S5, E42: Asheville Hiking, Waterfalls, and the Oldest Mountains on Earth | The Travel Guide

This is the final stop on our five-part audio guide to Asheville, North Carolina, and we’re heading for the trees. In this episode of Unpacked by Afar, host Aislyn Greene laces up for Asheville hiking, and discovers why the oldest mountains on Earth are also some of the most beloved.

On a tour with Hike Bike Kayak Asheville that takes Aislyn and guide David into the Pisgah National Forest, Aislyn learns that Asheville hiking means far more than a simple walk in the woods. These are among the oldest mountains in the world, cloaked in one of the most biodiverse forests in North America, home to thousands of plant species and waterfalls around nearly every bend. David leads her to quiet swimming holes and points out plants that grow nowhere else on Earth.

She stands beneath Looking Glass Falls and hears how a single valley packs in world-class rock climbing, fly fishing on the Davidson River, and a 60-foot natural water slide called Sliding Rock.

Zoom out, and the scale is staggering. The Great Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway are among the most visited places in the entire national park system, and Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi, rises just up the road. It helps explain why so many people who come here for Asheville hiking end up never wanting to leave, and why the outdoors are one of America’s great travel destinations. It’s a landscape you can dip into for a single afternoon or disappear into for a week.

It all adds up to a rich piece of cultural travel and a fitting finale to our guide: a reminder that in Asheville, the wild is never far away. Whether you want a gentle waterfall stroll or a hard climb to a summit view, the trailheads are closer than you think, and the payoff is some of the most beautiful country in the eastern United States. Consider it your guide to where to go and what to know.

Transcript

Aislyn: Here’s a fact that might reset your sense of time. The Blue Ridge Mountains are older than the Atlantic Ocean. Just think about that for a second. And Asheville, North Carolina is in the heart of it all. I’m Aislyn Greene, and this is Unpacked by Afar. Most weeks we roam to different topics. This week we’re staying in one place. And in fact, we made you a guide: 5 episodes, 1 city, all of it reported on the ground in Asheville earlier this year. So think of this as your audio guide to Asheville, where to go, what to know, and everything worth unpacking in between. And today we take a hike into the biggest reason people never really want to leave this area the outdoors.

In this series, we’ve explored the rich history of wealthy tycoons and poor industrial age workers. We’ve looked at the traditional foodways preserved by modern chefs and the 150 year old culture of wellness. We visited a community of art and artists and basically all of the human complexity that’s made Asheville what it is. What’s left to explore is the ancient landscape itself.

In episode 1, we talked about how the Appalachian Mountain range is the oldest in the world, rising like a spine, along the eastern edge of Appalachia, is the Blue Ridge Province, which the Cherokee refer to as the land of Blue Smoke. Every year, thousands of people make a pilgrimage in the fall just to see the changing colors of the canopy leaves that blanket the mountains. But the leaves are really just the beginning. These forests are the most ecologically rich and diverse in the entire temperate world. In just the southern half of the Blue Ridge, there are more than 4,000 known plant species, and about 250 of those grow nowhere else in the world.

Here’s the scale of what’s out there. The Great Smokey Mountains is the most visited national park in the country, and the Blue Ridge Parkway pulls in more people in a year than the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Yosemite combined. So two of the busiest places in the whole park system, and they both sit right on Asheville’s doorstep. Of course, there are hiking trails within driving distance of Asheville to last you a lifetime, so you can probably understand why I hired a guide.

Would you mind just first saying your name and what it is that you do?

David: My name is David and my wife and I. My wife Angela and I own hike, bike, kayak, Asheville. We do customized guided hikes. We rent bikes and I do customized kayak tours and driving tours.

Aislyn: And today we’re going to be using our feet. And where will those feet take us?

David: We’re going to be in the area of Transylvania County, the land of waterfalls, and we’re going to see one of the most high volume roadside waterfalls in the area, Looking Glass Falls, and then we’re going to drive to a trailhead and do a moderate hike to a beautiful Moore Cove Falls that falls over the mouth of a cave. And the hike in is very pretty.

Aislyn: Well, let’s hit the road. Like me, David is from California and he was into nature and the outdoors long before he moved to Asheville 9 years ago. Since then, he’s invested a huge amount of time into learning everything he can about these mountains. And now, as we drive to our first hike of the day, he’s passing on that knowledge to me.

