Blue Ridge Parkway-Sam Knob Summit

For the third time Aaron and I have viewed this impressive mountain but this time, we have dedicated our hike solely to making it to the top. 

Our destination is to the top of the peak that you see to the left. The elevation gain is 620 feet, and we will be 6040 feet above sea level.

We have been here before but our first hike we went left and followed the Flat Laurel Creek Trail. Today we go right and begin our ascent.

The blackberries were just starting to become ripe.

Blueberries.

Even though many of the blueberries and blackberries were not ripe, there were still plenty that were. We could have hiked an hour and a half, but this hike turned into two and a half hours because we picked berries and ate them since we hadn't eaten our lunch.

A large white quartz rock.

About half the way up we were able to view the meadow that we had crossed. It looks tiny from this advantage point.

If you look closely, there is a small silver curve in the valley below. The only road that it could be is the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We felt as if we were on top of the world. 360 degrees of nothing but mountainous scenery!

A Parkway overlook. Location unknown.

Camping, hiking and S'mores. That's living!

At the entrance of the campground  there is a sign posted that warns campers to take cover inside a building or car whenever there is lightning. On our second night, a severe thunderstorm rolled in so fast we didn't have time to fold our chairs and put them away so that they would be dry the next day. While laying in our tent seeing the flash of lightning and hearing the clap of thunder, I asked Aaron if he wanted to take shelter in the car? He said yes, but the rain was coming down so hard we would need to make a mad dash to the Jeep.

Aaron and I decided he would go first then Gypsy, and I would go next while Aaron held a flashlight in our direction. He made it Ok then it was our turn, but Gypsy was nice and comfortable lying on a sleeping bag, and she took one look at the pouring rain and wasn't going to move. I had to pull her out of the tent, and I made a beeline to the car. Assuming she would follow me, but when I turned to help Gypsy in the vehicle, she was nowhere to be found. I ran back in the torrential rain toward the tent calling out her name. I notice the tent had collapsed, but there was a movement of something trying to get out.  Instead of Gypsy following me she turned around and tried to go back into the tent, but the door had been zipped shut. She had made the tent collapse on her.

I was dragging her by the collar to get us safely to the car. We realized sleeping in our tent was out of the equation for this night. After the rain had eased up, we retrieved our sleeping bags which by some miracle were only slightly damp for the rain fly had slid off to one side in the collapse.

After a restless night trying to sleep in a car, we assessed the damage the next morning. What we could see now in the daylight is Gypsy had caused the tent stakes to pull out of the ground making the tent fall in on itself.The rain fly had exposed part of the inside of the tent creating puddles of water on the floor. I took my all cotton hoodie jacket and soaked up the excess water and hung the sleeping mats to dry. The tent and everything dried nicely and our next nights' sleep was comfortable.