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Carolina Mountain Club                        Since 1923
eNews | Hike . Save Trails . Make Friends
August  2015  
In This Issue
Annual Dinner & Meeting:
October 30
By Barbara Morgan
We hope you can attend this year's Annual Meeting and Dinner, as it promises to be an important and fun-filled evening.  It will be held in the Mountain View Room in the Sherrill Center at UNC-Asheville on Friday, October 30. 

The Social Hour begins at 5:30, and you will be able to buy wine or beer by the "ticket" system we've used elsewhere.  The dinner starts at 6:30, with Challenge Awards presented during dinner.  The Business Meeting begins at 7:30. The agenda includes the election of  new Council members and the presentation of the club's two highest awards - the Award of Appreciation and the Distinguished Service Award.  Look in this issue for how you can nominate members for these awards.

Our speaker this year is CMC member and author, Marci Spencer, who has published "Pisgah National Forest - A History" (see review by Danny Bernstein in the December 2014 eNews), "Clingman's Dome, Highest Mountain in the Smokies", and just recently a children's book titled "Potluck, Message Delivered!" about the saving of the Great Smoky Mountains.  Her entertaining talk will conclude the evening.

For your reservation form, click here. Mail your form and check by October 14 to ensure delivery and processing.  OR, you can make your reservation and pay on our website by October 21.  The cost is $32.50 per person for dinner. If you only want to come to the meeting, there is no charge. 

Prizes By Diamond Brand Outdoors
Carolina Mountain Club Photo Contest

By Ann Hendrickson

Attention all shutterbugs! Get out your cameras, GoPros or cellphones with cameras. The CMC wants your best shots from the trail! Winning photographs of the new photo contest will be featured on the website and the photographers (and their photos) will be recognized at the Annual Meeting. Categories for the contest include:

 1) Landscape, 2) People on the Trail, and 3) Plants, and/or animals. Entries will be accepted until Sept 30, 2015. Please click here to see the rules.


2015 Service Awards 
REMINDER! Nominations for CMC Service Awards are due September 20. Awards will be presented at the Annual Meeting and Dinner on October 30

In the year 2000, the Carolina Mountain Club established two awards that may be made annually.  The Distingushed Service Award is made to a member who, during his/her membership, has made consistent and cumulatively extraordinary contributions to the operation of CMC, and to the achievement of its mission.  The Award of Appreciation may be made to any member who, during the calendar year prior to the Annual Meeting, has rendered such exceptional service to the operation of the Carolina Mountain Club that its mission was significantly advanced.  In addition, the Council may occasionally choose to grant an honorary life membership to some member.
Click here for nomination form and details. 
CMC: A.T.-MST Challenge
By Sawako Jager, Chair of CMC Challenge Committee
The CMC Challenge committee has announced a new permanent hiking challenge: CMC: A.T.-MST Challenge
 
In 2013 CMC celebrated its 90 year anniversary by challenging hikers to hike either the 93 miles of the A.T. and/or the 130 miles of the MST maintained by the club. Since then the CMC trail maintenance crews have built an additional 5 mile section of the MST from south of Woodfin Cascade to Waterrock Knob. 
 
CMC currently maintains 93 miles of the Appalachian Trail from Davenport Gap to Spivey Gap (northbound) and 135 miles of the Mountains -To-Sea Trail from Waterrock Knob to Black Mountain Campground (eastbound). Members who hike the combined 228 miles of the Appalachian Trail (A.T.) and the Mountains -To-Sea Trail (MST) on sections maintained by the club will be awarded a certificate of completion and a commemorative embroidered hiking patch. 
 
Please check the CMC website Challenge page for the details. If you have further questions please e-mail Vance Mann who is coordinating this new challenge. You can reach Vance at [email protected]. More

Sawako, front row left, with a group of well-wishers last month.
Goodbye, Sawako
By Stuart English
In 2008, a shy, retiring Japanese lady named Sawako Jager joined our club. Now, due to a career decision by her husband, she has moved away. During those seven years, what she accomplished was no less than phenomenal. No one has completed all the challenges offered by CMC in such a short time. These included the SB6K, the Pisgah 400, the Lookout Tower Challenge, and the Waterfall Challenge. 

Sawako learned how to find all these remote destinations better than the savviest native. She could identify most flowers and plants. She became a go-to person if you needed help scouting a hike. Anyone who hikes in WNC with any group has probably crossed paths with Sawako, for she did not limit herself to CMC hikes while completing these challenges. She hiked with many Meet Up groups and almost every organized or unorganized group in the area. She served several years on the CMC Council and was Chair of the Challenge Committee. If we had a Hall of Fame, she would surely be in it.

ATC Conference features Slack-Packing
By Kathy Kyle
It started with a climb to Mary's Rock. Sweat soaked our shirts and we quickly lost any pretense that this would be a fragrance free experience as we climbed what turned out to be the most difficult climb of the "slack pack." Eight hikers, two leaders and two support people covered just over 30 miles on the Appalachian
Trail in the Shenandoah National Park over four days and three nights. It was a humble feat considering the speed hike record was recently broken - 2,189 miles in just over 46 days. 

The adventure was even more comfortable considering that a "slack pack" means you don't carry a backpack, but just a daypack. Our support team, led by Ron Berger of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC), shuttled our packs containing our clothing, sleeping bags and pads and basic necessities to the night's destination. We carried our day packs, which basically held water and lunch.

