Montreat

Two of my favorite things to do in the outdoors are exploring new trails and go on adventures. The more trails I explore and the more adventures I have the harder it becomes to do either. Over the years I have steadily scratched more trails off the list and find myself looking at more maps and driving further and further on my outings. That makes it hard to always be checking out new trails and most often these days I find myself doing trails I have done many times due to their proximity to my house. In an effort to mix things up a little, two weeks ago I decided to do the Seven Sisters route for the first time since the race last spring.

I've done the route several times and should know it but I ended up making a few navigational errors that resulted in both an adventure as well as seeing two new to me trails. Things started out just fine but then when I found myself on top of the Rainbow Mountain Summit that seemed a little wrong but was an easy enough mistake to fix.

Back out on the East Ridge Trail, everything was going great and I was following the directions and soaking in the views on this very warm fall day.

Then I noticed the blaze switched colors but I hadn't seen an intersection so I thought I was still on course. As I continued the trail got less and less familiar and I was certain I was off course but figured I would pop out somewhere on the old rail grade that goes up to Greybeard. Then I found myself descending a very steep trail and by the time I realized I was losing too much elevation I saw a building and found myself at the campground right by the Greybeard trailhead.  You can't get much more wrong than that but the mistake also meant that I had done the Rocky Head trail for the first time.



Going back up and completing the route would have taken too much time so instead, I headed across the road and headed up Big Piney. I had been down Big Piney before but had never been past there on West Ridge so once at the top I went left and then down Stomping Ground and Little Piney - both of which I had never been on before. So, in the end, a few navigational errors lead me to explore three new to me trails and made for a perfect mini adventure.