Carolina Mountain Club Celebrates 100th Anniversary - TribPapers
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Carolina Mountain Club Celebrates 100th Anniversary

A group of hikers with the Carolina Mountain Club relax at the top of a mountain. Photo courtesy of Carolina Mountain Club.

Asheville – On July 16th, The North Carolina Arboretum at 100 Frederick Law Olmsted Way will host the centennial celebration of the oldest hiking club in the southeast: The Carolina Mountain Club. This well-respected club is welcoming the public and members to a free, family-friendly party from 1:00 to 5:00 PM. Plan to enjoy yourself with friends for the afternoon with ice cream, kids’ events, a food truck, and some bluegrass music to help celebrate this milestone. Just tell the guard at the gate that you are attending the Club’s Centennial celebration. A number of guided hikes will be offered that day. In addition, booths, such as Friends of Dupont Forest, Cherokee Nation, Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, Friends of the Smokies, REI, and Mast General, will be there to tell you about their organization. “We hope this event will inspire future conservationists and recreationists to help us continue our legacy of caring for our beautiful landscape here in Western North Carolina. Here’s to 100 more years!” says CMC President Tom Weaver.

Trail maintenance is a important task that volunteers of the CMC do regularly. Photo courtesy of Carolina Mountain Club.
Trail maintenance is a important task that volunteers of the CMC do regularly. Photo courtesy of Carolina Mountain Club.

The Carolina Mountain Club is a very active club with over 1000 members. Trail maintenance by volunteers is often performed by trail crews that work on different days and different trails every week. It is an important activity within the club. CMC is responsible for overseeing the maintenance of approximately 430 miles of hiking trails. This is not easy work—as Mother Nature can wreck a trail by downing branches, trees, and allowing vegetation to take over the path. The Trail Work Schedule is listed on the Carolinamountainclub.org website with the crew leaders and the specific trails they maintain. New members are encouraged and welcome to help. The CMC maintains agreements with various government agencies to maintain trails within their areas of jurisdiction, including state parks and forests, national parks and forests, and national and state trails.

In addition, group hikes are offered each week. What a treat to have a hike all organized for you. Just call up and make your reservation to join. There is an all-day hike on Wednesday and Sunday and a half-day hike on Sunday. Twice a month there is a Saturday hike. Once a month, the CMC offers all-day hikes on Sunday twice a month, one difficult and one moderate. Each hike is rated in length and total altitude gain. The criteria for these ratings are at the top of each schedule, some easier ones with little altitude gain and many other more vigorous ones. Each hike is rated for difficulty: C is easy. B is moderate. A is difficult. AA is very difficult. The hikes are open to all with guests welcome by signing up for the event. Minors are welcome if accompanied by a responsible adult. Pets are not allowed on CMC hikes.

Challenges

The Club offers a number of programs to challenge hikers to reach a collection of outdoor destinations, for which they receive a patch and certification. To celebrate the club’s centennial, there is a time-limited Centennial Challenge which includes participation in both club-sponsored trail maintenance (measured in hours) and hikes (measured in miles). It is structured such that all club members can participate regardless of fitness level. Each event, either trail maintenance or hike, does not have a minimum requirement as long as the required totals are met. The Centennial Challenge is retroactive to January 1, 2022, and ends December 31, 2023. The final application submittal date is March 1, 2024.

The South Beyond 6000 Challenge (SB6K) might be to hike 40 selected southeastern 6,000-foot peaks, such as Mt. Mitchell (6,684 feet) or Clingmans Dome (6,643 feet) in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. There are over 60 summits in the area above 6000 feet, but only 40 were selected for this challenge. The breathtaking views seen at the top of these mountains make the journey worth every second of the struggle to get there.

Another Challenge, the Waterfall Challenge (WC100), encourages hikers to experience the beauty of some of the over 1,500 waterfalls in Western North Carolina, and parts of South Carolina and Tennessee. Club members are challenged to visit 100 of the best waterfalls—to refresh themselves with the sound and glory of these waterfalls. The very subjective evaluation is based on the waterfalls’ height, volume of water, and overall setting.

The Lookout Tower Challenge is a program to challenge hikers to reach all 22 lookout towers, where they can have a breathtaking 360-degree view of the surrounding mountains. Another challenge is the Youth Partner Challenge (YPC) which challenges members to share hiking experiences with youth. These amazing challenges and others with their specific requirements can be found on the Club’s website: www.carolinamountainclub.org. Are you ready to be challenged?

History

July 16th is the very day that the Club was formed in Asheville in 1923 with Dr. Gaillard Tennent as the first President. At that time, it only had approximately 60 members, including well-recognized local names of Chase Ambler, Bernard Elias, Verne Rhodes, Lockwood Perry, Jerome Dykeman, and S.P. Ravenel. There are detailed histories of the club online to commemorate both the 70th and 80th anniversaries, which describe their early years. The Club now has over 1000 members, who maintain over 400 miles of trail, including 150 miles of the Mountains-to-Sea trail and 95 miles of the Appalachian Trail. An active member of the CMC is Danny Bernstein. She shares the history of hiking, trail maintenance, and land protection in western North Carolina in her recently published book, “Carolina Mountain Club: One Hundred Years.” It will be available for sale at the celebration on July 16th. This is only one of many books this avid hiker has written on the mountains in this area, such as “Dupont Forest, A History,” or “Hiking North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains.”