Grandfather Mountain

Grandfather Mountain is located on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is privately owned right now but I heard that the state of North Carolina is going to purchase it and make it a state park. It was a beautiful place. They have a "mile high" bridge which really means that it is a mile up from sea level but it was still pretty cool. It is a swinging bridge but it is made from steel I think. They also have a little wildlife preserve place that has 3 bears, some eagles, otters, cougars, and white tail deer. They believe that there are not any breeding cougars here anymore out in the wild. There aren't too many eagles either but the other 3 animals are pretty well represented in this area. Then we hiked to one of the peaks. It was only a mile from the parking lot but it was a good mile. There are a series of ladders that help you to reach the top of the mountain. It was awesome. There were 2 guys that we met along the way that said we must be from the west because we were wearing real hiking boots and not worn out tennis shoes. The one man's toes were hanging out the side of his shoe. Most of the leave had already fallen from the trees because they are at higher elevation but it was a beautiful day and a nice view. We wanted to continue on to the next peak but shortly after we started on the trail again we came upon some ice on the trail that was very slick and we didn't feel comfortable going ahead without knowing what we would find later on. We are still planning on going back sometime though because there is some cool camping on that other peak that we'd like to do.