Early October Leafin' Trip

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WhiteRover

#1
#1
The wife and I decided to take the Rover and recently acquired pop-up camper on their inagural trip to see if we could catch some fall colors off of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We had planned to drive up to Lake Powatan Campground Friday night, then head north on the BRP on Saturday, hitting hikes/views along the way. We were going to try to make Linville Falls Saturday night and camp there road-side style. Then Sunday morning get up and drive up to the Linn Cove Viaduct and Grandfather mountain where supposedly colors would be peak.

What actually happened was we got on the road late (8pm) and were made later by Bojangles holding our dinner hostage putting us on the road at 8:30. This was pushing it because it was calculated to be a 1.5 hour drive to Lake Powatan Campground and the gates closed at 10pm. Everything went smoothly on the drive up and we made it with 10-15minutes to spare. We got checked in and setup, showered and went to bed. We got lucky with the campground because they were open for Friday night. They ended up having to close at noon on Saturday due to the Gov Shutdown/funding issues.
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We got up on Saturday and made breakfast, got packed up and pulled out by 10:15 and started our jaunt up the BRP. We hiked the Craggy Gardens summit to great views along the way and ate Lunch at Mt. Mitchell.
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The parkway was crawling with road cyclists who I always caught on a blind corner and couldn't pass them. This then killed the momentum of the truck and I had to continue crawling up the hills in second gear at 25mph. The truck is much different to drive with the TDI and would benefit from a differential regear, especially with the combination of larger tires and towing a 1500lb popup up 10% grades. After lunch at the Mt. Mitchell restaurant we continued up to the summit.
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Mt. Mitchell was open because it was a state park and was crawling with people. My only complaint about the park was there was no trailer/RV parking at the restaurant and I had to park on the shoulder of the entrance to the parking lot. Luckily the ranger's didn't seem to have a problem with that. By the time we were leaving Mt. Mitchell it was 3:30 and we were both exhausted. There was no way we were making it to Linville Falls that day. I had heard somewhere about a forest road that went along the South Toe river which had roadside camping and a campground at the end (which I assumed would be closed). We found the road and headed down it to find 3 roadside camping spots suitable for a trailer. There were several more walk in tent sites. We snagged one of the trailer-friendly sites near the South Toe River and setup camp, got a fire started and relaxed.
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To be continued . . .
 
Last edited:
97TJGUZZY

97TJGUZZY

SUPPORTER
#2
#2
Sounds like a great trip. I look forward to seeing the pics. I cant see the pics in the link. I'm glad the rover did well, and I'm impressed it got that good mileage pulling a popup.
 
W

WhiteRover

#3
#3
It was a clear cool night with many stars and we headed to bed around 9:00. The next morning we got up and got going a bit slower for various reasons and we were heading out by 11:00. We jumped back on the BRP, hopped off to see little Switzerland, stopped at the orchard at Altapass for apples, and continued on towards Linville Falls.

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We arrived at Linville Falls around 1:30 and found that the main entrance was gated and locked. People were crawling all over this place too and had parked up the entrance road and were hiking in. I did a 6-pt turn with the trailer and was looking at the GPS to try to reroute to Wiseman's View when a local stopped and offered directions to the back way to the falls. It ends up that its off the same road to Wiseman's View; its just a gravel parking lot with a trail to the falls, again with no trailer parking. I found a spot on the shoulder behind a home made teardrop trailer and we hiked to the falls. This is what happens when you are trying to use the camera feature that takes the picture ONLY when you smile:

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Now without the clowns:
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We spotted this guy on the hike back:
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After the falls, we headed up the road to Wiseman's View. The road was in pretty rough shape in some places from all the family station wagons and Mercedes C-Classes we saw trying to claw their way up the loose gravel steep switchbacks on the way to the view. I ended up using low range most of the way to keep my speed down so I didn't beat the pop-up to death but still be able to climb up the road. We made it to Wiseman's View which was increadible as it was a beautiful clear day.
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This one's kinda cool, the vulture was in the panorama twice:
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By the time we got back to Linville Falls it was 3:30 and one of the tail light lenses on the popup had fallen off on the trip back from the bouncing. We grabbed a quick lunch at Famous Louise's Rockhouse and took US221 all the way back home, arriving at 6:30.

It was a good trip, despite the government shutdown and not making it as far as we had liked. We did get to see some good colors around Mt. Mitchell. Lake Powatan Campground was great, and my wife thinks, the best we've stayed at so far. There were lots of Mtn Bikers hitting the trails nearby, so I need to make it back up here for a weekend to bike. The truck averaged about 22mpg towing floored most of the time when going up hill. No breakdowns, only a little boil over due to a loose radiator cap when heading up Mt. Mitchell. The only 'trail carnage' was the loss of the tail light lense off of the pop-up. I was impressed that the trailer didn't scrape at any point during the trip (no lift and its low) through the several 6 point turns in road side ditches and the rough road to Wiseman's view. I am glad we camped off of the South Toe River as the camping we were planning to use off of old NC105 were mostly occupied with questionable looking mountain folk, some of which were getting written up by Rangers. Also NC105 was much busier than the road by the South Toe River. We're both itching to get back out again, maybe the last week in October. We'll see.

There's more pictures, but you can find them in the album: HERE
 
D

Dredwolf

#5
#5
Nice pics! We have done each main "leg" of that trip in the wife's '03 Explorer. We need to re-run some of that, I added a 1.5" body lift and 265/75-16 Cooper Discoverer AT3's
 
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