Black Mountain Crest Trail

Описание: Hiking from Mt. Mitchell on the Black Mountain Crest Trail in September of 2015.

The Black Mountain Crest Trail is renowned as the toughest trail on the East Coast.
Why? Seven six thousand foot peaks in just under eleven miles.
Named for the dark cover of spruce and Fraser firs that blanket these high mountains, they do indeed appear black from a distance. The forests here were leveled in huge timber operations that lasted from the late 1800s until about 1930. Almost every peak and cove in the Black Mountains was denuded of forest cover as the virgin forests were felled and the lumber carried off to markets.

Over the course of the following century the balsam forests recovered and peaks once again took on their characteristic dark appearance. However, beginning in the 1970s, the twin effects of acid rain the introduction of the invasive insect, the balsam wooly adelgid, caused the mature forests of the upper ridges to succumb and die off in a terrifyingly short amount of time. As recently as the late 1980s, the Black Mountain ridges were more likely to display dead bare trunks of the old trees than healthy growth.
The highest peak in the Black Mountains (and thus, the eastern USA) is Mount Mitchell at 6,684 feet. Nearby, Mount Craig rises to 6,648 feet. Several other peaks both to the north and south of Mitchell exceed 6,500 feet in elevation. A number of trails allow foot travel to almost all of the highest peaks, with only a few accessible via manways or bushwhacks. The most well known trail in the area is The Black Mountain Crest Trail, which stretches from Mount Mitchell at its southern terminus to Bolens Creek at the foot of Celo Knob at the northern end. It is known as one of the most difficult trails on the east coast and deserves its reputation.