22 Days on the White Dot Trail

[double d]

Great trip report Tipi Walter, loved the Youtube video as well.

[Alleghanian Orogeny]

That's cool, I got my first degree from ASU in '78 too, a BS in Health Education. And thanks for the good comments.

I really miss old Rich Mountain, what we called the Temple of the Gods because it had a strange rock circle on top with a dead mulberry tree in the middle. This was back in the mid to late 1980's. There could be a road up to the top now for all I know. "Our" Temple of the Gods was reached at least 3 ways I know of---from Trout Lake at the bottom on the spiral horse trail to the top (the carriage trails). #2---From a nearby road on the southwest side(??) where we parked and hiked up. #3---the best way---hiking up thru Lost Valley (Boone lake) by following the creek all the way to a ridge and then making a left turn to the top of the mountain. Always a favorite place for cross country skiers in the winter.

BTW, part of the carriage/trout lake trail is the Mountains to Sea trail.

I didn't realize we were there at the same time, TW. BS in Geology '78 here. Given that it is, and has been since the 1950s, within the National Park system, Moses Cone Memorial Park hasn't changed much. The spiral trail which the MST intersects above Shulls Mill Rd is part of the 25 mile Carriage Trails network, as you noted. With the exception of the half-mile gated gravel road link between Shulls Mill Rd and the big meadow at the south base of the open Rich Mtn summit (probably your #2, above), there are no new roads in that part of Cone Park. Your #3 is a traverse up the headwaters of Winkler's Creek above the Boone Reservoir, where a very steep but forested headwall rises to a north-south knife-edge ridge (well, wide enough for a two-track NPS road, but barely) which forms the north end of the Rich Mtn ridgeline (and is a segment of the Tennessee Valley Divide). Nowadays, we normally approach from a little-known subdivision with a small network of private roads on the far northwest end of the Cone Park property, of of Russ Cornett Rd about 2 miles past the old teepee location near Harvard Ayers' place, where a small spur ridge holding the high ground above old Camp Yonahlossee (now Yonahlossee Resort) is host to 35-40 homes. We use a small self-blazed trail to access the ridgeline around a mile and a half north of the "Temple", which was of course part of the landscaping of the Carriage Trails built by Cone. I don't recall ever seeing another soul within the roughly 1,000 acres of Cone Park north of the gate where the two-track along the ridgeline intersects the Carriage Trail/spiral road. There is actually a second spiral road section just north of the Rich Mountain summit, just off of the N-S ridgetop road. It is now thickly forested, so no views. A good read on the history of Cone Park is "A Mansion in the Mountains", written by a graduate student from ASU, if I recall correctly. It relates how Cone purchased dozens of tracts to assemble the roughly 3,000 acre estate, employed many of the farmers he bought out, laid out the Carriage Trails, developed extensive apple orchards, and generally made the estate more or less self-sufficient. Ah, memories of the '70s....... AO

[misterfloyd]

I enjoyed the video as well. Live right down the road so to speak from ASU. I'm glad I didn't go there. I would of stayed outside most of the time.

I have never done that section of the MST, I need to do it when it gets hot. Going to do the MST in linville Gorge next week.

Man, that is one heavy pack.

Thanks again for the info and video,

Floyd

[Tipi Walter]

Nowadays, we normally approach from a little-known subdivision with a small network of private roads on the far northwest end of the Cone Park property, of of Russ Cornett Rd about 2 miles past the old teepee location near Harvard Ayers' place, where a small spur ridge holding the high ground above old Camp Yonahlossee (now Yonahlossee Resort) is host to 35-40 homes.AO

Back in '86 my old backpacking buddy Johnny B and I got permission from Dr Ayers to set up tipis on his land but these tipis couldn't be the old tipi location you're talking about? Or could they??

Anyway, Harvard Ayers sold the land eventually and in '87 I moved 10 miles outside Boone to Sugar Grove and set up a great tipi on 40 acres on a high ridgetop above the old Stillwinds community land---a small community-offshoot peopled with some folks from the Erosion Canyon community in Boone---now bulldozed and obliterated.


Here's the crude tipi I had set up on Ayer's land back in '86. Thrown together with deadfall, tree bark and old tent-tarps.


Up behind me on the hill was Johnny's fine lodge. I remember parking down on the road and humping in his iron woodstove along with all the tipi poles---across a barbed wire fence.


Sometime around the winter of '87 or '88 Johnny let my friend Amy and her boyfriend Jody (later husband) stay in his lodge. Yes, it's the same Amy as pictured in this trip report.

[Alleghanian Orogeny]

Thanks for the memories, TW, great pics and recollections.

