The Great Outsmores

This Saturday & Sunday (Jan. 26-27) is the 2008 Atlanta Fly Fishing Expo at the Gwinnett Center in Duluth. A number of local and national pros will be on hand teaching both fundamentals and the latest techniques to land more fish. Seminars include:

• Secrets of TVA tailwaters
• W. Carolina Fly Fishing
• Kayak Fishing
• Kids Casting
• Fishing Lake Lanier
• and about a dozen others…

For a complete list & schedule, visit Atlanta’s Fly Fishing Festival’s website.

Also the first 20 visitors to purchase a certificate for a full day of fishing at Nacoochee Bend at our regular price will receive a FREE FLY ROD from Unicoi Outfitters .

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Yup, three days after getting my new canoe, I blew my back out. This weekend, I quit whining and got out on the water. The whole idea was that we’d get a boat big enough for Jenn, myself, and hopefully the two dogs - Aspen and Layla. I know, two people, two dogs, one canoe?

People were looking at us like we were crazy, and in retrospect, perhaps we were.  With the dogs moving around, and it being Jenn’s first time in a canoe - we’re lucky we didn’t go over.

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We got restless one weekend not too far past, and my girlfriend (now wife) and a good buddy loaded up the fast car for some weekend fun in Western North Carolina. Friday night, it’s ten O’clock - we should have been going to bed, or out at the pub….. but Harrah’s casino in Chrerokee, NC, Ashville, and a true gem of a hike were about to be packed into the next 48 hours!

While losing money playing horrible computerized blackjack, history lessons on Native American prostitution in literature, and old men caught vandelizing city property are out of the scope of this blog, a 2 1/2 mile day hike in adverse yet gorgous weather should fit nicely here.

Introducing the Whiteside Mountain Trail, near Cashiers, NC (pronounced cashers, not casheers). Enough moisture stuck around through the advancing cold front from the night before to lend all of the truly fun weather conditions, you know: snow, ice, and low hanging clouds that would create a winter playground in the Southern Blure Ridge.

The Trail
It’s a moderate loop trail, well marked, with a distance of 2.2 miles on trail. Located in the Nantahala NF, just a few miles West of Cashiers, NC, the trail head is very accessible off of US 64, by turning South on Whiteside Mountain Road. The trail winds it’s way around Whiteside Mountain, leading to expansive views of the valleys below and Blue Ridge Mountains in all directions. There are also a number of spur trails, leading to even more exciting vistas, and cliffs that seem to drop into nowhere.

The trail begins as many do in this part of the Appalachians, through dense white oak stands and intermitant hemlocks and rhododendron creating the broken canopy left by winter. In summer, the trail’s vistas play a more stringent game of peek-a-boo, but will give way none the less on the steep cliffs and granite outcrops above. The high was only 34 degrees (F) that day, and we found ourselves alone next to a couple frozen waterfalls along the trail. We even got to play a little ice-sickle baseball with the shards that had come undone from their overhangs.

By the time we reached the first overlook, the clouds had closed in, providing a sensational, yet erie setting - especially when thousand foot cliffs lay near by. Not to worry, cliffs are well marked on the main trail, however overlooks become more tedious on spurs and scrambles. Over the next few hours, as we completed the loop and explored some spur trails and scrambled up, over, and out to miscellaneous ledges. We were offered fleeting glimpses of the views between the hanging clouds passing through our vantage points. We even had snow flurries off and on again through the second half of our hike, making it a unique experience, and other wordly compared to the heat and humidity found here during summer escapades.

Over all, I have to rate this trail as four stars on a normal day, but it becomes truly spectacular when old man winters does his best. Between the extended views offered by an empty canopy, high visibilty of cold clean air (this trip excepted), and an empty trail found these times of year, I would highly recomend it to anybody looking for a great way to shed cabin fever.

A few more photos from the trip:

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