New Years Day 2014 Hawksbill Mountain

NEW YEAR'S DAY HIKE TO HAWKSBILL



From Wiseman's View we spotted someone who like us hiked Hawksbill on New Years Day

FBWG and Jake

The nice folks who run the North Carolina Parks System encourage the citizens of our fine state to "take a hike" on New Year's Day....and what is a Fat Bald White Guy to do?....  We decided to return to our favorite mountain peak in the Linville Gorge....Hawksbill Mountain (http://fbwg-hiking.blogspot.com/2012/07/hawksbill-mountain-at-linville-gorge.html)....but with one change.... We are hoping to take a sponsor!  Yep, the new year offers the FBWG and his Hiking Companion to hike with a sponsor....if it is good enough for Dale, Jr....it is good enough for the FBWG.... For 2014, the FBWG and his hiking companion are hoping to be sponsored by the good folks at Bank of North Carolina.....and accompanying me today was a representative of the Bank of North Carolina, my good friend and banker extraordinaire, Mike Jacobs.  Drop into the Bank of North Carolina in Kernersville, and tell the folks there that the Fat Bald White Guy sent you....they will treat you real nice!  Mike had spent a great deal of time in his career in Boone, but had never hiked in the Linville Gorge. He was in for a treat.

Hawksbill Mountain (r) and "Bubba Ridge"(l)

We began our hike at the Sitting Bear Trail Head off of NC Forest Road 210.  We like to start here as it provides us with a nice 2.0 mile trek to the summit by way of the Jonas Ridge trail across an unnamed peak which I have dubbed "Bubba Ridge".  As expected we were the only hikers on this trail, not seeing another party until we were halfway up the summit trail to Hawksbill Mountain.  Since my Hiking Companion gave me a new camera for Christmas, she is now armed with my old camera....and she was eager to take some pics of The FBWG and his sponsor....I did tell you he works for BANK OF NORTH CAROLINA, didn't I?  (http://bankofnc.com/) 

Sitting Bear Mountain

Hawksbill Mountain from Jonas Ridge Trail

Along the Jonas Ridge Trail across Bubba Ridge, we got glimpses of both Sitting Bear Mountain and our destination, something you don't see on a summertime hike.  Somehow the peaks look a lot bigger if you can see where you are hiking but at least we were not doing Sitting Bear as I remember how steep that hike is!



Looking East from Hawksbill Summit Trail

We soon made it across the ridge and began the summit trail which is as steep but not as long as I remembered...and during one of my frequent breaks I took some pics of the views to the east.
Having only visited the summit of Hawksbill in the summer of 2012, I was concerned that the spectacular vista seen on that visit would be diminished on this winter's day.  I was right the view was not spectacular, but in the words of Bank of North Carolina Banker Extraordinaire, Mike Jacobs: "Words cannot describe this view, it is simply magnificent!"  Yep, you got that right!

Table Rock Mountain and Linville Gorge South

The weather was in the mid-thirties and a light wind made us thankful for the warm sun.  Mike was overwhelmed by the view and we scrambled across the rocks to a lower cliff to get a better view...and of course my Hiking Companion got some photos.  And true to form, she also got a nice promo shot for the cover of the first "Hiking with Fat Bald White Guy - Bank with Bank of North Carolina" advertisements.  I mean seriously, what better pitch man for a bank than a Fat Bald White Guy who hikes the most beautiful places in the State of North Carolina... Flo, the pitchwoman for Progressive Insurance ain't got nothing on the FBWG!  We took several pictures from the south side of the summit but this one I liked as the Blue Ridge seems to melt into the blue winter sky.

Hawk's Bill Cliff

Telling Mike that the north side of the summit offer even better views, he was anxious to see how any view could be better than the ones he just saw.   We went straight to the Hawk's Bill Cliff and he got to see a 180 degree view of the mountains and gorge north, west and east of Hawksbill Mountain.

Linville Gorge North

From this side of the summit, you can see Sugar Top Condos atop Sugar Mountain and the nice homes of Gingercake Acres.

We also got Mike to pose for another Hiking with a Fat Bald Guy-Bank of North Carolina promo ad with Table Rock in the background....hey it will catch on...'Banking with the Fat Bald White Guy' has a nice ring to it, don't you think? 

 On the cliff  facing the east we took a lunch break and  marveled at all the beauty of God's creation.

As I have often observed, Table Rock Mountain is the grande dame of the Linville Gorge and no matter where you are, you are drawn to this distinctive geological marvel.  Even as we enjoyed the views to the north and east, as we turned to return to the summit trail, the beauty of Table Rock again drew our attention.

