Camping Adventure II

We woke up on Sunday and decided to hike a couple of trails off the parkway and my boo, being the "bridge building nerd" that he is, wanted to see the Linn Cove Viaduct. Which is a 1243-foot concrete segmental bridge which snakes around the slopes of Grandfather Mountain. It was completed in 1983 at a cost of $10 million. The Viaduct was needed because of the damage that a traditional cut-and-fill road would have caused to Grandfather Mountain. We took the .16 mile hike to see the suspended bridge from below and then spent 15 minutes looking around in the little museum. Boo had to buy a souvenir too. A pin, picturing the viaduct that he sticks on his day pack. He's actually become quite the collector of these pins. I think he has one for almost every mountain we've hiked.
Afterwards, we drove down a few mileposts and took the Beacon Heights side trail that the ranger at the Viaduct promised had some outstanding views if we took the time to hike both north/south sections of the trail. The trail was only .25 miles up so no biggie. Well, we hopped on the trail and at the first "Y" split we turned right. After about 1/2 mile we came to a road, I was like, "this ain't right", we should of seen a view or at least gone UP some. We decided to cross the road and continue on the trail for about .25 miles. A trail marker told us we were on the Tanawha trail. Oops, wrong trail. We hike back to the "Y" split and headed the other way. Well, we get to another "Y" split and decide to go to the right. After 1/2 a mile of really lose rocky terrain all going down hill, I'm thinking,"this ain't right." We turn around and head back to the second "Y" split, and go up the other way. Its up hill and at the top, guess what? ANOTHER fork in the trail So the .25 mile hike ended up being a bit over 2 miles after getting lost a couple of times. hahaha! But the view was so worth it. We did explore both sections of the trail and got great northern views and southern views of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We spent a few minutes on top of the mountains just enjoying the views and relaxing in the sun. The weather was perfect, the company was perfect, and it was a perfect end to our camping adventure. I love coming up here and I can't wait to come back. Oh, by the way, the Tanawha trail is a 13 mile trail that takes us right back to Julian Price Park. What an excellent "accidental" trail we found. We are totally going to backpack this trial soon! Til my next adventure! See Ya!