Daniel and I lived in North Carolina for 6 years and never made it to Grandfather Mountain. We did try to go one time, but because we are frugal, we opted to pay a $5 parking fee to park at the base of the mountain and hike up. It was 4 miles of switchbacks in the woods with no view. After an hour of hiking, we threw in the towel. Sometimes it is OK to quit when you recognize that you aren't having fun.
Anyways, that was years ago. This past weekend we went up to stay in Blowing Rock for the weekend. We learned how to snowboard and then we looked into the possibility of cross country skiing for day #2. We really thought it would be fun to go ski at the Moses Cone Memorial Park where there are 25 miles of carriage trails to play on.
We found an outfitter that rented skis, but when we called it was too late in the day and they were out of rental equipment. Cue disappointment.
Instead of cross country skiing, we decided to do the next best thing: go to Grandfather Mountain and take Sophie with us. This actually turned out to be a better option because Sophie got to spend the day running in the woods in the snow instead of being cooped up in the cabin for another day.
The views from Grandfather were amazing. The upper trails were all closed due to ice and snow, but we were able to go out on the mile-high bridge and do a hike {walk} in the woods. We probably hiked between 1-2 miles in snow that ranged from 8 to 12+ inches.
We had a lot of fun. Next time we go to the mountains, we definitely plan to get up early and take advantage of cross country ski rentals.
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