I doubt your Ayers property location was the same as the one I recall. In the '77/'78 winter, myself and a handful of other geology majors had Harvard's permission to cut some deadwood for firewood off off of his property, and I recall we had to drive my old Scout a few hundred yards off of Russ Cornett Rd, then gravel (now paved) to reach the woodcutting area towards the back of his property, which I further recall was some 20-25 acres. I think that by then Harvard had built a house on the tract. At that time, and probably at least 2-3 years before then, there was a badly run-down single-wide mobile home and a large tipi set close to Russ Cornett Rd (less than 150' off the road) about 200-300 yards, and around two tight curves, towards Boone from where Harvard's driveway dumped out onto Russ Cornett Rd. The tipi was more or less in line with the long axis of the mobile home, with the mobile home being closest to the county road. Both were occupied through the 77/78 and the 78/79 winters, and possibly somewhat longer than that. Both are long gone now.

AO

[Tipi Walter]

I enjoyed the video as well. Live right down the road so to speak from ASU. I'm glad I didn't go there. I would of stayed outside most of the time.

Floyd

This is pretty much what happened to me. I got to Boone in '73 after getting out of the USAF and was on the GI Bill so ASU looked like a good bet. In fact, just before I got out of the Air Force I was sitting in a barracks in the Republic of Panama and made a short list of stuff to get when I got out: Kelty pack, sleeping bag and a pair of boots. At the time a Kelty pack cost $29.

Once in Boone I managed to get around 3 degrees but then the outdoor bug bit hard again (from an earlier "bite" in the 1950's/'60s) and by 1980 I was living outdoors on a permanent basis. Back then Watauga County was the "alaskan frontier" and the wild wild west (western NC that is) and a person could hike out of the Boone city limits and in a mile or two be camping in the woods. The Winklers Creek watershed was a favorite area to explore, backpack and camp.

[Tipi Walter]

Thanks for the memories, TW, great pics and recollections.

I doubt your Ayers property location was the same as the one I recall. In the '77/'78 winter, myself and a handful of other geology majors had Harvard's permission to cut some deadwood for firewood off off of his property, and I recall we had to drive my old Scout a few hundred yards off of Russ Cornett Rd, then gravel (now paved) to reach the woodcutting area towards the back of his property, which I further recall was some 20-25 acres. I think that by then Harvard had built a house on the tract. At that time, and probably at least 2-3 years before then, there was a badly run-down single-wide mobile home and a large tipi set close to Russ Cornett Rd (less than 150' off the road) about 200-300 yards, and around two tight curves, towards Boone from where Harvard's driveway dumped out onto Russ Cornett Rd. The tipi was more or less in line with the long axis of the mobile home, with the mobile home being closest to the county road. Both were occupied through the 77/78 and the 78/79 winters, and possibly somewhat longer than that. Both are long gone now.

AO

Your experience predates mine by several years, but I do remember a side road exit from Ayer's land and I vaguely remember his house below our tipi spots, at a lower elevation. My main form of transportation then was a bicycle and I exited the land near his house on an old road which tied in with another road. Below our tipis there was a little creek but on the hillside above the creek between the creek and the road was an old dump where people parked and threw their trash off the road. I picked thru this dump to help build my tipi there, and even found an old woodstove in the trash.

The way we got to his place was to take Winklers Creek road up a ways and then make a right on a paved road (by the old dumpsters) but I never knew the name of the road. Russ Cornett Rd??

To get to the headwaters of Winklers Creek we used to hike the whole way up from the Boone Mall. One memory stands out---passing someone's house on Winklers road about 3 miles up and having a big german shepherd dog run out to bark. He always wore a green military fatigue shirt. The dog that is. Weird.

[Alleghanian Orogeny]

Winklers Creek Rd left the floodplain of Boone Creek off of Greenway Road, near what is now the Boone Mall. After a mile and a half or so, Russ Cornett Rd ramps up on the right. The first couple of hundred feet were paved as far back as the late 70s, but the rest of it up to the dumpsters on the right and to Harvard Ayers driveway on the left was gravel. Russ Cornett Rd continued past Ayers' place to a T intersection, where Russ Cornett Rd was the Left turn and Diamond Ranch Rd was the Right. Diamond Ranch Rd, then as now, dropped quickly down to Poplar Grove Rd @ Poplar Grove Church. Not sure where your garbage dump road was, but possibly downhill from Russ Cornett, where it effectively wraps around Ayer's place en route to upper Poplar Grove Rd, beyond the northern end of Cone Park.

AO

[rocketsocks]

This is pretty much what happened to me. I got to Boone in '73 after getting out of the USAF and was on the GI Bill so ASU looked like a good bet. In fact, just before I got out of the Air Force I was sitting in a barracks in the Republic of Panama and made a short list of stuff to get when I got out: Kelty pack, sleeping bag and a pair of boots. At the time a Kelty pack cost $29.

