kenjari | North Carolina, Day 6 (Reply)

September 28, 2006
Today we went to Chimney Rock Park, about 25 miles outside of Asheville. It's a big cliff formation with hiking trails and beautiful views. It's also where several key sections of The Last of the Mohicans (the 1992 version) were filmed.
We started by climbing through the Needle's Eye, a steep wooden staircase that goes through a vertical crevice in the rock, and then heading up to the Cliff-Skyline trail loop. It goes up very high along the cliffs, but not nearly as terrifying as I'd feared it might be because of the almost constant presence of sturdy railings and fences. The views and scenery are truly amazing and worth any remaining trepidation over the elevation. You can see miles and miles of mountains and almost all of Lake Lure. And we did get to walk along the whole of the cliff's edge trail seen in the movie, including the waterfall. Every part of the hike was beautiful.
After we came down from the heights, Other Kenjari and I did the shorter (and much less steep) hike to the bottom of the falls. It was a nice walk. PLus, more of the falls are visible from the bottom than from the top. It's a good thing that we decided to do the hikes in that order. It was sunny and clear while we were up on the cliff. However, it clouded up on the way to the bottom of the falls. On the way back, we got wet in a rainstorm, complete with thunder and lightning. If we'd been still up on the cliff, we would have been most unhappy.
It rained on and off for most of the rest of the day, so we tooled around town rather than trying to get in any more hiking.