David: We are in the Appalachian Mountain chain, the section called the Blue Ridge Mountains that stretch all the way up into West Virginia. Geologists will tell you the Appalachian mountain chain is one of the oldest mountain chains in the world. And it used to be similar to the Himalayas. But over the millennia, the erosion has caused them to drop down in elevation. Next time the continents collide, supposedly they will rise up higher than they were before. We won’t be here for that, I don’t think.

Aislyn: I hope not, I don’t know if I want to be here when they.

David: Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be there. I grew up in California with a lot of earthquakes. That sounds like it’d be more than just a little earthquakes.

Aislyn: Like it’s like a land tsunami, basically.

David: Exactly right. Oh, man.

Aislyn: David and his wife moved here to open a B&B. It’s actually a great story to ask him about on a hike, but eventually opened the guiding business as a way to stay busy and to connect to nature. In addition to hiking, biking, and van tours, which are especially popular in the fall when the colors take center stage, David also runs kayaking tours on one of Asheville’s two major rivers.

David: The section of the French Broad River I do, goes through the Biltmore Estate, so you can actually see the Biltmore House from the river, and I share a lot of natural history, but also because George Vanderbilt, the family history is intertwined with the town of Asheville. So I share a lot of Vanderbilt history on that tour as well.

Aislyn: What do you love about spending time on the river, in the mountains, especially since you come from California, which is no slouch in the outdoors department?

David: That’s true. California’s great outdoorsy. When I moved here, I was so interested in the outdoor, no ocean. I mean, in San Diego, I learned all the marine life in the area from marine biologists and such and when we moved here, I wanted to learn the flora and fauna of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and my mother in law had given me a brochure on becoming a Blue Ridge Naturalist. So I took a number of classes, 300 units, like getting a master’s degree, kind of, and I got a certification as a Blue Ridge naturalist when I was finished with that. My wife said, well, what are you going to do with all that stuff you’ve learned? And I said, I’m going to take you out hiking. And she said, well, I don’t have time to hike. I’m running a bed and breakfast. Why don’t you take our guests out or start a guiding business or something and do that? So that’s what we did.

Aislyn: What about the hiking? Because I have to say, I’m most excited about that. I love to hike and get out into nature. Yeah. What do you like about spending time in the trees here?

David: Oh my gosh. It’s like, have you ever heard of forest bathing, that is what it’s like just on an average hike here today. We’re still in the winter, so the trees don’t have leaves yet. So it won’t be real green, but it’s still a beautiful trail, beautiful stream, we’ll see a beautiful waterfall, but there are thousands of miles of hiking trails here. No matter what you want to see, you’ll find it. Waterfalls, views, hard hikes, easy hikes, anything in between. And you don’t have to drive more than 45 minutes from Asheville to get to those.

Aislyn: It does feel like everywhere you go, the mountains beckon because you can just see them everywhere you are. So it seems a shame to not get out in them.

David: There’s a saying, John Muir, a quote from John Muir, The mountains are calling and I must go. I think of that almost every day. And whenever I get to a trailhead, I think of that.

Aislyn: You know, this is a question that I feel like I should be able to answer. I know it’s an iconic place, but the Blue Ridge Parkway, what makes it so unique?

David: The Blue Ridge Parkway is a 469 mile, they call it the mountain scenic roadway or motorway. It was actually built during the Great Depression to one; It was one of the projects under Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Aislyn: The road runs from the town of Cherokee all the way up to Virginia, connecting the Great Smoky Mountain National Park with the Shenandoah National Park.

David: Which leads me, if I can move into the reason the. The Blue Ridge Mountains. The way they got their name. So there’s a lot of trees, oak trees, uh, local sassafras trees here, some other tupelo trees, tulip poplars. And they have a chemical, it’s a sun protector, called isoprene. They give off this chemical that protects them from getting sunburned. Like we use sunscreen. Trees have this natural ability to keep themselves from getting baked in the sun. And the vapor from the isoprene with the sunlight shining through it creates that blue haze that you see on distant ridges. So pretty much any mountain that you go to, a mountain chain that you go to that has a lot of oak trees, you would have isoprene. But the difference is with the Blue Ridge, the ridges are farther apart. You actually see the effect. Your eyes adjust to that color in the distant ridges, and you can be up on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and I’ve counted 20 ridges on a clear day. It’s dark blue to gray the whole way, and that’s the isoprene that’s making that effect.