Once in Boone I managed to get around 3 degrees but then the outdoor bug bit hard again (from an earlier "bite" in the 1950's/'60s) and by 1980 I was living outdoors on a permanent basis. Back then Watauga County was the "alaskan frontier" and the wild wild west (western NC that is) and a person could hike out of the Boone city limits and in a mile or two be camping in the woods. The Winklers Creek watershed was a favorite area to explore, backpack and camp.

Walter, I've been wondering this for years, please pardon my forwardness. What is it that prompted you to set up shop in the great outdoors, I mean was it the ever popular thinking of the day...tune in, turn on, drop out, or a financial decisions...or just simply something you yearned for?

PS.....I'm not gonna say you should write a book, but rather..."Man you could write a book" with all your story's of the early comings and goings of the hiker community back when.

[Grits]

TW Great report; when you came up 268A to Burnthouse Falls camp did you follow the fishermans trail up the creek to the MST/ or did you cut up the hill to connect to the MST east of upper creek? I have to add that for the ones that have never been there that 268A is a beast up the ridge just below Burnthouse camp site and with a 85 lb pack in the summer, man that is hardcore. When you follow the MST Greentown trail out to that first gate we camped there hunting the winter of 1970 in 2 feet of snow. What a great time. South Harper falls at the dog leg point you can lay out on the rocks and watch the creek flow by you.

AO and TW you are both correct on Rich Mtn. and the Temple location, just a little different directions in to it, locals call that ridge the Deer Park. Mr. Cone bought Rich Mtn. from the Colt family aka the six shooter manufacturers. Tore down the house and planted his apple orchards. You can still go into the valley between the watershed and Rich Mountain and not see anyone.

[Tipi Walter]

TW Great report; when you came up 268A to Burnthouse Falls camp did you follow the fishermans trail up the creek to the MST/ or did you cut up the hill to connect to the MST east of upper creek? I have to add that for the ones that have never been there that 268A is a beast up the ridge just below Burnthouse camp site and with a 85 lb pack in the summer, man that is hardcore. When you follow the MST Greentown trail out to that first gate we camped there hunting the winter of 1970 in 2 feet of snow. What a great time. South Harper falls at the dog leg point you can lay out on the rocks and watch the creek flow by you.

AO and TW you are both correct on Rich Mtn. and the Temple location, just a little different directions in to it, locals call that ridge the Deer Park. Mr. Cone bought Rich Mtn. from the Colt family aka the six shooter manufacturers. Tore down the house and planted his apple orchards. You can still go into the valley between the watershed and Rich Mountain and not see anyone.

Interesting questions regarding Burnthouse/Upper Creek. 268A sort of dead ends in the campsite at the bottom of Burnthouse Creek but the trail keeps going on the right bank upstream on Upper, as you know, and crosses the creek into a fine site I call Burnt Sock Camp. The creekside trail continues upstream now on the left bank and passes some very nice swimholes, the Moss Rock, the Big Boulder, and finally junctions with the MST/Greentown trail coming down from the left. Then you enter the old established car camps on the Greentown trail where the MST crosses Upper Creek.

30 years ago I used to see cars parked on the other side of Upper Creek by the old rusted steel rail, now in the creek.

And yes, it took me 30 years but I finally found and bushwacked the Burnthouse Shortcut from Burnthouse Camp up to the MST heading east. There's a faint logging cut leaving camp into doghobble and then it switches back to get on a little ridge finger to finish the climb up to the MST. A very neat trail providing an excellent shortcut. On my shortcut bushwack I got nailed by 5 yellow jackets---the hornets can get bad in old Piz.

The 268A "Beast" up the ridge before reaching Burnthouse Camp I call Heartbreak Ridge and it surely kicked my butt coming in on Day 1 with my 85lb pack. And now there are some terrible duck-walk blowdowns which really made it tough.


Here's my buddy Johnny B in '06 at the very start of the tough Heartbreak Ridge section of Trail 268A. He's already sweating and it's about to get much worse. Back in the '90s we went in on this trail in the snow on a nighthike with 2 flashlights for 3 people. Kept the "unlit" person sandwiched between us.

[rocketsocks]

Walter, I've been wondering this for years, please pardon my forwardness. What is it that prompted you to set up shop in the great outdoors, I mean was it the ever popular thinking of the day...tune in, turn on, drop out, or a financial decisions...or just simply something you yearned for?

PS.....I'm not gonna say you should write a book, but rather..."Man you could write a book" with all your story's of the early comings and goings of the hiker community back when.

Well, going back through this trip report and other photo-logs, I think you've already answered this. I can't imagine the lessons you've learned from such an endeavor, I think it takes great fortitude to give up the confines of the traditional built home with it's climate control, windows, and other creature comforts and set up shop in a Tipi for years.

