoying to watch.
Aside from that, though, the weekend was amazing in an absolutely beautiful location. Our next stay is already booked!
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| Hummingbird! |
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