Aislyn: That’s amazing. I mean, I’ve seen the photos. I haven’t seen it in person, but wow. So does that also mean you get really incredible sunrises and sunsets there?

David: Oh yeah. My gosh. There are overlooks on the Blue Ridge Parkway and just on hiking trails. A really popular area is called Linville Gorge, east of Asheville, part of Pisgah Forest. It’s called the Grand Canyon of the east. And I see sunrise and sunset post from there all the time. Just gorgeous. And that you see the blue haze and the orange from the sun hitting the clouds, or, you know, different things in the sky. You see that orange and blue, it looks fake. You think, wow, somebody used a used their coloring skills, you know, to get this thing. I wish I knew how to do that. It’s not. It’s nature. That’s nature and it’s just beautiful.

Aislyn: Nature’s Instagram filter.

David: Exactly. It’s a good term.

Aislyn: By now we’ve entered Pisgah National Forest, northeast of Asheville. And after this quick break, we’re going to meet our first waterfall.

The county of Transylvania, where we are, has zero vampires, or at least none that I heard of, and more than 250 named waterfalls, half of them right here in this national forest. Why are there so many waterfalls in the Pisgah Forest?

David: It’s because the volume of rainfall we get here, where Asheville gets about 40 inches of rain a year, give or take an inch on average. Transylvania County, out in this area of Pisgah, gets twice that 80 to 100 inches of rain a year. I read something last year because I was worried about drought conditions, and we’re in a drought right now here, but I read something last year that said we would have to have a major drought for 3 years, a full 3 years, before any of these waterfalls would come close to drying up. That’s how much water is in the in the in the ground here.

Aislyn: We’ve just arrived at our first waterfall.

David: This is Looking Glass Falls. It’s a roadside waterfall. There’s some Vanderbilt history here. Paved road that we’ve been on was the Logging Railroad until 1914. And when the crew was grading this to build the railroad, they got to this point and stopped working. And they sent word to George Vanderbilt that the waterfall was here. Well, he did everything on horseback, so he jumped on a horse and rode out here. Probably took more than a day, or at least the better part of a day. And he designated a 25 acre radius as a no logging zone here to keep this pristine so that when friends and family came from New York to visit the vacation home, they could have some place to come and enjoy.

Aislyn: Do you know why it’s called the Looking Glass?

David: Looking Glass? Yeah, the rock face behind the waterfall and around the side of it. In the winter, when we have freezes, that freezes over and you get a reflection of the forest in the rock face. And of course, it’s winter time, so there’s not a lot of greenery. The greenery you see here is evergreen rhododendron. So you get that. And then you also get a reflection of the creek flowing downstream.

Aislyn: Oh. And we see people at the base of the waterfall too.

David: Yeah, there’s a swimming hole here. We’ve got.

Aislyn: Oh, really?

David: There’s actually a land of waterfalls. There are. I mean, there’s hundreds of waterfalls here, and a lot of them do have swimming holes, so they’re really popular in the summer.

Aislyn: Oh it’s beautiful. Beautiful waterfall.

One thing about this stretch of forest, you can do just about everything from right here. That rock face above us is Looking Glass rock. What climbers call the El Capitan of the east. This same creek, a little further on, turns into Sliding Rock, a 60 foot natural water slide that yes, you can slide down, and the Davidson River nearby is one of the best trout streams in the country. So climbing, fishing, waterfalls slide down a rock all in one valley.

Great.

David: Do some hiking?

Aislyn: Yes. I’m ready.

David: This is one of my favorite trails in the spring. A lot of wildflowers grow along here.

Hiker: How y’all doing? Excuse us.

Aislyn: Oh. Thank you.

Hiker: You’re welcome.

Aislyn: What kind of wildflowers do you see?

David: Some orchid species we get, cranefly orchids. In the springtime, our spring wildflowers are in the orchid family, are [...] orchids.

Aislyn: Okay.

David: And begonias.

Aislyn: It’s cool.

David: It’s kind of cool. Those some of them are pretty rare. That’s why we get the cranes I mentioned, petite orchids.

Aislyn: Yeah.

David: And, um. Oh, gosh. Rattlesnake Plantain orchids, we’ll probably see loads of those today along here.

