What a beautiful place!!!!!
Arriving in the middle of the night I could still tell it was awesome! When the sun came up oh YES! I was correct! Simply breathtaking !
The Pisgah Back Country Horsemen’s Assocation, and the NC Horse Council teamed up the US Forest Service and helped build the Wolf Ford Horse Camp. A very nice Equestrian Camp with 13 Camping Spaces complete with good gravel and drainage, fire pits, lantern hangers, picnic tables, and One His and Hers SST (Restroom) ! All very nice indeed!
We started our Leave No Trace 2 Day course at 9:00 AM with 7 Attendees. I taught with David Finnan the local Wilderness Ranger. (who had never been horse back in his life) I am thinking he has no idea what he is in for packing in on horse back ! But he rode like he had been born on the back of a horse and never complained or had any trouble! (Yes he was on a very good horse!)
We made camp along the South Mills River and continued our teaching session around the camp fire. As we were talking it was about 10:00 PM there appeared to be little eyes all round us in the woods about 12 inches off the ground. I was noticing the “eyes” and no one else seemed to see them! Finally I said “could someone please tell me what the eyes are?” They all looked around and said “Oh! That is just GHOST LIGHTS!” Okay! Turns out they are round fire flies! They do not get very far above the ground and I had NEVER seen or heard tell of them before!!!
We were in bear country (and not very well prepared I am afraid) when we went to hang our food in the tree it was a huge failure. But lucky for us across the river was a suspension bridge and there is where we hung our food from the bottom of it over the water! Good thing for us there were no bear in the area!
Soon we all went to bed. I in my hammock and Abilene under me on my vest. We all settled in to a peaceful night’s sleep.
More tomorrow!
