Jan 13 Uwharrie Trailblazers hike

Our "members only" hike had a rousing 24 participants. We began our day at Tot Hill Golf Course where we had been granted permission to park. Tot Hill GC has been extremely supportive of our group.

After the short walk to the trailhead, we head into the "designated" wilderness. After a few minutes, our group turns left onto a social trail which follows Talbot Branch. It is well worn and well maintained. We cross the creek several times before our leader, Don with the GPS, says "turn left". At this point, we head up into the forest on private property. Mr Dassow has been extremely generous in allowing hikers, hunters and campers to cross his property for as long as I can remember. We are talking 50 years or more. Shortly, we arrive at a mine of sorts. There is quartz rock, blown apart, and strewn about. A few old tires round out the site. It is not much to talk about, but we do our best to talk it up. 

Now we are headed onto the ridge which I refer to as "Dassow Ridge". It is the highlight of my hike. A wonderful open forest with wondwerful Winter views of Coolers Knob. Native Americans quarried the ryolite in this area for tools. We find examples of worked rock throughout this area, Most often, where trees grow, quarry debris is found around the base of the tree. 

We hike along the ridge until we end up on the Camp 3 trail near the Boggs place. At this spot, we run into PHOC hikers, 27 strong. I spend several minutes exchanging greetings before moving along. Next stop is the camp we don't have a definitive number for. Anyway, there is a nice spring box there - pictured above. 

Don carefully navigates us to the private property we have to avoid. We look at the possible ways to walk around the property and promptly decide to cross it. It is barely 100 yards wide and we manage it without incident. 

Now we are in "no man's land". An area we have not explored before. Miraculously we traverse it to the road used by the inholding property owners. A short walk from here puts us at the old road to the Tadlock homesite and the spot Joe Moffitt designated for a camp, again the camp number is in question. We lingered at the brass sign on the dead tree upon which Joe Moffitt placed the brass sign 50 some years back. Then it was on to the Tadlock graves, not far away. We spend several minutes looking around here for corners and an old sign before moving on.

Our fearless leader, David stirs chili while food maestro Karen supervises. David color coordinated his wardrobe with the Rock 92 beer can produced and provided for our guzzling by Gibbs Hundred. 

Mr Dassow, generously allowed us to picnic on his private lake. Merritt brought firewood for a campfire. We seemed to have everything we needed for a lovely cookout. Cheers.

Dec 17 Long Mountain

This off trail outing began at Jumpin Off Rock trailhead. Here the Uwharrie Trail heads into the woods by the homemade sign. A bit further into the wood, there is a nicer sign, placed there to prevent vandalism. 

One of the renditions of the Joe Moffitt era Uwharrie Trail, went right over Long Mountain. Several years back, I was able to decipher some trail blazes heading that way but they have had their day and are no more. I took a likely route, following an old road. That road soon ended on private property with major league deer stands. A gnarly bushwhack got me back on track and it was up the side of Long Mountain. 

Once I was on the long ridge of Long Mountain, I could walk more easily, following an old road which, apparently, ran the length of the ridge. It is not driveable today but was back in the day. The remnants of this old school bus must have arrived here by some motorized means.

As with Little Long Mountain, Long Mountain sports a healthy community of Prickly Pear cactus. It, also, is facing south, as the cactus on Little Long does.

GIS and my gps say this is state land but, oh no, even the state has restrictions. It looks something grows here that is worth preserving. There was also a sliver of private property that invaded the top of the ridge. So I had to make a detour down the side of the mountain, dodging eroded roadbeds and a steep hillside. A small price to pay.

I end up back on top of the ridge and things are looking good until the tire dump makes its ugly appearance. Who hauls worn tires to the top of a mountain? Oh, never mind, we're in Montgomery County.

The walk down to Poison Branch was through nice forest and the walk along that branch is exceptional. I paid a visit to Dania Woodell's gravesite and had lunch with her. The penny I left there in early October was still there.

Dec 11 My Forest Disappears

Between early October and mid December, we had about 40 acres clearcut and 60 acres selectively cut. It was an emotional experience to see your forest drive past you every day. For the first month, the cutting was occurring about a half mile from the house. So, it was far enough away to not be heard too loudly. However, that last month, it was up close and personal. I saw the huge cedars get knocked down when the road was pushed. A maple fell on my blueberry bushes. The only stand of mountain laurel on the property took a hit. And one of the Pinxter Azalea communities was eliminated. My hiking trails could no longer be followed. I didn't recognize where I was on the property anymore. All that being said, wood is a renewal resource and will return. I don't expect to see the forest again in my lifetime, but someone will. It seemed to me, we are going about the forest management in a poor direction. In order to get an 80% reduction on my taxes, I have to have a forest management plan - a plan to timber my land. By doing this, we are destroying the habitat for wildlife, severing the mycorrlizal relationship with plants and cutting the largest, strongest and most prolific trees. It seems to me, the tax break should apply to those who do not cut timber and allow the forest to fully mature. That is something we are missing. Virgin tree communities in the eastern US are confines to very small areas now. That is my take on it.