Aislyn: Wow, that sounds amazing.

David: There are hundreds of species. Spring, summer or fall. So from late March, when the azaleas start blooming all the way into late fall.

Aislyn: Wow. Wow.

David: Beautiful flowers along the trail.

Aislyn: David recommends that if you’re getting out on the trails and you want to see wildflowers, definitely consult a wildflower bloom schedule. Of course, different flowers bloom at different times, but if you’ve never lived in the mountains, you might not realize that lower elevations tend to sprout leaves and blooms earlier in the year. As higher elevations warm over the growing season, blooms tend to creep up the hillsides. If you want to see some regional flowers while you’re in Asheville but aren’t interested in hiking or you have limited mobility, you can always stop by the botanical gardens. And if you don’t mind a 15 minute drive, the North Carolina State Arboretum is just 15 minutes south.

The State Arboretum, by the way, hosts the Blue Ridge Naturalist program, where David has studied. It has required courses, electives and a final project, just like a university program. And David is finished and fully certified, but still tries to take a course each year.

David: Signed up for one this year. It’s a foraging class.

Aislyn: Oh, cool.

David: You learn more about the edibles. I’ve heard that 80 percent of the trees and shrubs here are edible and or medicinal, and I want to find out specifically which ones. Yeah, and what they’re good for.

Aislyn: David also goes on hikes with his former flower instructor, who has such a good story.

David: To share his life experience with us the first couple days, couple meetings of class, and he was in the Air Force. He was a paratrooper and he was in a team that in Vietnam that dropped into the jungle and cut out clearings for foot soldiers. So they were under fire quite often. So I think of him as a man’s man. Just fearless. Just doesn’t fear anything. And he’s just. Yeah, just a guy, you know? Yeah. And yet when he looks at a wildflower, he just melts. He’ll turn around with a big smile on his face. Isn’t that pretty? I had classes with Carrie Eyepieces and look through magnifiers at them. And what do you have to say? And I remember Michaux’s Saxifrage, I’ll never forget because I looked at that, and to look at it with the naked eye, the white petals with little orange, orange or red spots. And I thought, well, those are just spots on the pedals. That’s pretty much up to the eyepiece. They were actually stamen. I mean, I’d see it in 3D.

Aislyn: Wow.

David: And I was speechless for about 5 minutes. He said, are you going to respond to my question? And I said, huh? What’d you say, Scott? He said, isn’t that the prettiest flower you’ve seen? And I said, yeah, that’s why I couldn’t speak, because I was just enamored with it.

Aislyn: Oh my gosh. Oh, wow. Okay, I think we’ve reached our second waterfall.

Oh, cool. Hey, doggie.

David: There’s a couple smaller ones above this. This is Moore Cove Falls.

Aislyn: What do you say?

David: Moore Cove.

Aislyn: Moore Cove. I mean, it does look a bit like there’s this area underneath where you can kind of stand behind the falls.

David: Yeah, yeah, you can go back. There’s a trail there or just right around the fence here. You can go down and get behind it in the fall season in October, I think it’s about the 3rd week of October, getting behind the falls and taking a photo out this way, the fall colors just just blow you away.

Aislyn: Wow.

David: You can see the water falling in the photo, but you can also see all that color.

Aislyn: Yeah. That’s amazing.

David: I’ve not been up here, believe it or not, when the rhododendrons are blooming in May and it’s a busy month, so…

Aislyn: Yeah.

On this trip, nearly everyone I met talked about the gravitational pull of these mountains. It brings people back who leave. It beckons those who have never been. And it keeps most people here. Once they arrive, they inspire world class chefs and grizzled veterans alike, apparently. And for me, the mountains did call and I went. And after all I’ve seen, I can wholeheartedly recommend that you also heed that call.

So that’s our Asheville guide. Five episodes, one city, all of it reported on the ground this year. If any of it sent you looking at flights, that was the whole idea. You’ll find the full guide in the feed whenever you want to plan your own trip.

I’m Aislyn Greene. This is Unpacked by Afar. Thanks for coming to the mountains with us.

This was a production of Afar Media. This episode was hosted by Aislyn Greene and produced by Nikki Galteland and Kendal Perkinson. Music from Chris Collin and Epidemic Sound. This podcast is part of the Airwave Podcast Network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to their other fine shows like Culture Kids and The Explorers podcast.