Leaving the summit trail, I spied a trail running off to the left and upon inspection found it to be the illusive Ledge Trail.  The trail has been recently cleared as I observed freshly cut branches and red survey tape.  We quickly scampered down the trail and found ourselves beneath the Hawk's Bill Cliff.  We soon found our way to a small cliff facing north with a stunning view of the Gorge. 

Resisting the urge to explore the trail further, we turned back to the summit trail but not before we played around the cliff wall and looked for caves....only finding icicles.

Arriving again at the summit trail, I decided this to be a good place to erect a cairn.  We explained to Mike the history of this Cherokee traditional marker.  It will serve a good purpose to indicate the Ledge Trail, but more importantly it all allowed us to explain that by constructing this cairn, we offer our own prayer of thanksgiving to our Creator for all the gifts of nature we enjoy.  As we enter this new year, it is my hope that each of you that you will join with me in praying...

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower:
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

  So how do we rate this New Year's day hike....it was simply magnificent.....10+  especially as we got to share the day with a good friend and see him enjoy the beauty of the Linville Gorge.  Let Mike tell you:   "I can tell you I have seen many beautiful places in these mountains, but I don't think there are any that compare with what I have seen today"




Now remember....Banking with the Fat Bald White Guy.... it may be the new slogan for the Bank of North Carolina...don't laugh....if everyone reading the blog will go to BONC and say: "The Fat Bald White Guy sent me"....it could happen!

"I gave my heart to the mountains the minute I stood beside this river with its spray in my face and watched it thunder into foam, smooth to green glass over sunken rocks, shatter to foam again. I was fascinated by how it sped by and yet was always there; its roar shook both the earth and me." - Wallace Stegner 

Come Lord Jesus

A reflection on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "God in the Manger".

If you ever share a meal with someone of the Moravian Denomination, you will learn a simple, but profound prayer. “Come Lord Jesus, our guest to be. Bless these gifts bestowed by thee. Bless our dear ones everywhere, keep them in your loving care." Lamenting that my prayer life seems to revolve around the routine of... our ritualized dinner time blessing, I am drawn in the time of Advent to reflect upon the meaning of asking Jesus to come into my life. The Advent Study, God in the Manger, of theologian Deitrich Bonhoeffer provided the framework for my thoughts and my prayers.

Scripture paints the picture in our minds’ eye of Jesus standing at the door knocking. (Rev. 3:20) What are we to do? By our prayer we invite him to “Come” and here he is. Standing at our door, gently but firmly knocking. We can ignore the sound for only so long. As we peer through the curtains to catch a glimpse, who will we see? In truth, we see what we are afraid to confront. Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains it this way: “In total reality, he comes in the form of a beggar, of the dissolute human child in ragged clothes asking for help. He confronts you in every person that you meet. As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you. That is the great seriousness and the great blessedness of the Advent message. Christ is standing at the door; he lives in the form of a human being among us. Do you want to close the door or open it?”

Is not this the lost meaning of Christmas? God has become man. God is with us. He came into the world he created, but then as now, people did not recognize him. Amid all the Christmas celebrations we have become so accustomed to the story, or at least our version of the story, that the idea that a Creator God becomes a part of his creation no longer gives us pause. Bonhoeffer explains: “[We] no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to it”. The idea is enveloped in our songs and rituals, all of which, like the Moravian blessing, say in some form or another “Come Lord Jesus.” And amid our dismay and confusion, He comes.

Jesus does not come at times and places appointed by men. Bethlehem, a stable, a teenage maiden, this is not a story of men. It is a divine paradox- a mystery. “The greatest mystery is not the most distant star; on the contrary, the closer something comes to us and the better we know it, then the more mysterious it becomes for us. The greatest mystery to us is not the most distant person, but the one next to us.” Maybe he is knocking at the door. Maybe he is there in the smile of a child or the tears of the aged. Maybe he is hungry or in prison, sick or infirm. God with us does not mean he is with us as we may imagine or desire. “God travels in wonderful ways with human beings, he does not comply with the views and opinions of people. God does not go the way people want to prescribe for him; rather his way is beyond all comprehension, free and self-determined beyond all proof.” We want him to be a baby in a manger, soft and vulnerable. Truthfully, we would like to keep him in the manger for to confront him in another place and time would require us to fully appreciate the majesty of who he is and what we are. “Where reason is indignant, where our nature rebels, where our piety anxiously keeps us away: that is precisely where God loves to be. There he confounds the reason of the reasonable; there he aggravates our nature, our piety-that is where he wants to be, and no one can keep him from it.” Still we pray: “Come Lord Jesus”. And He Comes!

