Story of Place - Mountain Dreams

I find that most of the places I have come to love in my search for my "North Carolina Mountain Dream" revolve around stories. Not just stories of the past, either. Many of the stories are being written by others who love these places. Each of the stories that have touched my life and heart are by special people who have a dream, a vision they wish to share, a myth they wish to live.

What originally brought me to Valle Crucis was just such a story. It was the story of the renewed life of an old time staple of this mountain village, The Mast General Store. I was intrigued by the history and the revival following the purchase of this once vital center village life by the Coopers. I no longer remember exactly how I serendipitously stumbled upon their website back then because I had no knowledge of the area what so ever.


My one and only trip into these eastern mountains had occurred a few years earlier during a business trip to Charlotte. I had only driven a couple of hours down the Blue Ridge Parkway on a day off during that stay. I had started my drive in Little Switzerland and headed south until the road was closed (this was early March) then turned around and drove north to Blowing Rock. So as I planned that first family trip for August of 2003 I surfed the internet for anything I could find out about North Carolina and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

There were three websites that I stumbled upon then and have been bookmarked ever since that first virtual exploration. They are (in the order I discovered them, I think):

1. The Mast General Store
   
2. Grandfather Mountain
3. The Orchard at Altapass

Each of those places have a story to tell...A story of the past and the people who lived there...A story full of people who love the place and are willing to fight for it...A story that will carry on into the future as new people discover and love these places. It was the story of Valle Crucis that led me to book a cabin up on the side of a mountain that first year. It was all of these stories and more that keep me coming back. Sitting out on the porch each morning with that first cup of coffee is where my mountain dream was born.


And it was the "News from Valle Crucis" newsletter published by the Mast General Store I subscribed to back in 2002 that made me feel like I could learn to love this mountain village and the daily life they lead there.

In the coming weeks I will try to tell some of the stories I have learned about these places, and others, that have come to be encompassed by my "North Carolina Mountain Dreams". I am going to start a new category for these posts, they will all be tagged as "story of place". I hope to build something here that will be usable as a reference and inspiration for others so..."bear" with me as I map out the path I will follow.

For anyone looking for the meandering muses I posted here in the past...I am now serving them up over at Coffee Muses. Stop on by and sit a spell...

Random Mountain Muse - Mt. Mitchell

From the top of the highest mountain in the eastern United States the view can be breathtaking.

Already venerable when the Rockies were yet unformed, Mount Mitchell reigns as the highest point east of the Mississippi at 6,684 feet.

In 1916, at a time when extensive logging threatened the region's virgin, old- growth forests, Governor Locke Craig led an effort that resulted in the establishment of Mount Mitchell as North Carolina's first state park. The 1,700-acre protected area that extends approximately 5 miles along the summit of the Black Mountains preserved a piece of a unique ecosystem, where alpine forests exist in the South.

Mount Mitchell's peak is well known as a biological island, an isolated environment that the retreating glaciers of the Pleistocene left behind. At its higher elevations, the mountain receives 60 inches of annual snowfall and records average daily temperatures of 51 degrees. Certain subspecies of flora and fauna are found nowhere else, and some migrating birds, including wrens, Carolina chickadees (Parus carolinensis), and slate-colored juncos (Junco hyemalis), have only to travel up and down the mountain with the changing seasons.

Source: Sherpa Guides | North Carolina | Mountains | Mount Mitchell/Mount Mitchell State Park

As I mentioned earlier in the week, the observation deck on top of Mt Mitchell is being rebuilt this summer, so visits to the summit are probably not in the picture. But you can still hike some of the trails with detours around the construction site.