Oct 3 Sunrise to Moonrise - Flat Creek & Spruce Mtn Trails

Sunrise on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Flat Creek Trail is a new trail for me. Located in the Balsam Mountain area of the GSMNP, it follows the creek briefly but otherwise, ambles through an exceptional Yellow Birch forest. The largest Yellow Birches I've ever seem are here. Also spotted trailside were large Basswood and Silverbell trees.

In the creek above, park rangers and volunteers were stunning Brook Trout and collecting them for relocation to the other side of the park. A stream there was being rehabilitated. Brown and Rainbow Trout, introduced for sport fishing years ago, have eliminated the native Brook Trout.

One end of the trail is at Heintoga Overlook picnic area. An old park map shows that this was a campground once. This seldom used picnic area has a special memory for me. I don't know if this was the campground I stayed at in 1956 with my parents. It may have been the current Balsam Mountain campground right down the road. One night on that camping trip, my mother and brother slept in the car while my father and I slept in a canvas pup tent. During the evening, a bear entered our campsite, picked up the metal ice chest which was latched with a metal latch, and tossed it. The ice chest burst opened. The bear proceeded to drink milk from the waxed carton, eat all the eggs sans the shells, watermelon except the rind, bacon and even punched a hole in the plastic ketchup squeeze bottle and sucked out the liquid. All the eggs shells, rinds and packaging were left in a neat pile. My father knew about the need to keep food away from bears but figured the metal ice chest with the metal latch was bearproof.

The original picnic tables in this picnic area have a quarried rock table. Pretty cool!

After Flat Creek, I drove down the one way road to Spruce Mountain trailhead. This trail is barely over a mile long but once went another mile to the west to the top of Spruce Mtn and over 5 miles east on Polls Gap Trail. Both those trails are closed now. I walked out on one along a ridge for several hundred yards. It is still quite discernible but fallen trees make it slow going.

The forest up on this mountain is an Elfin Forest. The original Balsam trees are gone and now it is hemlock, Spruce and various hardwood. The ground is covered in moss and full of holes and loose rocks. 

 Nearby is the Masonic Market. It is located in a level meadow which was a camp for loggers. They lived in railroad cars converted for living quarters. Local Masonic members organized a ceremonial monument using stones from around the world. It is a colorful monument. Once a year, Masonic members gather here for a ceremony. there was also a time capsule sealed up in the late 1930s and opened several years ago.

My day ends with the moon rising