In late July this past summer, I hiked the 30-mile Art Loeb Trail, as well as a short, 3 mile out-and-back offshoot to the summit of Cold Mountain. I did the hike over two days. Well, really I hiked for a day and a half, as it took me a half day just to set foot on the trail.
I made the three and a half hour drive from Atlanta to Brevard, North Carolina, early one humid July morning. The southern terminus of the Art Loeb Trail is just outside of Brevard and just inside Pisgah National Forest, which makes it convenient to access from town. I arranged a shuttle so that I could leave my car at the southern terminus at Davidson River Campground and be transported to the northern terminus at Camp Daniel Boone to start my hike.
My knowledge of, and interest in the trail began when my wife asked me if I had ever heard of it. She was following a hiker on social media who had abandoned the hike part way through due to tough conditions and bad weather. Of course, this was enough to peak my interest in the trail. My thought process went something like this: “That person couldn’t do it?! Now I kind of want to do it….” Dangle a challenge in front of me, or even something that remotely smells like a challenge, and it isn’t hard to get my interest.
The trail was named after Art Loeb, an avid hiker and Carolina Mountain Club member, who pieced together an early form of the foot path that would later become the full trail. This article gives a short bio of Art Loeb, how he ended up in Brevard, how a heart attack in his 40s led to his hiking habit, etc. The only other time I had been to Brevard was for a canoe camping trip on the calmer portions of the French Broad River, facilitated by Headwaters Outfitters in Rosman. It seems like a great little town.
I took a lot of video footage on the Art Loeb / Cold Mountain hike and put together a short video about that trip. I changed up my “silent hiking” format for the video a bit, this time adding in some voiceover. If you’re interested in seeing that trip, check out the video on YouTube. I’m liking this new format – minimal talking during the hiking so that you can get a feel for the trail, but a few thoughts sprinkled in via voiceover to help break it up. It’s only 9 minutes. Let me know what you think.
I found the trail itself reasonably challenging. By that I mean that it wasn’t any more difficult than sections of the Appalachian Trail, the Benton MacKaye Trail, etc.; however, it certainly was not an easy hike. Backpacking it in the summer heat was definitely a choice that added to the difficulty. I didn’t have great information on water sources, so I had to make reasonable assumptions, namely not to count on springs that I hadn’t verified through multiple sources, and to assume that most of the ridge line through Shining Rock Wilderness would be dry. That said, it wasn’t like I was hiking through the desert. It was manageable.
Bear canisters are required when storing food overnight in Shining Rock Wilderness. That covers the area between the northern terminus of the trail and where it crosses the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is easy enough to plan to camp on the other side of the Blue Ridge Parkway, but then you’ll miss out on camping at high elevation on Tennent or Black Balsam peaks. If you are interested in this trip, I highly recommend camping in Shining Rock Wilderness. You can always rent a bear canister if you don’t have one. Pura Vida, who provides shuttles, also rents them. I have one, which I eventually plan to use on a future PCT hike. If you are planning to camp on Tennent Mountain, just know that there are not many places to camp. There are more spots on Black Balsam Knob, but there is parking access below the mountain, which means it tends to get more crowded with those making the trek up from the parking lot for a night. I got lucky on Tennent Mountain and found a spot, probably due to the heat. Of course, it was pretty chilly overnight at over 6000 feet, so it was a comfortable night’s sleep. I didn’t know this at the time, but there is at least one other option for trail shuttles that I later found on the Art Loeb Trail Facebook page, called Traveling Lite Shuttle & Resupply. I have never used this service before, but it seems like a great (and less expensive) option. I need to remember to check the Facebook pages for these trails when looking for resources like shuttles….
The hike itself went fairly smoothly. I wasn’t sure if the extra 3 miles to climb up and down Cold Mountain would lead me to a view, but it did. There is also a piped spring on the way up Cold Mountain right beside the trail, which was nice. It was overgrown getting to the summit, but nothing crazy. The final little bit of trail up to the summit hooks just enough to provide a rewarding view looking back towards the Art Loeb Trail – you can see the ridge of the mountains heading towards Tennent Mountain and Black Balsam Knob.
