A Granite Panther Treat

Katy and I reunited with some long lost Mountain friends (Ellen Coleman + Olive the pooch and Ben King) and places last weekend for a grand ol' backpacking overnight in our fave Blue Ridge Mountains. We first revisited Granite City, a big jumble of boulders - squeezing into the many tiny nooks, cranies, and passageways.


We then moved on to our backpacking destination - Panthertown Valley - a large tract of land that was purchased from Duke Energy and now is part of the Nantahala National Forest.

This area has it all - big, gorgeous sweeping granite cliffs, beautful, clear streams with rock slides, open, airy stands of pine, and the damp, aromatic lush rhododendron thickets we love. We hiked in about a mile, amazed at the amount of gear we apparently needed to get us through a night in the woods.


The big, open camping area with the shelter was occupied by a group of 20,000 boy scouts, so we decided to move on to a more secluded location. Good choice - as the faints hoots and hollers coming from the directions of the boy scouts would later make clear. Plus, our campsite directly abutted the base of this amazing cliff - which I of course wanted to climb.


We made a delicious (if hard to digest) burrito dinner, ate a ridiculous number of s'mores, saw a few shooting stars, and laughed the night away. The following day included a lovely hike up "Little Green Mountain" which afforded beautiful views of the valley below. We also got kinda lost, but that only added to the adventure. We stayed motivated during the steep hike out by focusing on the many create-your-own ice-cream flavor combinations available at SweetTreats in Highlands. Yum.