MST Hike at Folk Art Center

Sunday morning, we broke camp and left around 830. We wanted to get on the road early as we had a long drive home. Before we made it out of the campground, however, we had to stop for a buck walking across the road.

Outside of camp, we took Little River Road towards Gatlinburg. We made a quick stop at Meigs Falls at the point where Meigs Creek flows into Little River.

After this, we continued through Gatlinburg to Cosby and got on the Foothills Parkway to I-40. We made a quick stop at a couple of the overlooks for some last fall foliage pictures in Tennessee before getting on the interstate and heading east.

Just past Asheville, we got off the interstate and took the Blue Ridge Parkway north a few miles to the Folk Art Center. After getting our stuff together, we started off hiking northbound on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, planning to check out the Folk Art Center when we returned. The trail starts following an interpretive trail around the center and then continues north following closely to the Blue Ridge Parkway. In less than a mile, the trail crossed the parkway and we hiked along the other side. Although the leaves were changing along the trail, there weren’t many great overlooks to view the fall foliage. In about 2 miles from the start, we found a short path that led to a cliff face over the parkway with great views of the hills and suburbs of Asheville.

Here were the great views we had been looking for – the foliage and views from the cliff were just spectacular. Down below was an overlook on the parkway, but our view from the cliffs was even better.

We stopped here for a few minutes to enjoy the view and get some pictures. Then we continued on the trail for another half-hour or so, turning around after we had hiked about 3 miles.

As we were returning, we saw a couple other groups of people on the trail and recommended the side path to the cliff for the best views. Near the start, we some some bushes whose leaves had changed to a bright pink.

Once back at the Folk Art Center, Sandy and I browsed for a little while. They had some really nice stuff, but it was very expensive, so we didn’t get anything. From here, we started making our way towards home. Before getting back on the interstate, we stopped at a produce shack to get some apples. And of course we had to stop at Las Salsas in Morganton on the way home for dinner. The rest of our friends had arrived at about the same time so we ate with them. As we were getting ready to leave, we saw Casey and LeAnna, having stopped on the way back from Linville Gorge. At that point, I think there were people from Raleigh than Morganton in the restaurant. After a delicious dinner of fajitas, we made the drive home.