[Tipi Walter]

----------------------------------------------------

[Grits]

Tipi
Thanks for the information, after seeing you pictures I figured out the trail connection coming up from Burnthouse Ceek to the MST I just have never walked far enough up the creek. I typically do the .5 mile up the ridge to the MST. Thanks for taking us along.

[Tipi Walter]

Tipi
Thanks for the information, after seeing you pictures I figured out the trail connection coming up from Burnthouse Ceek to the MST I just have never walked far enough up the creek. I typically do the .5 mile up the ridge to the MST. Thanks for taking us along.

If you look carefully at 268A you see how the map is wrong as the trail actually crosses Burnthouse Creek further down and exactly where Burnthouse junctions Upper. The map shows the trail about a hundred feet higher and away from Upper, therefore according to the map you'd be crossing Burnthouse right at the top of the 100 foot Burnthouse waterfall, or slightly upstream.

The "rugged" marked shortcut does junction off 268A where marked but slightly further south---as 268A as mentioned is right on Upper and parallel. The shortcut is a great way to leave Burnthouse Camp and get on the MST without having to stay on the Upper Creek trail and then crossing and going upstream for a half mile to another crossing on the Upper, and then the half mile hike to the shortcut exit on the MST.


Trivial info but you're looking down the MST trail above Burnthouse Camp where the shortcut trail comes out---on the bottom right of the pic and to the right of my hiking stick. Straight ahead the MST/Greentown trail heads east by northeast and crosses the upper reaches of Burnthouse Creek and finally the gate on FS 198.


What's neat is right where the shortcut comes out on the MST there's this little campsite. The shortcut trailhead here is barely marked with ribbon but further down it I used several fresh ribbons to mark the descent. But be warned---one switchback section has a large hornet nest.

[martinb]

Great report Walter. Enjoyed Patmans vid, too. Yet another area to put down on my to-hike list.

[gunner76]

Tipi...we might have crossed paths back in the 70's. I use to visit a friend up there at Banner Elk and we did a lot of hiking and camping all over the area.

Do you remember the original Footsloogers store ? Bought a lot of gear from them. Still using a NF Ibex sleeping bag I bought there.

[Tipi Walter]

Tipi...we might have crossed paths back in the 70's. I use to visit a friend up there at Banner Elk and we did a lot of hiking and camping all over the area.

Do you remember the original Footsloogers store ? Bought a lot of gear from them. Still using a NF Ibex sleeping bag I bought there.

I started living outdoors in Boone around 1978 and Footsloggers was my sole source of outdoor gear. In fact, I pretty much got fully outfitted with North Face gear from Footsloggers---my tent, my sleeping bags, my pack and my Thermarests.


The first item I bought from Footsloggers was this North Face Bigfoot polarguard bag in May of 1977, rated to 5F. It got me thru many cold Boone winter nights.


Then I went to Footsloggers and got this now-vintage North Face pack called the Back Magic. It was my main load hauler for over 20 years until I upgraded to Dana Designs and Mystery Ranch.


In '81 I went to Footsloggers and upgraded my Big Foot bag with this awesome North Face Ibex down bag rated at -10F. I'm showing it off to my parents in 1983 on a home visit to Greensboro from Boone. (BTW, the army shirt I am wearing with the SF patch was souvenired to me by a friend in 5th Group from Fort Bragg---I WAS NOT in any SF unit).

Anybody who went to Footsloggers knows of Hanes Boren the owner. I remember Sam Houston too who was the co-owner back in the 1970s and 80s. Back in "them" days you could bring something back and they handed you an exchange item with no cost and no questions asked. I remember once I went in with a blown thermarest and Sam grabbed a new one off the shelf and gave it to me and said, "Have a nice day."

Another time I brought in a blown Svea 123 stove and Sam tried to fix it and could not so he handed me a new one no charge. I bought a Chouinard Pyramid tipi-style tent and Sam gave it to me wholesale at $80.00. I used to backpack up Winklers Creek and would see Sam riding his bicycle to work in Boone on the Flannery Fork road.

Hanes sold Footsloggers recently to a friend after 41 years of business. See--
http://www2.wataugademocrat.com/News...gers-id-009243

[Cadenza]

Wow! I also have a North Face "Bigfoot" from the early 1980's. I don't remember exactly,...but, I think I paid more than that for it.
Still have it and it's still in good shape. It's just too bulky. Takes up too much space in the pack.
But it did keep me warm in single digit weather.

[Grits]

"Hanes sold Footsloggers recently to a friend after 41 years of business."

Jason thru hiked the AT in 2003 I think and his crew is still some of the best in the area. They outfitted my daughter from baselayers to backpack for a spur of the minute hike on the Annapurna Base Camp Tail this past April and their knowledge to get her pack weight down made all the difference between a fun adventure of a lifetime from a miserable walk. Hanes is still enjoying the outdoors.