Badger, Badger, Badger
Alexis and I took off to Brevard for some late summer hiking and camping. We left early on Saturday, and got to the Trout Hatchery pretty quickly. After feeding the aggressive and hungry trout (if only we had more quarters we would have feed them all), we hiked up the Cat Gap trail.
The trail was nice and heavily traveled as it was a popular trail. Stream crossings throughout the hike increased steadily in difficulty. After wrapping our way around the mountain, we took a cutoff trail up to the top of “John Rock.” John Rock sits just up the fish hatchery, but you have to walk around the back side to access it. John Rock is another Granite Dome created from all the years of exfoliation. The rock offers great views of the south and west sides of Looking Glass Rock.
During the hike were being constantly bombarded by falling acorns. Every couple minutes, the rap and knocking of leave with sudden thumps would make us wince. After leaving the top of John Rock, we traversed the ridge to the Cat Gap. Following a dip and climb in the trail, we reached the Cat Gap, but sadly there were no cats. Alexis waited for a while for the supposed herds of cats known to come romping up the hill. The trail wrapped down again through some less traveled sections in overgrown mountain laurel. It wound down the hill side and to the west of John rock., until we crossed a fun waterfall section near the end, which photographed nicely. Finally we ended back at the hatchery, thus completing the more strenuous Cat Gap hike variation.
Hungry and thirsty, we went back into Brevard for some sandwiches and beer. We stopped again at the Brevard Brewery, and not much had changed since the last time we were there last. The Same dive feel stood strong with a beat up drinking space where local bands play. Afterwards, we moved onto the New Oskar Blues Brewery. They had a very impressive setup. They had a ton of equipment and their tasting room, the Tasty Weasel was setup right above the brewing space. Outside on the loading area, live music played and seating was widely available. It had an awesome vibe. In the time it took to slug down a beer it had become completely dark out, we scurried back into the Pisgah Forest to sleep for the night beside Slick Rock Falls.
In the morning, we awoke and packed up for a day of climbing. Several cars had already pack the trailhead to capacity, so we had no clue what laid ahead. Along the hike to the southside wall, we saw a ton of awesome mushrooms. They were all different mushrooms types, small, giant, clusters, single spores, colorful, and mute. It must have been prime mushrooms growth season.
Finally reaching the base, it seemed that there were a bunch of guide services already sucking up the one’s that I picked out the night before. So we went into plan B, Alexis and I grabbed whatever was open. We attempt to climb what we thought was Rat’s Ass which would have been pretty hard and classic 5.8. It wasn’t until a week later, I was reading Mountain Project that I realize we did Unfinished Concerto 5.9. We scrambled up the 1st half of the 1st pitch to nice ledge. From here it was really engaging, I wasn’t really ready for the slab after getting through the dihedral section and got pretty gripped. Alexis followed up the climb in great style, removing all my panicky placed pieces, and making the hard move up the crack. At the top, we heard a gust of wind coming through the sea of trees. Below us erupted a chorus of falling acorns, the rumble of tumbling nuts started low and increased in intensity as it approached. We were happy to be above the trees and on the wall during this.
We rapped from the 1st pitch as the rest was traversing 5.5 and in the sun. At the bottom, we checked the one easy climbing of “Lichen or Not” to see that it was open. This was carefree 5.5 and didn’t have to worry about running into any other parties on the rap, which surely would have happened on Rat’s Ass. or Unfinished Concerto
Done with climbing, we scampered back to the Slick Rock Falls trailhead, and I took a nice refreshing shower in the falls. This was half for the photographs and half to get the stench off me for the ride home.
