Wine and Waterfalls

One of my favorite places in Blowing Rock is Christopher's Wine and Cheese shop. It's a classy place. The clientele are clearly cultured and educated.  Not snobbish, yet not the kind of place you would feel comfortable in after changing a tire and needing a shower. We headed there after a grueling waterfall hike. And by grueling, I mean falling down in the mud, sweat soaked, thanking God we did not slip into that ravine. So we walk in casually, smiling, ready for sophisticated service.   (Pardon the sweat, mud, body odor, and the salamander in my hair, where is your 200 dollar Bordeaux?)

The waterfalls trail head starts at the Annie Cannon Memorial Gardens. The garden is lovely, quaint, quiet, unobtrusive. This is intentionally deceptive to lull you into thinking you will have a leisurely stroll to a pastoral waterfall when in fact it is a struggle for survival and by the time you arrive your only craving for water is to rehydrate and survive.  

The makeup of the hiking path to the waterfalls varied quite a bit in width and substance. At times, it was only as wide as my foot, with a long drop over the side.  Sometimes  muddy and slick, sometimes rocky. In some places, nature weaved tree roots to create series of steps, in other places rocks provided stairs. There were a couple points in the path that required climbing over a fallen tree. One of them even had a notch cut to enable traversing it, but was still strenuous even with the notch. There were also nice sections of wooden paths or gravel paths. The trek was well worth it.  

It was all the way down to two different waterfalls; Glen Burney and Glen Marie. I love waterfalls, and these two were no disappointment. The trek up, obviously, was even harder. According to the Fitbit, we walked 8.86 miles, 20,311 steps and climbed 76 floors that day. Over half those steps, and about 90% of the floors were on that waterfall hike. 

Glen Burney Falls

Which leaves me pondering how we measured walks before Fitbits? Now we know steps, miles, flights of stairs, calories burned, minutes of intense activity, hours slept (not during the walk of course), and our heart rate. Before we measured our exertion in hours, muscle fatigue, and cups of sweat. This time, we had the pleasure of measuring this trek with both systems. Hitting 20,000 steps every day all week on this hiking vacation, I was able to finally beat my friends and sisters in our Fitbit competitions. I can no longer gage my exercise without my Fitbit, just as I can no longer determine the weather without my iPhone Weather Channel app. If the app says its warm and sunny then I have to find some other explanation for the cold drops of water falling on me, saturating my clothes.  Most likely sweat from the hike. It's not raining in these mountains I'm just sweating all over everything. That flash in the sky followed by a rolling drumming sound must be a retinal detachment and an ear infection.  But I know I am not dying, I have an app that tells me I am still alive. And while I love technology even on a hike, I don’t bother with Siri. I am actually an enormous Apple fan, but I think Siri is an idiot. When I asked her the length of the Glen Burney trail, she answered “the nearest Starbucks is in 300 feet.” No matter what I ask her, she only tells me the nearest Starbucks or florist, depending on the mood she is in. I learned later, (without the help of Siri) that Glen Burney Trail descends 800 feet into the John’s River Gorge alongside the rushing New Years’ Creek and is 1.6 miles long. 

   

That's a big log; had to climb up to get to the notch. 

There was a nice map  at the trailhead. Most intriguing was a site called "Ruins" . Of course this excited us; what would we see? Ancient Indian burial grounds? A secret lost city of antiquity, from a forgotten race?  Two cups of sweat later, we finally arrive to find the abandoned 1920s sewage treatment covered in algae. Close enough.



The Ruins

Glen Burney Falls and Glen Marie Falls at the end of the hike are well worth the round trip.  

As noted, we ended this grueling but gorgeous hike at Christopher's Wine and Cheese shop. We enjoyed Christopher's' immensely. This is a great place for wine, cheese, beer and chocolate. (Not necessarily all in the same glass.) We sampled wine and cheese, with courteous service by the shop owner. She was a true expert. For example did you know the oldest known winery was discovered in a cave in Armenia? It has been dated to 4100 BC. The site contained a wine press, fermentation vats, jars, cups, and seeds. I had an Armenian wine at the Jerusalem Garden Café in Asheville, but it was not 6000 years old. But it was super delicious!

They have hundreds of wines to select from, and dozens of cheeses. They also offer local craft beers and a variety of chocolates. I learned to pair Gouda with Merlot, Cheddar with Cabernet, Parmesan with Chianti, and beer with Calling a Cab.   

Christopher’s ambience is calm, sophisticated and peaceful. You must stop here when you visit Blowing Rock.