Photo: Laurel Knob routes. Photo credit: Harrison Shull photo, courtesy of Carolina Climbers’ Coalition A hunka hunka burnin’ rock: Laurel Knob in Jackson County, with its 1200-foot faces of sheer granite, is an Eastern climbing treasure without par, taking a backseat in magnitude only to some Out West destinations. According to local lore, the earliest […]
Author: Kent Priestley
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Tell me, have you seen them?
These are hard times for unexplained phenomena. Daily, one by one, the old myths are being teased apart by the icy hand of science. Crop circles: yawn; the Loch Ness Monster: likely a pile of fog-wreathed hooey; spontaneous human combustion: yesterday’s news. Even if you have proof that Great Aunt Lila was consumed by mysterious […]
All ears
Herb Walters‘ brand of mild-mannered contrarianism began as he stared at a Selective Service form in 1970. Half a world away, U.S. soldiers were killing and being killed in a war that had brought a generation of young Americans into the streets and public spaces in protest. Walters, who was draft age, saw the words […]
Outdoor Journal
Tag along: Any reader of the Mountain Xpress letters to the editor knows that cyclists and car drivers don’t always get along. For those of us who would rather bike but have to drive sometimes anyway, there’s a good way to send a signal that you’re bike-friendly. The North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles’ Division […]
Outdoor Journal
The long and winding switchback: Next Saturday, June 3, is “National Trails Day.” In our neck of the woods, the event will be feted with a hike hosted by the Carolina Mountain Club. The eight-mile hike, with 800 feet of ascent, will start at the end of Lake View Road north of Bryson City, pass […]
Old as the hills, fit as a fiddle
As surely as growing shoots of kudzu bind much of North Carolina’s rural landscape during the warm months, the state is also seized by a number of old-time and bluegrass music festivals, annual reminders of the unique place of the fiddle and banjo in the South’s cultural life. Madison County fiddle ace: Josh Goforth is […]
Once more to the vineyard
When we last saw our hero, he was rhapsodizing about the romance of the vineyard, trumpeting some tripe about “raven-haired women” and “wine by the jug.” We return to find his high spirits somewhat diminished by the reality of grubbing out goutweed, periwinkle, Japanese knotweed and pine roots the size of a sumo wrestler’s femur […]
Outdoor Journal
Supafly: Trying to match the hatch from our mountain waters? Current dry fly bets include Yellow Sally, Golden Drake, Yellow Drake, Light Hendrickson and Dark Hendrickson. On tailwaters, Sulfurs are working, and we’re just days away from the emergence of Green Drakes. Thanks to store manager Shane Buckner of Hunter Banks Company in Asheville for […]
Outdoor Journal
Boating Got floatation? North Carolina law requires all children under 13 to wear a personal floatation device while on the water. Kids grow, foam rots, buckles rust — what condition are your PFDs in this year? Visit www.wildlife.state.nc.us for the regs and tips on keeping little ones afloat. Nature Mr. Big Stuff: Look east after […]
Buncombe County Commission
“I think these problems can be solved. It’s not a matter of money only — it’s a matter belief.” — Asheville City Schools Superintendent Robert Logan on fighting dropouts and closing the achievement gap Like horses out of the gate, budget requests rushed the lectern at the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners’ May 2 meeting. […]
Ooo-oo that smell
Photo by Jodi Ford Yessir, these are heady days for the ramp, that formerly humble Appalachian spring-tonic-turned haute cuisine ingredient. None other than Martha Stewart says she loves gathering the plants, and now that she’s off house arrest, her forays no doubt take her deeper into the woods. Blustery TV chef Emeril Lagasse, too, has […]
Mystery fish
A brook trout is such a rare and fine thing that I nearly wept the first time I saw one. I mean it. Nothing in my carp and catfish sensibilities had prepared me for this, a fish whose coloration is equal parts earth, water, fire and air. The brook trout has bronze sides, amber fins, […]
Who you callin’ old?
Don’t trust anyone under 60: 82-year-old Ralph Draves with his bicycle. Photos by Kent Priestley. Jim Martin stands at the top of the cement rise, pushes off with one foot, and he’s rolling. Knees bent, he glides down a smooth six-foot ramp, banks a turn and goes for another. He reaches the bottom, wobbles a […]
A shrub with a sweet past
In one of the most unabashedly erotic passages from his Travels, the otherwise staid botanist William Bartram stumbled upon (read: stalked) a company of Cherokee maidens disporting along a stream bank, collecting strawberries. A less disciplined reader might get swept up in Bartram’s florid 18th-century descriptions of the virgins’ stained lips and “gay and libertine” […]
Buncombe County Commission
With little fanfare, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously in favor of a more stringent code governing development on steep slopes during a lengthy April 4 session. The rules, which limit density and the amount of impervious surface on sites with average grades greater than 25 percent, made it through the first hoop […]
Breaking bread
Jennifer Lapidus has been up for seven hours, since 4 a.m., worrying about, fussing with and handling bread — a fact which might dim a lesser business owner’s enthusiasm for her product. But instead of sinking into a bleary silence, Lapidus, owner of Natural Bridge Bakery, is up and baking. One after another, she pulls […]
What the bleat do ‘they’ know?
“The government is saying that Aunt Martha’s laying hen is a threat to the national food system. Well, that’s just silly.” — local farmer Sherry Williams The La Mancha dairy goat has ears so small they are hardly ears at all, just holes with a little ruff of fur around them. “The first time I […]
When worlds collide
A little game of name-that-tune was all it took to bring about a concert this Sunday that may further serve to bridge the gulf – narrowing steadily in recent years – between classical and Americana music. It came about last year, when Blue Ridge Orchestra conductor Ron Clearfield was leading his group’s string section through […]
The road less traveled
“My heritage is not for sale. Our folks were promised this road; we haven’t gotten it.” — Swain County Commissioner David Monteith Few regional issues have shown greater divisive power — or, for that matter, staying power — than the long-running plan to lay a 34-mile ribbon of asphalt through the southern portion of the […]
The learning community
Among the wide-ranging skills on offer are how to make a cardboard mountain dulcimer, cook New Orleans style, lower yourself gently into a shamanic trance, or design your own home. The name Blue Mountain Schoolhouse conjures images of potbellied stoves and Laura Ingalls Wilder types doodling on slates; the BMS catalog exploits that idea with […]
Road to marriage paved with … hesitation?
From a distance, the State of Matrimony looks a little different to each person who heads there. For some it is a romantic destination, a place of long sunsets, shameless cooing and perpetual snuggling. To others it is a place full of things of a more practical weight — doubled incomes, for instance, or tax […]