If God will not stay in the manger of Bethlehem’s stable, how then should we celebrate Christmas? Pastor Bonhoeffer observes: “Who among us will celebrate Christmas correctly? Whoever finally lays down all power, all honor, all reputation, all vanity, all arrogance, all individualism beside the manger ; whoever remains lowly and lets God alone be high; whoever looks at the child in the manger and sees the glory of God precisely in his lowliness.” We cannot rely on the customs of our religions. No pomp and circumstance of man can add to the majesty of the birth of the child in the stable. Nor is such feeble response required. Bonhoeffer continues: “How we fail to understand when we think that the task of theology is to solve the mystery of God, to drag it down to the flat, ordinary wisdom of human experience and reason!” All religious ritual can do is to provide the means by which we can confront the frightful majesty of the question the Christ child presents to every person. Christmas theology is not about explaining mysteries, it is rather a matter of kindling faith. “If Christmas time cannot ignite within us again something like a love for holy theology, so that- captured and compelled by the wonder of the manger of the son of God- must reverently reflect on the mysteries of God, then it must be that the glow of the divine mysteries has also been extinguished in our heart and has died out.” Still we pray: “Come Lord Jesus” And up from the manger and down from the cross, He comes into our lives.

 It is the symbol of the manger contrasted with the symbol of the cross which dominates the holy theology of God. One cannot exist apart from the other. The joy of the manger is always tempered by the ugly shadow of the cross of Calvary. We know how the story plays out. It is on account of our belief in a glorious resurrection that tragedy becomes triumph. Still, we accept the glory and the majesty of both Christmas and Easter without ever answering that knock at the door. Afraid, I suppose, of who we are. Perhaps, ashamed of the impact of our sin on a baby in the manger and upon an innocent man on the cross. Still we pray: “Lord Jesus, come yourself and dwell with us as we are, and overcome what overwhelms us. Come into the midst of my evil, come close to my unfaithfulness. Share my sin, which I hate and which I cannot leave. Be my brother, thou Holy God. Be my brother in the kingdom of evil and suffering and death.”

Advent is the season of waiting. We are waiting for something we know is to come. Every advent season, we wait. We wait for the lights and the festivals. We wait for the presents and the simple joy in the eyes of children. We wait for the songs that warm our heart. We wait for the tastes and smells that delight our senses. We wait for the embrace of family. We wait for we know that all this is to come. We also wait for the coming of our Lord. “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:28) For what are we to look ? What burden can we no longer bear alone? What challenge do we face? What disappointment will we encounter? How are we changed by the baby in the manger and the innocent man on the cross? “Advent creates people, new people. We too, are supposed to become new people in Advent. Look up, you whose gaze is fixed on this earth, who are spellbound by the little events and changes on the face of the earth. Look up to these words, you who have turned away from heaven disappointed . Look up, you whose eyes are heavy with tears and who are heavy and crying over the act that the earth has gracelessly torn us away. Look up, you who, burdened with guilt, cannot lift your eyes. Look up your redemption is drawing near. Something different from what you daily see will happen. Just be aware, be watchful, wait just another short moment. Wait and something quite new will break over you. God will come” Yes, Come Lord Jesus!

So like the shepherds abiding in the fields and the magi from the east bearing gifts, bow this Christmas at the manger of the Christ Child. Your prayers have been answered. Lord Jesus has come. “We cannot approach the manger of Christ the same way we approach the cradle of another child. Rather, when we go to the manger, something happens, and we cannot leave it again unless we have been judged or redeemed. Here we must either collapse or know the mercy of God directed toward us.”

Yes, Come Lord Jesus, Come quickly!

 

 

CHRISTMAS  by The Fat Bald White Guy

Boone Fork

The Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, come into nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with Him. It is precisely one great miracle. If you take that away there is nothing specifically Christian left.  ~ C.S. Lewis

Julian Price Park

 The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a fetus inside a Woman's body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab...

