Up in the Mountains

About twenty-five miles Northeast of Asheville lie the Black Mountains. The highest of these and also the highest peak in the Eastern U.S., is Mount Mitchell; elevation 6,684 feet.

Most of the photographs of cloud-filled valleys were taken around Mount Mitchell, which, surprisingly, is only about 3,900 miles from Cwmrhydyceirw, in Wales, if you take the Fforddcwmtawe Road after you leave Clwydyfagwyr. Honest.

The mountain is named after Elisha Mitchell, a science professor who, in 1857, was killed in a fall while checking his measurement of the mountain's elevation. His body is interred at the peak.

In 1915, Mount Mitchell was declared the first North Carolina State park. First put up by God more than a billion years ago, the Black Mountains, with an environment of more-Northern climes, are home to many species of alpine plants, animals, and a few disoriented Canadians.

This area of North Carolina is truly a place of mystery and magic. A gentle mist will suddenly descend and leave you lost in a cloud, with only faint shadows to suggest the world is still around you.

You drive on roads which twist and turn around the ridges of mountain after mountain, sometimes startled by the drop which awaits at the edge of the road, sometimes speechless at the sudden vista of peaks and valleys opening before your eyes. You will suddenly realize your car has been climbing upward for so long that you've become unaware of it, so distracted have you been by icy formations clinging to craggy faces of rocky cliffs, or marveling at a tree that seems to be growing from solid stone; catching a glimpse of a waterfall as it rushes and tumbles down a tortuous gully toward a valley far below.

Here, you may see the world in a way you've never seen it before.

And a ride to Mount Mitchell unexpectedly becomes the sighting of one mysterious island after another, covered with trees and floating in a sea of undulating, white cloud.