Grab and go, much like fast food. 

The tree cutter can slice through a tree with its inch thick chain saw, hold the tree upright and move to a spot where the tree can be dropped with the least amount of damage. In theory!

Here goes a load of firewood. The crew found time to cut and split some prime oak for firewood.

Dragging a load of pine is a breeze for this piece of equipment. It takes some talent to do this. Francisco asked me several times to operate this thing on the weekends so he would not have to. I always said I would but, ultimately, left all the work for him.

\

You think he is stuck. Think again. Nothing stops this. Nice piece of cedar getting hauled here.

Need firewood - call me.

An attempt was made to split this piece of red oak. Do you care to take a swing at it?

Dec 4 Dog Sledding

Today, we head out in new snow for a day of dog sledding. We ride a bus from Tromso for 40 minutes in snowy conditions to a dog sledding operation. Here we don huge winter suits, mitts and a headlamp. 

Next we are given instructions on how to drive the dogsled. Each sled is pulled by a team of 6. The front two are the leaders, the middle two are the weakest of the team and back two are the strongest. The dogs can't wait to go. They are jumping and barking as soon as they see us. 

The sled is designed for one person to sit and one person to drive. The driver stands on the runners behind the sled. This allows the driver to jump off and push when they dogs need help up a hill. There are 3 brakes. The first is a pad about 16 inches by 12. It has some ridges on the bottom so it can be used to slow the sled down by stepping onto it. Sleds need to be slowed going downhill and at other times if you are about to overtake another sled. The second brake is for stopping. It is and aluminum sheet with jagged cuts on the bottom. When you stand on this, the dogs will stop. Step off it, and they will go. The third brake is the parking brake. It is an anchor which has to be sunk deep in packed snow to keep the dogs from taking off. The driver should not let go of the sled until the parking anchor is secure. 

The dogs are ready and we are about to start. The first couple sled take off at a high rate of speed. The guy two sleds in front of me, failed to listen to the instruction and stood on the brake for the whole trip. My team wanted to go but I had to continually brake to not overtake the sled in front of me. About half way through the 7 mile course, we stopped to let that slow sled get way ahead. 

The dogs love to run. On the uphill, they stop if you don't get off to help them. On the downhill, they run as fast as possible to avoid the sled from running into them.

We stopped to wait for about 15 minutes to make sure everyone was ok. The dogs didn't like that. They wanted to run.

Finally, toward the end of the ride, the sky cleared and it stopped snowing. What fun this was.

Dec 1 Reindeer

The Sami people of Northern Scandinavia were the first people to settle this area. Recent DNA tests show they came from the Basque area between France and Spain. They own all the reindeer in Norway, Sweden and Finland except for a few which are still wild. They have domesticated these animals and raise them for meat. 

Here our guide tries to settle the lead reindeer down. The reindeer are anxious to get going because they know they will be fed lichen at the end. It was 2 persons to a sled pulled by one reindeer.  

The sleds look crude but they got the job done.

This guy was pulling the sled behind ours' so we got to see him up close and personal for much of the time.

After a short 30 minute ride, the reindeer get to enjoy a treat - lichen.

And when it was all over, we were treated to a stew. You guessed it, reindeer.

Our young guide, Ken, gave a short lecture on the Sami culture. He described the clothes they wore including the reindeer hide shoes. They use dried grass for insulation in the shoes. They have a curled tip, just like Santa's elves. 

Ken also described the proposal trip, when a Sami guy wants to marry a Sami girl. After courting for some time and deciding she is the one, the guy asks his best friend to go to the girls home and ask her parents if he can marry their daughter. Whether they say yes or no, a proposal trip is planned. The young Sami guy gathers all his friends and many relatives and hitches up the reindeer. They sled over to the girl's home, circle the house 3 times before the best friend goes in again to ask the girl this time. If she says yes, she will come out and join her guy and he will hand her the reins to show what is his is hers now. What is hers is probably still hers.

