SCRAPS AND SCRIBBLES
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nature
I frequently and greatly underestimate other people’s willpower and desire to hike up the side of a mountain on a sweltering hot weekend morning…so my boyfriend & I arrived at the wildly popular Wallace State Falls at a time when parking was so scarce, it easily added nearly a mile to our hike (we thought of our parking journey as a pre-hike hike).
Below: some views from the trail.
My boyfriend's family have a long and storied connection to the small mountain town of Saluda, North Carolina. Every now and then - as we did this past October - we make a trip up there to see the mountain house, grab a bite at the Purple Onion, hike some trails, and take in the views. And oh, what dramatic and moody views those can be:
The mountains in the early morning. Photo by Nathaniel Haley.
Saluda sits nestled between low mountains, their peaks and planes softened by lush foliage that lights up with incredible color in the fall. I believe my boyfriend thinks of Saluda as his wilderness retreat: a place where he and his dad ride motorcycles, hang out with foresters, and get unplugged for a little while. I think of it as my own artist-retreat-that-never-was -- as if, in another life on another timeline, I am a novelist who churns out her best work while sitting on a hardwood deck overlooking a Saluda gorge.
I lounged around in my trusty LL Bean boots...
And hung out with a pony - and even rode one. (Photo by Nathaniel Haley.)
Though I got a moderate case of cabin fever to show for it, in theory Saluda & its environs are probably best experienced at a slow, flexible pace -- one that lets you befriend the woods and creeks around you.
To that end we took on the (easiest) 1400-step Chimney Rock trail, explored the paths up and down the family mountain, and made some time for late-night star photography.
The steep steps of Chimney Rock. Photo: Nathaniel Haley.
On at least 3 separate nights, there were s'mores involved.
Night walks with Nathan.
One of my favorite places to linger and shoot photos is the area around the Saluda Grade & Main Street. The Grade is, as the historical plaque nearby likes to remind us, the "steepest standard-gauge mainline railway grade in the United States." It no longer operates, and now serves a second life (in my mind) as an excellent place to sit and enjoy the diffuse and warm late afternoon sunlight the town gets.
On the Grade. Jacket by All Saints Spitalfields, flannel by Abercrombie & Fitch. Photo: Nathaniel Haley.
The recurring food theme of the trip was beets. I'm not sure why. Maybe they're easily locally sourced? I must've eaten my weight in (very photogenic) beets and kale over the course of the week.
The Purple Onion.
And oh, the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Photo by Nathaniel Haley.
A trip to the Carolinas is really not complete without taking advantage of the scenic overlooks that dot the length of this iconic highway.
On the last full day of our trip, we hopped down to Asheville to tour Biltmore House, the Vanderbilts' sprawling 19th century estate.
Apparently it is permanently Christmas there. Either that or the property managers thought early October would be a totally fine & sensical time to whip out the holiday decor. I'm not complaining - greenery and lights pair well with high ceilings and luxurious digs.
What I do take issue with, though, is how unfairly gorgeous the scenery behind the palatial house is. What am I supposed to do with the fact that obscene amounts of money allow people to hoard views like this? It's a good job the estate wound up open to the public, or you and I would live our lives never having the opportunity to see all this:
Photo: Nathaniel Haley.
After leaving the coast, Nathan & I headed east along the winding Route 101 -- easily the most beautiful highway I have traveled -- to the inland forests and lakes of the Olympic Peninsula.
The Hoh Rainforest is a sprawling thing, dense and atmospheric and, on brighter and warmer afternoons, suffused with an otherworldly golden light. You half expect to become surrounded by fairies and nymphs while you crush brittle fallen leaves underfoot. Northeast of the Hoh region are the dewy, deep and eerie Sol Duc (or Soleduck) forests, chilly and silent and full to the brim with mist. Nestled in its canyon depths are the Sol Duc Falls, which rush over mossy rocks shimmering in the dampness. Sol Duc leaves you breathless. It is a pocket out of time.
I thought Lake Quinaut was vast and mirror-like until we arrived at Lake Crescent on a cloudy day. The glacial lake emerges suddenly from between overlapping mountains and draws the eye forward like an arrow to the horizon. As time ticked by, fog rolled down nearby Storm King and blanketed the towering sentinel firs around us in gray. On a clear day, the waters are so clear you can see dropped coins and sunken boat tethers at the bottom. On this drizzly morning, all we saw were shifting pinpricks of rain breaking the tension of the lake.
And lastly, the mountains called. We took the steep and nerve-wracking road up to the lookout on Hurricane Ridge, made a little easier by the low center of gravity and the stability of our rental Mustang. There was little snow covering the peaks this time, as it was a drier, warmer October, so we were greeted by an unobstructed view of the ridge's gently gradated blue peaks rolling like waves into the distance.
As tough as it is to tear oneself away from a place like the Olympic Peninsula, a reluctant departure is inevitable for the itinerant traveler. And when it happens, the only consolation is the knowledge that the visitor has ideally perhaps developed a humbled awareness of their smallness in the universe. These forests are ancient. The lakes are prehistoric. Older still are the mountains that once cradled glaciers that came to fill their deep valleys. Older are the rocks that punctuate miles of wild coast, and even older are the pinpoints of brightness that spin above the land in the night, a dome of diffuse starlight. But for me this is enough. No grand changes, no earth-shaking discoveries necessary. Maybe to know such extraordinary and liberating insignificance before the foundations of the Earth is never to leave the great Northwest.
![The Edge of the Earth [2/2]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/553f9ffbe4b06d466cd3f781/1454616092589-O1PDY1VKSO9OUYU2DBQW/image-asset.jpeg)