Every August, the sky gets lit up by the Perseid Meteor Shower. In hopes of getting a front row seat, Charlotte Staff members Amanda McGuire, Mike Thulin and Brian Miller joined friends Dre and McCoy, and Brian and Debbie from Tennessee to hike into the Shining Rock Wilderness Area. We traversed Tennent Mountain on the Art Loeb trail, a classic of North Carolina hiking, with plans to camp for the evening in Flower Gap under star-lit skies. Despite a short but soaking rainstorm just before reaching our intended campsite, we enjoyed a beautiful trek through rhododendron stands and grassy balds, and indulged in handfuls of ripe blueberries and blackberries along the trail.
The sky cleared enough to give us a nice evening and a great view of some shooting stars, but growing cloud cover over night blocked the peak of the meteor shower. The next morning brought showers of another kind, rain showers. We woke up to dense fog and the promise of rain, but hot oatmeal with freshly-picked blueberries was enough to keep us our spirits from getting dampened along with our gear. The persistent rain, however, convinced us to abandon plans to retrace our footsteps on the Art Loeb trail, and instead take the faster Ivestor Gap trail back to the trail head. We came back wet and tired and happy, already thinking and planning for the next trip. There is always the Leonid Meteor Shower in November!
View from Flower Gap