Nov 26 Birkhead Offtrail

Joe, Don and I began this offtrail adventure by walking across Tot Hill golf course on a private right of way. The course was heavily frosted white this morning. There was no one else about as we walked through the stunningly beautiful course. Abruptly, the pavement ended and we were in the woods. Another 15 minutes put us at a point which looked like a good spot to head off trail. Within a few minutes we had located an old road and followed it down. We entered an area that I thought had been a loading deck for a timber cut. There was a pile of stackable rocks and different vegetation in the area. A couple old signs caught me eye. Checking them out, they turn out to be old Joe Moffitt signs in sheet brass nailed to a dead tree.

BE PREPAIRED

NORTH OF CAMP IS A

SPRING THE SCOUTS

THAT REDISCOVERED AND CLEANED OUT

THIS SPRING WERE:

JOEY MOFFITT

WALTER JONES JR

J SCOTT CAGLE

TERRY DAVIDSON

EDDIE ROBBINS

SONNY HAYES

RANDY MANESS

SCOTT HOWARD

TONY HOLT

SCOUT LEADERS WERE

? OBRIEN

SM JOE MOFFITT

ASSISTANT DALE HOWARD

SCOUT TROOP 570

SPONSORED BY LEGON POST ? ASHEBORO

DO A GOOD TURN DAILY


The other sign read:

UWHARRIE TRAIL (in large black letters)

CAMP  (blank)   NO (blank)

BUILT BY SCOUT TROOP NO (blank)

LAYOUT OF CAMP BY JOSEPH MOFFITT JR

STAR SCOUTER (blank) AGE (blank) YEARS (blank) NOV (blank)

IN COOPERATION WITH UWHARRIE NATIONAL FOREST

RANGER BOB CAREY AND LEGON POST NO (blank)

THIS CAMP IS LOCATED ON THE OLD TADLOCK

HOMESTED MR AND MRS TADLOCK ARE BURIED ABOUT

ONE HUNDRED YARDS WEST

Looking nearby, we located the spring house for the home and the family cemetery. I had been here once before from a different direction. The headstone is for both Father and Mother Tadlock. There are two foot stones with initials. The property the cemetery is on is listed as Lillie Voncannon on GIS. I spotted two NFS benchmarks which indicated the property was about 20 by 20. It also appears a cedar post was cut to hold a sign nearby. We scraped around in the leaves thinking we might locate another metal sign, but did not find any.

Is being prepaired like an arranged marriage?

We then walked by an inholding with a lovely field. There were a couple monstrous deer stands here as well. From here we made our way along an old road and ended up at Camp 1 or 1B depending on what reference you are using.

The old sign for this camp has been partially swallowed by this tree. It is a very nice spot but doesn't receive much traffic.

Nearby is the spring, complete with crayfish scurrying about. There was a screen we pulled back to expose the spring. A very short distance from here is the Birkhead Mountain Trail. We made our way to it and followed an old road toward toward Camp 3. When the old road led into the actual trail, we were at another homesite. We poked around here for about 15 minutes looking for a spring. I had thought I had found it on an earlier outing but now I'm not so certain.

From here, we headed up the ridge which would take us back along Talbot Creek. This ridge is loaded with prehistoric quarry debris. We found numerous worked pieces. We found a nice arrowhead with the point chipped off. Don commented that the Native American words for "oh crap" probably were spoken often here. 

After a pleasant ridgeline walk, we located the old mine described as a quartz mine. There was plenty of quartz here but I suspect this was a gold search, not quartz. A number of whitewall tires from the 50s have made there way out here.

Joe spotted this fellow clinging to a tree. I don't see bats during the day very often.

From here, we headed down to Talbot Creek and walked along the social trail back to the Birkhead Mountain Trail and the trailhead.

Nov 29 Northern Lights

Chasing the Northern Lights is one of the big tourist attractions on Tromso. We spent 6 days in the city, hoping we'd have the opportunity to see the lights a few nights. As it turned out, this was the only night the skies were not overcast. So luck was with us. We booked a tour with a minibus so there were about 12 of us and our guide, Mange. Mange was quite knowledgeable but a bit on the gruff side. He drove us out of the city across a bridge to another island. Along the shore of this island, we stopped at a pulloff and got our first glance at the Northern Lights.

From there we drove through a tunnel to another island where we spend the rest of the evening. 

The photos here are all time lapse of about 6 to 8 seconds. By doing that, a lot more light is collected. The night sky was pitch black but that little bit of astronomical light present, was collected in the photos. To take photos of us with the Northern Lights behind, we stood still for the full time lapse and Mange, very briefly, shined his flashlight on us.

Almost directly overhead was Polaris. Not the normal place I look for it.