Cumberland County and Hinch Mountain Exploring

Sunny yellow cluster of Golden Ragwort growing on Hinch Mountain

Cumberland County and Hinch Mountain Exploring

Dana & Kenny Koogler

Saturday April 7, 2018

Pictures are here starting with frame 147

Cumberland County Exploring Pix

   We had finished up our visit to Clear Creek, Twin Bridges, and Fourmile Creek Falls much sooner

than anticipated. We still had a good half day left and while rain was in the forecast it didn't matter.  When we have the RZR it is not the same as hiking in the pouring rain.  The machine keeps us from 

being quite as drenched.   We headed toward Cumberland County just as quickly as we could.  I had a feeling today was going to be one of those watershed moments where I finally found something good.

I said a little prayer asking God to please give me a little hope and encouragement by letting us be 

successful today.  He is ever faithful to reward.   I had some good information about some wildflowers I'd long wanted to find.    

    We parked the truck along Old Highway 28 and headed up Jewett Road.  It was a lot better experience today than our previous visit.   Today we encountered no squatters. No druggie types.

No shady characters.  We did see a few other family groups out enjoying the day riding.  It was very chill and laid back.  What a relief.  Someone has fixed it where the squatter camps are no longer accessible.  That seems to have cut out a lot of the nonsense.    We found a path up over the mountain

that we'd tried before and had good luck finding flowers.  We hadn't gone any distance before I hollered for Kenny to stop. The bank to my right was laden with the very flowers I'd hoped to find.

There in the scrubby grasses and red dirt bloomed the tiniest, most perfect trilliums I'd ever seen.

Least Trillium or Dwarf Trilliums by the hundreds!  

       

Bright pink dwarf trillium with my hand and ring for scale. 

Cluster of dwarf trilliums.  This is representative of what I saw.  Lots and lots of them.

  I got out and just wandered around taking pictures of them all.  Some were so tiny the bloom was no bigger than a dime!  Some were as short as two inches!   I hadn't really soaked up my fill of these beauties when the sky opened up and began to pour down rain in buckets! 

Kenny urged me to come on so I did.   We finally got turned around and headed back off the mountain.   The rain continued to beat down.   We turned onto the next dirt track we'd had good luck on and to my delight there were more dwarf trilliums.  Again they were thick. They 

grew near the path and continued up the slopes of the mountain.   It delighted me to see so many of them!  

White form of Dwarf trillium.

   We pushed on along the track as the rain beat down.   I have found all kinds of beautiful and different wildflowers in Cumberland County. Today was turning out to be pure gold.  Thank you Lord!  We saw the tiny trilliums continue up the mountain.  We also encountered a great patch of Virginia bluebells!  

 We saw bluebells in great numbers see the photo above.  Below is another flower we saw.. toothwort.   Up higher on the mountain the blooms were still present, but less flowers.

    We pushed on up the mountain and Kenny was on a rabbit hunt.  I knew that look in his eyes.  I kept quiet for awhile. He had been putting up with my flower searching so I just let him ramble awhile.    I began to see stuff along the ridgeline that made me feel like we were going exactly opposite the way he believed we were. He thought he'd gone up on the ridge and would run it out to the end where we'd work our way back down to Jewett Road.  I disputed that fact. I said we were heading further up the spine of Brady Mountain north.. away from Dorton Knob and Jewett Road.   I began to be able to tell him what would come next like "We will come up to a pond. " Then we'll see some rock outcrops with views."  He admitted he was disoriented. The path was narrowing to a knife edge. He had gotten mixed up and we were not going to be able to continue. He got us turned around.  I got out and at least enjoyed looking around since we were there.  It was eerie and beautiful all at once. 

 Fog shrouded path on the mountain top!  Spooky and pretty too. 

The fog lifted and you can see the lichen and moss encrusting all the trees and rocks.

Partial views through the trees from the mountain top. 

       We got turned around and headed back off the mountain. He found a way for us to come off and make a loop.  We came back down past the first tiny trilliums we'd found.   The rain was stopped and the fog was lifting.  A beautiful view of the plateau opened up before me.  

I had to stop to soak it in.  

The fog lifts to reveal a view of Grassy Cove below.

   We made it back down to Jewett Road.  We went on toward Hinch Mountain and turned onto it.  We drove along slowly noticing all the posted signs by some weird survivalist group.   We did not stick around that area.  On up the mountain slopes we did stop because the entire slope was covered in gorgeous wildflowers. They might be able to keep me off their land, but they can't stop me from looking from the road!  I got out and walked around just taking it all in.  

The slope was filled with interesting limestone rock shelves and formations.  Interspersed with the rocks were tons of deep purple and pale lavender larkspur.  Also yellow violets and yellow trilliums.  I saw a few white trilliums in there.  I saw blue phlox and jack in the pulpits too.  

 Large flowered bellwort was seen here and there along the road. 

 Close up view of the pale lavender larkspur 

 Cool moss covered limestone rocks with the flowers. 

 Freshly opened great white trillium

 Newly emerged Jack in the Pulpit

  The rain began again in earnest so we did not continue to the summit of Hinch Mountain nor did we try any of the side trails.   We went on ahead down the mountain as the rain settled in.  

We were getting cold and wet enough we were done for the day.  What a day we'd had too!  Turned out great.   A fantastic waterfall and great fortune finding tons of Spring flowers.  

It was a much needed respite from every day life.