Hiking Scaly Mountain

Hiking Scaly Mountain | Highlands, NC | Nantahala National Forest to Oconee National Forest, GA | February 2024

This morning, we packed up and set off for our last hike in the Appalachians for this trip. We had 2 days before Curtis needed to show up for his next assignment, which was about 6 hours away. We had already picked out a campground that was halfway between where we were and where we needed to be, but weren’t sure if we would head that way today after this hike, or camp one more night in the mountains before heading that way. Like most decisions, we just agreed to table this one until the last minute.

We drove back up to Highlands, NC, then took NC-106 West to our chosen trailhead. For our last hike in the area, we picked Scaly Mountain, which would count toward Curtis’ goal and would be on the easier side for Charlotte. We chose to start from the trailhead off of Hickory Nut Road, which would be a much more gradual hike up to the peak than the one right off of NC-106. We drove up the narrow road, passed many homes, up to the small trailhead lot in Nantahala National Forest. After grabbing water and snacks, we were ready to hit the trail.

We found the entire trail to be in very good condition, starting with a wide path that doubled as a service road, then we turned right at the trail junction to follow the trail to the peak. After a stretch of flat trail, we met up with the Bartram Trail and we began slowly gaining elevation over long switchbacks up to the ridge. We came out into a clearing where we could see Scaly Mountain in the distance, but first had to work our way around its neighboring peak. It was a little difficult to figure out where to turn to summit the peak (if there were any signs for it, we missed them) but thanks to AllTrails we were able to figure that out, and made it to the top. We enjoyed some snacks here, as well as views to the South – including Rabun Bald which we had hiked just over a year ago – also along the Bartram Trail. This was altogether a great hike, easy enough for Charlotte, and a great way to end our time in the mountains!

The real highlight of this hike though came on our way down. As we were walking, I was ahead of Curtis and Charlotte, and I saw another couple with a dog approaching us from the opposite direction. I told Curtis so that he would be ready to pull Charlotte to the side — we always try to avoid her coming into contact with other dogs, especially now that she’s blind. But when we crossed paths with the couple, we found out that their dog was also blind! We enjoyed chatting a bit with them knowing that we had this in common, and though our dogs didn’t interact, they now had each other’s scent to follow on their way up and down the trail. I’m pretty sure this is the first time we’ve come across another blind dog, at least since Charlotte went blind, and it just made us so happy that both dogs were still living their best lives and doing what they loved.

We made it back to the van, and then it was time to decide: where were we going to camp tonight? The decision actually came easy to me because while on the trail, I had a bit of phone service, and while checking for updates I saw that Taylor Swift had changed her profile picture. So obviously with this being the day of the Grammys, I knew the chance of an announcement happening was pretty high, so I requested that we make the drive to our ‘halfway’ campsite for the next two nights since it would have phone service. Curtis was very understanding and agreed, so off we went, heading South into Georgia. And thankfully all that extra driving proved to be worth it, and I was able to watch the announcement. 😉

For the next two nights, we camped at the Oconee River Campground along the river in Oconee National Forest. We spent the whole next day resting and hanging out at the campsite, which was much needed considering that this would be the last real day of rest for Curtis for a while. It rained off and on throughout our time there, but that never deterred Charlotte from wanting to explore around the campground.