To read more, click here.
Annual Trail/Section Maintainers Picnic  

Saturday September 19th 1:00-5:00 PM 
Lake Julian (off Hendersonville Rd)
Live Music 
BBQ Pulled Pork, hot dogs & cold drinks will be provided
Attendees are requested to bring munchies, salad, veggies or desert for 6-8. 
Adult beverages are permitted but are BYO 
Lawn chairs are recommended. 
Note: location to this year's picnic is via the entrance on Hendersonville Road, a few blocks south of Long Shoals Rd just past the Black Forest Restaurant.15 Lake Juian Rd, 28704 if you use a GPS 
If you have any questions, contact Les Love at [email protected].

FALL CAMPOREE: October 2 - 4
Wilson Creek Wilderness Area

REMINDER: If you would like to participate in the camporee, contact Ted Snyder at [email protected]
For information about Mortimer Campground and the hikes planned for the weekend, go to the club website, select the Hiking menu and click on Camporee.

 

Shall I Compare Thee To A Winter's Day
By Mike Knies
 
A winter morning breaks so cold, crisp and clear
There is no heat, humidity or sweat drenched clothing to fear.
 
The breathless vistas both near and far are seen through leafless trees
They are not cluttered or obscured by summer's green monotony.
 
There is no chatter of the warm weather throngs to wreck
My desire for the peace and solitude of a wilderness trek
 
There are none of those six legged winged biting stinging pests
Those legless slithering things are hibernating in their nests.
 
There will be no reason to scratch a rash from the weeds.
Poison ivy and the like still wait to germinate from mere seeds
 
The sun sparkles on the icy waterfall creating nature's chandelier
And blankets of snow reveal the path of animals like the deer
 
So long as I can breath and my eyes can see
So long a winter day lives this and thus gives life to me.

Bill Ramer (left) with Vance Mann

Bill Ramer 1942 - 2015
By Stuart English
CMC lost a very special member and friend in Bill Ramer. I first heard of Bill through Charlie Ferguson and Dave Wetmore. Bill had single handedly mapped by GPS every Forest Service Road in the Pisgah Ranger District and sent the tracts to Charlie and Dave. Most of them are on our website now. Bill lived near me here in Brevard and was always willing to help me scout a hike. I found him indispensable. Some of the places we went were very remote - places where I would never go by myself. I asked Bill once if he would hike in an area alone. He told me that his wife had given him an emergency tracking device and insisted he carry it with him; he was very comfortable anywhere in the woods alone.
Bill was a quiet, unassuming man. He was a native of Transylvania County, a 35-year employee of Ecusta Corporation, a veteran, and a beloved family man. When he hiked with the club, it was often on the Sunday afternoon hikes.  But I will always remember him in some remote section of Pisgah.  When I was hiking with other people, we would often run into Bill on the trail hiking alone. He would sometimes say, "... mind if I join you for a while?" He would walk with us for a few miles and then go his own way.



CMC Member Met President Obama

CMC council member Kathy Kyle recently met President Barack Obama. "I came home after Dave Wetmore's Cold Mountain hike and I had an email from the White House." The email was in reference to a letter she had written the president. "My daughter has a pre-existing condition and I feel strongly about quality health care and coverage for everyone."

One of the letters she wrote was in response to an article she read in The New York Times about doctors amputating limbs of diabetic patients instead of prescribing lifestyle changes. "When I read that, my blood pressure went out the roof."  Continue ...

Bonnie is standing next to one of her works, "Radiance" and Chris is next to one of his, "Poppy."
CMC Members Exhibit 
at West Asheville Library

 

 

Bonnie and Chris Allen each have 10 gorgeous photos now on exhibit at the West Asheville Library on Haywood Road until October. Everyone is invited to stop by and view them.

Challenge At Hanging Rock State Park

Hello from the folks at Reach the Peaks Challenge. Reach the Peaks is the premier hiking and trail running peak challenge in North Carolina. Sponsored by the Stokes County Arts Council, Friends of the Sauratown Mountains, and Hanging Rock State Park, this year's Reach the Peaks Challenge is scheduled for Saturday, September 26. The event offers 11 miles of world class trails, challenging participants to reach the five highest peaks of Hanging Rock State Park, including Moore's Knob, House Rock, Cook's Wall, Wolf Rock, and Hanging Rock. Advanced Registrants will receive a water bottle, t-shirt, post hike meal, and safety/emergency medical support during the event. Participants who complete the challenge will receive a specially embroidered "I Conquered Reach the Peaks" patch. This year's event will be limited to the first 500 hikers, with unlimited trail runners. Advance registration ends August 28. For more information or to register, please visit: http://reachthepeaks.org Thank you for sharing this information with your organization. Please contact us via email at: [email protected] for additional information or questions/concerns. UNC-TV NC Weekend Reach the Peaks segment-  http://video.unctv.org/video/2365436178/ 

New Volunteer on eNews

 

With this issue, Daisy Teng Karasek begins working with Kathy Kyle as Co-Editor. Please continue to send your articles and news items to [email protected].

 

cmclogo Send eNews articles to [email protected]
  
The newsletter will go out the last Friday of every month. The deadline to submit news is the Friday before it goes out.

The next issue will come out on Friday, September 25, so send your news by Friday evening at 9 P.M. before the newsletter comes out, that is, by Friday evening, September 18, to [email protected]. Include your email address at the end of your story. Thank you.
 
Westgate parking - Park in the northernmost part of the lot - past EarthFare, in the last row of parking spaces.

To join Carolina Mountain Club go to:  www.carolinamountainclub.org. Click on "Join CMC" on the right side. Follow the instructions. Send all address and email changes to Gale O'Neal at [email protected]. Do not resubscribe yourself to the eNews. That will be done automatically.
If you are a non-member subscriber, you need to go back to the eNews and make the change yourself.

  


Carolina Mountain Club | P.O. Box 68
Asheville, NC 28802