There were lots of wild blueberries in Shining Rock Wilderness. I definitely enjoyed snacking on those. It feels great to eat things directly from the land without an intermediary providing it to me. There were lots of birds in the tall grasses on the more exposed ridges, especially around Tennent Mountain. I captured the below photo of a Towhee going about its morning business near my campsite on the mountain.
One of the best parts of the Art Loeb Trail is that it offers exposed ridge line hiking and views. Anyone who has spent time hiking on the AT or other eastern trails knows how rare this is. Most summits are wooded, outside of the occasional bald or short section of trail. The Art Loeb Trail offers the best of both worlds when it comes to exposed ridges and covered trail. There are lots of creeks in the wooded sections of trail as you get closer to Davidson River Campground at the southern terminus.
I particularly enjoyed the physical challenge of the trail. I tend to feed off of the exertion of backpacking, which is why I often hike longer days. The Art Loeb Trail is full of ups and downs, many of which are steep. If you hike from north to south, as I did, the elevation profile is slightly easier than going the other way around. This did not factor into my hiking direction choice – for me it was just more convenient to have my car at the end closer to Brevard.
I didn’t bring any special gear for this hike, other than the bear canister. You can see my gear list for the hike if you’re interested. As with all of my gear lists, I leave affiliate links to the items I use, in case you are interested in purchasing those or other items on the list. When you follow my links to Amazon and make a purchase, even if not for the specific item, it usually earns me a tiny commission at no cost to you. My hope is that, over time, if I offer up enough value through the various media that I create, things like these small affiliate commissions might add up to help pay for the cost of maintaining the website, and maybe some of the equipment I use. To date, I haven’t earned enough to where Amazon will even cut me a check, lol. That’s ok though – I have fun writing and making videos. No pressure to use those, but your support is always appreciated.
In terms of gear, I did switch back to my old foam Thermarest Z Lite sleeping pad for this hike. It was a rare departure from my inflatable pad. I hate the bulk of the foam pad, and I also do not find them very comfortable. For this trip, however, I knew it was going to be hot, and this foam pad has a lower R value (warmth rating) than my inflatable Thermarest. It is also quite lovely to just throw the thing in my tent and be ready for sleep. I don’t have to blow anything up, which is a small thing but really nice. I slept fine on it for this trip, but I only use it for these one or two day trips, and only if it is fairly warm. If you watch my YouTube videos, you would probably have noticed this departure from my regular kit. It’s hard not to see it sticking out at the back of my pack!
As with other hikes, the Art Loeb Trail offered many opportunities for nature to put me in my place. It is simply wonderful to have the opportunity to experience feeling small amidst vastness and great scale, whether that is standing high on a ridge, looking at a sky full of stars, or wandering through a desert. There is something so grounding about remembering that I am just an insignificant piece of a larger universe.
Before I wrap this up, I did have a somewhat comical encounter with a snake that I will share. You can see the snake in my YouTube video. What you won’t see is me pulling at it with a stick and riling it up! The thing is, I passed by the snake and couldn’t see its head. It looked like its head was squished under a stick, and the snake was not coiled or moving, so I actually thought it was dead. I wanted to get a better look at it, so I took a stick, thinking I would flip its body over. As I started to move it, it jerked upright, very much alive! Its head had actually been inside a hole in the ground. Presumably the snake was looking for a chipmunk or something in the hole. Anyway, I felt bad for bothering it and left it alone after that. If a snake could call me a jerk, that one probably would, and deservedly so!
That’s it for the Art Loeb Trail. I wanted to share it as I got a lot out of the experience of hiking there. If you get the opportunity to hike all or part of it, leave me a comment and let me know what you thought. Art Loeb was my last hiking trip during the heat of the summer, but I did have several fall trips that were absolutely spectacular. I will share those with you as things start to settle down a bit. We just finished a move from Atlanta to Wilmington, NC, so I spent the late Autumn season focused on the move and a few other projects. I’ll probably write about that at some point, as well as share some of my coastal explorations. I hope this post finds you all well, enjoying the holiday season in whatever way you like to celebrate.
–Hungry Cat
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