Price Lake

He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him. One has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great complicated burden. He must stoop in order to lift, he must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders. ~ C.S. Lewis

Chestnut Knob

Just as every natural event is the manifestation at a particular place and moment of Nature's total character, so every particular Christian miracle manifests at a particular place and moment the character and significance of the Incarnation. ~ C.S. Lewis

Hawksbill Mountain

In this descent and reascent everyone will recognize a familiar pattern: a thing written all over the world. It is the pattern of all vegetable life. It must belittle itself into some thing hard, small and deathlike, it must fall into the ground: thence the new life reascends. It is the pattern of all animal generation too. ~ C.S. Lewis

Kistler Highway

The Incarnation was God's 'weak moment': when Omnipotence becomes a baby in a manger has 'weakened' itself.... The temptation...is precisely a temptation to evade the self-imposed weaknesses, to be strong, omnipotent, again - to make stones into bread, to be emperor of the world, to do 'levitations'. The weakness was the strength. ~ C.S. Lewis

Plunge Basin

For the great and powerful of this world, there are only two places in which their courage fails them, of which they are afraid deep down in their souls, from which they shy away. These are the manger and the cross of Jesus Christ. No powerful person dares to approach the manger, and this even includes King Herod. For this is where thrones shake, the mighty fall, the prominent perish, because God is with the lowly. Here the rich come to nothing, because God is with the poor and hungry, but the rich and satisfied he sends away empty. Before Mary, the maid, before the manger of Christ, before God in lowliness, the powerful come to naught; they have no right, no hope; they are judged.  - Dietrich Bonhoeffer. 

Jacob's Fork River

Who can add to Christmas? The perfect motive is that God so loved the world. The perfect gift is that He gave His only Son. The only requirement is to believe in Him. The reward of faith is that you shall have everlasting life. - Corrie Ten Boom

Cooks Wall Mountain

If we could condense all the truths of Christmas into only three words, these would be the words: 'God with us.' We tend to focus our attention at Christmas on the infancy of Christ. The greater truth of the holiday is His deity. More astonishing than a baby in the manger is the truth that this promised baby is the omnipotent Creator of the heavens and the earth! - John MacArthur

Linville Falls

Christmas itself is by grace. It could never have survived our own blindness and depredations otherwise. It could never have happened otherwise. Perhaps it is the very wildness and strangeness of the grace that has led us to try to tame it...




Linville Falls

We have tried to make it habitable. We have roofed it in and furnished it. We have reduced it to an occasion we feel at home with, at best a touching and beautiful occasion, at worst a trite and cloying one. But if the Christmas event in itself is indeed—as a matter of cold, hard fact—all it’s cracked up to be, then even at best our efforts are misleading...





The Word become flesh. Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed. Incarnation. It is not tame. It is not touching. It is not beautiful. It is uninhabitable terror. It is unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light...



Linville River

Agonized laboring led to it, vast upheavals of intergalactic space, time split apart, a wrenching and tearing of the very sinews of reality itself. You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this: “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God…who for us and for our salvation,” as the Nicene Creed puts it, “came down from heaven.”  Came down. Only then do we dare uncover our eyes and see what we can see. It is the Resurrection and the Life she holds in her arms. It is the bitterness of death he takes at her breast. - Frederick Beuchner 

Green Knob

It is impossible to conceive how different things would have turned out if that birth had not happened whenever, wherever, however it did ... for millions of people who have lived since, the birth of Jesus made possible not just a new way of understanding life but a new way of living it. It is a truth that, for twenty centuries, there have been untold numbers of men and women who, in untold numbers of ways, have been so grasped by the child who was born, so caught up in the message he taught and the life he lived, that they have found themselves profoundly changed by their relationship with him. - Frederick Beuchner

Christmas Eve Lovefeast at Ardmore Moravian Church

If Christmas time cannot ignite within us again something like a love for holy theology, so that we—captured and compelled by the wonder of the manger of the Son of God—must reverently reflect on the mysteries of God, then it must be that the glow of the divine mysteries has also been extinguished in our heart and has died out. - Deitrich Bonhoeffer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z-ZfAlrgJs   "Mary Did You Know" sung by CeeLo Green

Rocky Knob on the Blue Ridge Parkway

ROCKY KNOB AND BLACK RIDGE ON BLACK FRIDAY

On Black Friday 2013, we decided to hike Rocky Knob....It was 35 degrees and the Blue Ridge Parkway was closed because of snow and ice.....but maneuvering around the back roads of Virginia, we found a way to get on the Parkway and get almost all the way to Rocky Knob....almost....

About two miles from the Rocky Knob Visitor center and the trail head for the Black Ridge Trail, we encountered an unmovable object...a gate across the Parkway..... with no alternate route available we were undaunted....heck we drove all this way to hike....so what if we would have to hoof it a couple miles to the trail head....so we parked on the side of the road and started up the closed Blue Ridge Parkway.

