NC-128 Crossover to South Toe River Trailhead, eastbound
June 10, 2026. Once again, it was a 50-minute drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway to my drop-off point on the access road to Mount Mitchell.
The BRP is closed at this point, so the husband-shuttle had a long, two-hour drive to get to my pick-up location on the South Toe River.
He did some birding in Madison County en route, and had a beautiful Cerulean Warbler as well as a young Black Bear crashing down through the woods.
While I, on the other hand, have yet to see a bear on my entire MST-journey!
And I am O. K. with that.
This was my Day 2 hike, and I chose to do this 11.2-mile hike eastbound, rather than westbound, because climbing up Mt. Mitchell from the Toe River Valley looked. . . daunting.
My route began with three miles on an abandoned road, and it was simply lovely.
All the creek crossings were very easy.
The only concern was that I had zero cell-phone reception, and I was making such a good pace at this point that I knew I would be getting to the end much earlier than I had anticipated.
There is an optional half-mile cutover to avoid climbing up Mt. Mitchell, but what fun is that?
The “ascent” began on Commissary Road.
Then the route goes up the Camp Alice Trail. It was steep, but it’s less than a mile to the summit.
Although a little rocky, the trail was still easier than yesterday’s ascent up Blackstock Knob!
Hiking in the mountains is my Happy Place.
And of course you’re going to do the optional walk up to the observation deck.
It’s only 9:30am, but I took a good rest break and switched to dry socks.
There’s 6.5 miles to go, but it is 99.99999% DOWNHILL.
Downhill hiking still requires caution, and the trail was difficult in places.
FINALLY, at one place I was able to get “one bar” and let Loren know my adjusted end time. And he could stop worrying why he hadn’t heard from me, too.
The trail has been carefully reconstructed where a landslide had wiped it out.
Astonishingly, I passed quite a few hikers who were just beginning the long trail to up Mt. Mitchell—starting an 8-hour round trip hike at noon! Aaaah, the good, strong legs of youth.
I was pleased to reach the flatland near the South Toe River. The downhill muscles were about done for the day.
Out of all the twenty-three miles of hiking over the last two days, this fifteen feet of trail is what gave me the willies….
It was a noisy end to a beautiful hike–lots of construction activity to restore Black Mountain Campground from Hurricane Helene.
I’ll need my own time of restoration before heading back out!
142 miles to go.
My.Bird.Walks. 