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| Elk Knob beckons from my bedroom window (I need to call the tree-trimmers). |
I've had my eyes on Elk Knob since we built our mountainside house in Boone in 2005. On Thursday, March 26th, I plan to head up for my 300th hike to the summit.
In 2007, I answered a call for volunteers to help build a hiking trail to the summit.
My first climb followed a steep old Jeep trail where realtors once tried to sell mile-high views. Thankfully, the lots were never developed, and the state of North Carolina acquired the land in 2003 to become Elk Knob State Park.
The original superintendent, Larry Trivette, envisioned a walkable trail to the top, and we agreed to build it by hand, rather scarring the mountainside with a bulldozer. I was among the volunteers who came every Saturday to carve out the trail. Each year, we completed about a half mile of trail. That was the heyday of Armanti Edwards, so in the fall I brought a radio, and we listened to App State games as we hacked stumps, moved boulders, and poured gravel on the muddy spots. After quitting time, if I wasn't too sore or exhausted, I trudged up the old jeep road to reward myself with the hundred-mile view.
We completed the trail on Sept. 4, 2011, when I made my 29th ascent. I reached No. 100 in 2019 and No. 200 in 2023, and No. 300 in 2026. Could I reach to 400 this year? Why not, now that I'm retired?
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| I had the honor of dumping the last load of gravel on the Elk Knob trail in 2011. |
It's like my own personal "Groundhog Day." Almost every month, I've climbed Elk Knob. My streaks reached 48 consecutive months before the park was closed in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic, then another 54 months before we were gutted by Hurricane Helene. Until that seven-week shutdown, I was on pace to tally 70 hikes in my 70th year. I've missed only four months in 10 years.
Why, you ask? That's what they asked George Mallory in 1924 before his ill-fated climb of Mount Everest. "Because it's there," he declared.
Why do I come back, week after week? The view is always nice. Hiking is healthy and seems to keep my diabetes at bay. (No. 197 came five weeks after my second heart attack, and five days after getting stents). I like to stay acquainted with the wildflowers. I feel a sense of ownership in the park and trail. I confess to being obsessive.
And I'm over halfway to a Hall of Fame. The International Poly-Baggers Hall of Fame recognizes peak-baggers who have climbed the same mountain 500 times. This is an online club based in Wales, and right now I'm involved as a correspondent. I update the club annually on American climbers, including several who've made the Hall of Fame by climbing Tennessee's Mount Le Conte more than 500 times.
Elk Knob is a 4-mile round trip with 1,000 feet of elevation gain. It's less than half the hike that Le Conte demands. Some people can run a marathon faster than my usual round trip on Elk Knob, about two-and-a-half hours. My fastest climb was 52 minutes at age 57. I've walked almost 1,200 miles on "my" trail.
Do I have the record for Elk Knob climbs? Maybe. There is another man who hikes as frequent as I do, but he does not keep count.
The sign atop Elk Knob is marked "ELEV. 5,520," but the actual elevation is closer to 5,558.
If hikes were stackable, like shoeboxes, my 300 would rise 300,000 feet, which is the brink of outer space, over 10 times higher than Everest and a quarter of the way to the international space station.
