Shining Rock Backpack

Date: 6/7/14 - 6/9/14
Distance: ~17mi

This weekend I was the tag along Dad on a backpack trip with my son and his friends in the Shining Rock Wilderness in Western North Carolina.

We parked on the side of the road half way down the Black Balsam Knob Road which is off of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The trail was the "Art Loeb" Trail.  This is a fine group of men who accompanied me on the hike.

The trail goes up and over about 3 large balds.  My normal view was from in the back as youth won out over experience on this hike.

 We camped about 0.5 miles short of Shining Rock about 4 miles total.  The campsite was off of the trial by a few hundred yards up in a small grassy area.  It wasn't easy to find, but the Scouts on the trip had been here previously.

After setting up camp, we headed out to Shining Rock to check out the view.  Shining Rock is a large white rock outcropping.

The Clouds moved in and we headed back to camp for dinner under the rain fly.  The 1st night saw a fair amount of rain.  The high elevation (5800')  meant that it was pretty cool overnight.

The next morning the sun was shining, so the boys headed out to Shining Rock again.  I was going to hike a 6 mile loop off to the right of the trail, but I couldn't find it.  So I opted to continue out the Art Loeb trail after dropping by Shining Rock for a couple of photos.

 Along the trail were some nice flowers and views.

 The trail got pretty rocky and difficult after 2.5 miles.  I didn't have a good map, so I opted to turn back toward camp.

At camp, I dumped the pack and took some water and walked back toward the car on a different trail than the day before.  I ended up circling around the last bald we crossed on the way to camp.  I came back to camp on the jeep road.  After dinner, we headed out to Shining Rock for the sunset.

We packed up the next morning and headed out early.  Matt knew how to get down the Jeep road from the gap near camp and we hiked out on the Jeep road.  It was fairly level, but wasn't as enjoyable as the hike over the balds on the way in.  The trail ended on the road and there was about a 1 mile walk back to the car on the road. 

Awesome weekend with some excellent young men.