Both Columbus and I were wide awake by 5am for some reason. We packed, enjoyed the complementary breakfast, and were hiking again by 6;30am. With the early start we figured we could make it by McAfee Knob then to The Homeplace by dinner time while keeping a reasonable 2 mph hiking pace.
The trail crossed some power lines a couple miles outside of town. As we climbed uphill I could hear the electrical buzzing of the lines far before I could see them. At the top, the cleared area offered some nice views back toward Daleville from some large rocks below one of the structures. As I stood on the rock, the buzzing was quite loud and I was startled when I noticed the hair on the back of my hand stand up as I raised my phone in the air for a picture. I took my picture and then Columbus climbed up and tried it. We joked that we might be able to charge our phones just by standing there.
After the initial climb we spent the day on a high ridge going around a lake below. It formed a large horseshoe shape on the map, taking us northwest for many miles then southwest on the far side of the lake. It was a nice hike with rocky outcrops providing great views along the way.
We reached a long series of high cliffs called Tinker Cliffs in early afternoon. There were an abundance of day hikers heading up and down—clearly a popular day hike. The cliffs were high above the Catawba valley with amazing views to the south.
The next mountain beyond Tinker Cliffs was McAfee Knob. We could see the mountain in the distance but it was a bit hazy to make out the features. We headed downhill off of the cliffs and onward toward our photo destination for the day. After a couple more hours we began our climb toward McAfee Knob. The weather had turned rainy again but was light enough that we didn’t get very wet while hiking. We reached the spot around 1pm and waited for a few minutes to take pictures.
Now these are the classic photos from this spot. And here is the rest you don’t usually see…
We had eaten lightly in the afternoon and were already starting to get hungry as we made our way down toward Catawba and The Home Place. It was mostly downhill for the last leg of the hike. But when we reached the road to Catawba we had another two mile road walk to reach the restaurant. We dragged ourselves up the drive to The Homeplace around 3:30pm, tired and hungry.
But the restaurant lived up to the hype. The food was good and plentiful and I think we made up some of the calories we burned over the past couple days.
The Four Pines Hostel was a short drive away and Nature Boi came in an old, empty van to pick us up. So full from dinner, we just rolled around back there on the ride to the hostel.
The hostel itself is a donation based place with bunks inside a converted 3-car garage. It reminded me a bit of a place 10 college kids would rent together. But there was a hot shower, comfortable mattress, and free shuttles to the store nearby. Perfect.
