In today’s post, I’ll share my memories from the second half of my journey to the USA.

The third day in the mountains, we decided to go for what was a more typical hike from my point of view. While the Blue Ridge Parkway was still closed, the trails around were available – though with frequent “storm-damaged area – hike on your own risk” signs. Despite that, the trails we walked weren’t too affected.

Before we started, we stopped at another waterfall just by the road (NC seems to have an abundance of those).

Once we’ve reached a parking lot, we planned a simple loop around the nearby mountains. It was to lead us to a peak with a good view and then some other places around. However, the mountains decided to give some of us a harsh start. Just in the first bend since leaving the car, we had to cross the stream, and my father took an involuntary bath in the cold water. Despite that, we decided to continue, the beginning being quite easy, though we were considering some changes in the plan.

The trail led us by a couple of smaller waterfalls as it circled around the mountain on our right side, mostly keeping us in the shade until the final turn towards the valley. There, we could enjoy the view of another waterfall.

A short distance above, we had to cross the stream, this time without any problems. We took a short break and then prepared to start the ascension to the peak looming right in front of us. This was a relatively gentle incline at first, and even once we got closer, the trail weaved around the hill instead of taking us straight up.

The peak provided a magnificent view of the nearby mountains, though this part of the mountains wasn’t as colorful as some other places we’ve seen – something I presume to be caused by the elevation, where spruces and shrubs grow more than the deciduous trees we’ve seen in the lower portions.

I enjoyed the surprising warmth, waiting for my family to catch up, and we then took a break to decide how to continue. Eventually, my parents decided to take the same trail back to the parking lot while I would go on with my uncle as we originally planned to two more nearby peaks.

This meant descending to the pass and then taking a zigzagging trail to the upper trail across (as shown above in the background). What took my attention on the next peak were patches of exposed rocks that reminded me of cooled-down lava.

The trail then took us to the woods, following along the ridge, until we came across a lookout facing south. The slope there fell fast and in the lower portions, we could see the colorful forests again.

Then, we continued through the woods to the final lookout, the Devil’s Courthouse peak. We met two men roughly my age there and ended up talking a fair amount as one of them revelaed he had quite a strange origin: half-Hungarian and half-Arabic (I can’t remember which country, exactly).

With us eventually spending almost an hour at the peak, we had to pick up our pace on the way down to not let my parents wait too long. As we neared the parking lot, I decided to take a small detour to a nearby waterfall while my uncle went on, agreeing that we’d wait for each other on the upper parking lot. This ended up being a mad rush through dense foliage, as the trail was very faint, but I managed to find both the upper and the lower waterfall.

The next day, we set out to a place that had a few more waterfalls, and where my uncle planned to go fishing.

We were considering two options, one was a trail to a peak with a single lookout at the top, the other option was a loop that was around a smaller peak near the fish hatchery. Both would be quite short (well, for my standards), so we eventually decided on a compromise once we saw that the parking lot by the first peak was decently full: my family dropped me off at the trailhead and went ahead to the lower peak, while I’d take the first peak alone and then catch up.

Thus, I decided to go unleash my full potential. The trail was quite nice, weaving through the woods and ascending relatively gently, but in the warm weather, I ended up getting sweaty quite fast. It was well worth it, though, the view of the colorful woods from the peak was stunning.

After making my way back down to the parking lot, I walked down the road to the next trailhead. With enough time to spare, I decided to do the basic loop around the second peak, though I did ask some of the hikers about the state of the trails in case I was in the mood to improvise.

Just below the peak was a lookout from which I could see the mountain I visited some two hours ago.

I continued down the trail, enjoying the colorful autumn forests and the relatively calm trail.

Eventually, I decided to change my plan and, instead of looping back down the eastern trail, I took the western loop which promised a couple of waterfalls. The upper waterfall was easier to reach, barely a few steps off the main trail, and given the easy access and unexpected solitude, I took the chance to splash myself with the cold water.

I returned to the main trail and went on to search for the lower waterfall. This was much trickier as the footpath was significantly damaged by the September storms with several fallen trees in the way, but I managed to reach the waterfall.

After making my way through the damaged woods back to the trail, it was an easy walk back to the parking lot, and looking forward to the last day in the hills.

I must say that it felt like leaving too soon, but with so many areas still closed, we struggled to come up with an idea of where to go for the fifth hike. Eventually, we came full circle, ending up in the same area as the afternoon of the first day in the hills, from the opposite side of the reserve.

We first walked to a beautiful lookout (photo above) that gave us a view of Little Green Moutain, the peak we visited on the previous hike, then looped back to a place aptly named Wilderness Falls – the waterfall there was hidden in quite a dense foliage and the trail turned out to be a bit trickier with all sorts of roots and shrubs getting in the way.

A short distance down the slop was another waterfall, smaller but easily reached.

Then, the trail was relatively easy, leading us to another beautiful waterfall.

Reaching it, we decided to split once again. My parents decided to take an easy trail parallel to the one we took to return, while my uncle would take the direct way to the overlooking Blackrock mountain and I took the long loop around the mountain, deciding to meet up with my uncle at the peak. This loop, unfortunately, didn’t have much to see as most of the trail was in the woods but I was glad to get some walking done so the extra distance didn’t bother me. The slopes of Blackrock Mountain had quite a beautiful lookout, though, which was a great way to close my stay in the hills.

I enjoyed the last moments in these colorful hills as we descended to the parking lot, which my parents reached just a few minutes before us. After a short break we spent talking with some other hikers, we left the mountains.

The next day was spent with some light clean-up of the chalet and then the long way back to the shore which I spent reading. While we left the mountains, we still had some time before flying back. The next day, I went with my father to the beach, while my uncle and mother worked on getting ingredients for the evening, which was to be the dinner with some of his friends. Turns out that some ingredients that are common in my country aren’t as common in the USA (such as parsley roots). The evening gave me a good chance to practice my English with my uncle’s friends, and it passed quite fast.

The next day, my uncle took us to a civil war fort and museum some two hours of ride away from the town where he lives, and an aquarium nearby, which was a nice day to rest and see a bit of history. On Friday, we took a tour of the USS North Carolina battleship museum and some time to see the city center, which was pretty much the end of interesting things – Saturday was spent packing and getting ready for the afternoon departure and the overnight flight back to Europe.

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And thus, my two-week journey was over. It was definitely an interesting experience full of beautiful sights but one I won’t repeat anytime soon, primarily because of the lengthy journey. Given the massive distances and the reliance on cars (as it seems the USA lacks any decent public transport system, something I’m used to at quite a high standard as a European), it seems the best way to explore the country would be just to rent a camper van and travel from one nature reserve to another.