To the our right was a large fenced cow pasture.  My trail research led me to believe that this was a part of the Rock Castle Gorge loop trail....the 11 mile Rock Castle Gorge loop trail.... but remembering that the trail ran along the ridge line to the summit of Rocky Knob, we jumped the fence....dodged some cow patties and started up the trail to the summit of  Grassy Knoll (3475')

From the summit we enjoyed a view of the surrounding countryside and spied for the first time our destination....Rocky Knob in the distance.

With the sun at our back we started down the Rock Castle Gorge Trail along the ridgeline toward Rocky Knob. 

Soon the pasture trail ended and we crossed the fence over a wooden step ladder of sorts.  It was a good place to hang my Red Sox hat while I removed my toboggan.  It may be 35 degrees but the FBWG was working up a sweat.

The trail became a ridgeline wooded trail with many nice views to the south.  I am sure in the summer these views would be obscured by the foliage but on a winter day we got an good idea of how steep the trail into the Rock Castle Gorge would be and decided that reaching the Rocky Knob summit would be our destination and not the 11 mile Gorge Loop.

The trail ran along the ridgeline for a mile or so and we came to a place with an unusual name Twelve O'clock Knob Overlook.  From this place we could see the Visitor Center and learned we were not the only folks who jumped the fence and were taking a hike in the sunny Black Friday.....we could not help but think of the poor souls waiting in line at Walmart as we gazed from the overlook at majestic Virginia Mountains. 

From the Twelve O'clock Overlook the distant blue ridge glistened in the afternoon sun.  We also got to read about the Rock Castle Gorge and agreed that someday we would take the hike.

At the Twelve O'clock Overlook, we were able to read the trail map and realized that the loop hike we envisioned could be cobbled together even though we started a mile short of the trailhead at the visitor center....so off we trudged up a narrow, snowy, rocky ridgeline trail toward the summit of what we thought was Rocky Knob.....along the way we marveled at more views of the Rock Castle Gorge.

As we trudged up the summit of what we thought was Rocky Knob we were reminded of our trek to Mount Rogers.  The trail was rocky and narrow....and when you reach the top of one ridge, you learn that there is another that you must climb to get to your destination.....the first ridge was okay but dang the second one was so steep that we knew it had to be Rocky Knob....but when we got to the top we saw yet another ridge we had to climb.

The summit of Rocky Knob is 3572'.....and just below the ridge top is a shelter similar to that we saw at Mt Rogers and at Bluff Mountain.

The Shelter was 2.57 miles from where we started the hike but we agreed that the .4 mile summit of Rocky Knob was much more difficult than we imaged...duh....walking in leaves and snow is sorta like hiking in sand....we welcomed the break in the shelter....and seeing that everyone else had carved their initials, the FBWG had to leave his mark as well.

We decided to take the trail to the picnic area and linked up with the Picnic Loop and soon found ourselves at the Visitors Center where our original destination the trail head of Black Ridge Loop trail.   Seeing the ominous sign, we knew we need to get a move on as we did not want to meet Yogi or Boo Boo.

Leaving the Visitors Center, we plunged into the woods and being that the trails were on the northern side of the ridgeline found ourselves hiking along an increasingly snowy path.

Just as we saw on Basin Cove and Laurel Bluff there was evidence on the trail of an old homestead.  Looking at the size of this chimney it appeared that this was a pretty large dwelling.







Leaving the homestead the trail merged with a fire road.  It was icy and slick and steeper than we appreciated.

From the top of the fire road we emerged onto Black Ridge and during frequent rest breaks captured some nice views of the mountains to the north.







The fire road turned into a farm road as it ran along the border of the Park with a neighboring cow pasture.  Near the end of the trail we passed a dilapidated shed and I captured a nice window view from an opening the wooden slats.





We found our way back to the parkway as the Black Ridge trail crossed the road about the same spot as we jumped the cow pasture fence to begin our hike.  Before we turned to walk down the road I turned and snapped a picture of Rocky Knob to remind me just how far we had trudged.

This was a 5.5 mile loop which we constructed just by chance.  It turned out to be exactly the hike I had planned to walk but from the trail head at the Visitors Center.  It was a great winter day and the scenery was much better than I had imagined.  Access is an 8 only because the Parkway was closed and we had to sneak around to get in.....the trail was an 8....well marked and maintained....scenery was an 8.....Overall a solid 8.....great loop even if it is not marked as such on the map...I believe the fall views along this hike would rival any on the Blue Ridge.....we gonna come back for sure




On the way out we stopped by a sight we observed on the way in.  About a half mile north of Mabry Mill, there is a rock wall about 50 yards in length and 30 feet or more high.  From this wall water from mountain springs flow...during the recent wet weather the wall was turned into a sheet of ice adorned with icicles some over a foot in length......quite a sight