Sunny view from Mount Craig, the second-highest peak east of the Mississippi River.

Last month, a friend of mine, Arnold, asked if I wanted to go hiking on Mount Mitchell. Often, if the weather is looking nice, he’ll give me a call about hiking somewhere local. I said sure and asked him what time he wanted to leave. He suggested 6 am… and I suggested an hour later. The 6 o’clock thing was a little early for a Saturday morning. Our local forecast looked good with a forecast of mostly sunny and a high of around 70. Not bad for the middle of January. But you have to remember: Mount Mitchell is a different world. The temperature difference is usually around 20 degrees from where we live. And the weather can be pretty unpredictable up there. Still, 50 degrees would be balmy for this time of year so everything looked good.

We left around 7, traveled through patches of dense fog with occasional sunshine, and got there 2 hours later. You know, it’s always an interesting and even quite odd experience arriving at Mount Mitchell. The wind, the drop in temperature, the ears popping and the change in the surroundings all create a little uncertainty. Sort of like, am I supposed to be here? Nevertheless, we quickly got our gear together and began our hike. My immediate concern was if I could stay warm. The sky was overcast and the wind was blowing on us pretty strongly. It wasn’t very cold, around 45, but the windchill made it feel a good bit lower. My concern quickly vanished as I began to warm up from the hiking. We soon began to take in our surroundings and marveled at what we were experiencing. As we progressed along the trail, a sea of green came into view. The trees, being evergreens, retained their leaves and almost every surface was covered in a blanket of moss. A mist hung in the air and wisps of clouds quickly blew across our field of view. No sound but ourselves and the constant wind. Patches of melting snow appeared alongside the path, making things a lot muddier. The trail was easy at first but got harder as we moved on. After a short while, we had to use a couple of ropes to make it down a more treacherous section. Soon afterwards, I realized how slick the trail was. With no warning, my feet went out from under me and my elbow slammed into a big rock. I quickly got up with that “I hope no one saw that” look on my face. My elbow was hurting and had a large knot on it, but didn’t seem to be broken. We continued on, all alone until finally coming across a few other hikers along the way. We talked to a group of students from Davidson College as they were checking out the view from Mount Craig. That view is at the top of this post. As you can see, we were in the clouds while the surrounding landscape was bathed in sunshine.

After about 3 1/2 hours of hiking, we decided to turn around. We didn’t want to get stuck trying to make our way in the dark. I fell down again but landed a little more gracefully and didn’t hurt myself. Arnold finally slipped at one point but was OK. We both started to get a little tired but knew that the end of the trail would be reached within the next hour or so. That’s when Arnold fell…hard. I had moved ahead a little but I heard him go down. I hurried back to make sure he was alright but, at first, he didn’t respond. We had joked about one of us having to carry the other or having to go get help. Fortunately, as I got to him, Arnold responded and, after a couple of minutes, cautiously rejoined me in the hike. His knee was hurting but he soldiered on. As we neared the end of the trail, I noticed my head was starting to hurt. I didn’t get much sleep the night before so I figured it was just that. After 7 hours of hiking, we finally made it back to the car. Ah, time to just sit back and enjoy the ride home. If only it was that easy! Something strange happened. The headache that I began to experience on the trail got worse, finally becoming a pounding in my head. Then, to top it off, I began to experience nausea. The very twisty road didn’t help any and Arnold kept talking like nothing was wrong. I guess he didn’t notice the beads of sweat forming on my forehead as I was trying to cope with this intense malaise. Seriously, I felt like I might soon need to seek out some professional attention! “Arnold”, I said, “I need to not talk right now. I feel bad and need to try to zone out. Oh, and let’s stop and get some aspirin as soon as possible.” We soon pulled into Marion and I rushed into a Food Lion to get some aspirin. (I chose the extra-strength migraine formula. Pretty good stuff!) I popped a couple of those and dozed off. About a half-hour later I woke up feeling much better, although I still had a decent headache. By 6:30, I was back at home sweet home.

So, what was the deal with the headache and nausea? Believe it or not, I think it was altitude sickness. Mount Mitchell is high enough to be within the range for this condition and altitude sickness usually begins within 6-10 hours of ascent. Headache and nausea are two of the top symptoms so everything seems to point in that direction. Weird, huh? The important thing is I quickly started feeling better and the next day I was fine. The elbow is still a little sore, even after almost 3 weeks, but if you had seen the lump on it you would understand why! Arnold’s knee was strained but he is getting better. The trek along the mountain ridges was awesome and full of wonderful sights and sounds which I will never forget. And I’m looking forward to our next hike. Arnold called me today and said he was ready to tackle the next mountain. I guess that will give me something else to write about out.

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