Hiking: Crowder's Mountain, NC

Sunday Funday!

It might be fall, but here in NC, the weather is still quite warm. It was 90 degrees this past Sunday to be precise. We took advantage of the sunny weather to get a nice hike in at Crowder's Mountain State Park. The park is pretty close off the Interstate. It's located in Kings Mountain, NC. The park has a few hiking trails, camping, and canoeing.


The trail we did Sunday is the trail we do most often, the Pinnacle Trail. It begins at the Visitor's Center and goes up to King's Pinnacle. It's 4 miles round trip and rated as strenuous. It's basically uphill the entire way up, obviously. It's steepest the last half mile and you have to climb up some rocks to get to the real pinnacle, but most people manange it fine. There is a warning sign so climb at your own risk. The view at the pinnacle is fantastic and there's plenty of rocks to sit and take a break at the top.




 Overall, I really like this hike because it's a good distance for me, has a nice view, has the challenge of both technical aspects (roots, rocks, etc.) and the steep incline. Don't worry, though - there are benches along the way if you need to rest!


Shoutout to Snapchat for hiding my sweatiness

Silly Selfie!


 Word to the wise: the parking area often fills up and they won't let any cars in so just be warned if you go on a nice weekend or holiday. It's popular!


The View from King's Pinnacle

Do you like to hike places nearby or do you travel to hiking destinations? My mom and I are tentatively planning a trip out west to hike!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not Your Mother's Cookie Dough - Gluten Free, Sugar Free, Bean Free!

Image
You've seen edible cookie dough recipes all over the World Wide Web. You've some cookie dough with garbanzo beans, cookie dough with flour, dough with sugar, without sugar, maybe even with sweet potato. But, have you ever seen cookie dough with... Cauliflower. That's right, folks. I said cauliflower. And then I said "folks" which is weird. The idea popped into my head as I was thinking about the versatility of cauliflower! It's used as rice, as a mock mashed potato, as pizza crust, even added into smoothies! So what can't this vegetable do!? This recipe is SO SIMPLE, you have to try it! Not Your Mother's Cookie Dough Makes 2 generous servings. Ingredients: 210 g cauliflower, steamed then cooled 1/4 cup powdered peanut butter 1/2 tsp imitation butter flavor 1 tsp vanilla extract 1/4 tsp salt 2 tbsp almond milk sweetener to taste (I used approximately 1/4 - 1/2 cup erythritol)  2 tbsp mini chocolate chips (I used KNOW foo
Read more

Gut Healthy Gummy Bears! Keto Friendly

Image
Team Sour or Team Sweet? I'm team sour all the way! These gummies are surprisingly easy to make if you have a gummy bear mold (they're very inexpensive on amazon!) and they have the gut-health benefits of prebiotic fiber and gelatin! First they're sour, then they're sweet. Ingredients: 40g VitaFiber IMO syrup  1 tbsp gelatin liquid stevia to taste (I used orange stevia) 1/2 cup water Directions: Heat the mixture on the stove until bubbling.  Use the dropper to fill the gummy bear molds.  Place in fridge until set.  Just before eating, toss the gummy bears in a mixture of citric acid powder, and granulated sweetener of choice (I used a monk fruit/erythritol blend).  Voila! Sour gummies! 
Read more

Keto Meringues! Sugar Free!

Image
I recently had the idea to make Meringue cookies and my curiosity was piqued at the idea of making sugar free meringue cookies. I wondered if it would work!  3 calories a piece?! I'll take 10!  I took to Google, and to my surprise there were recipes with Splenda, erythritol, stevia and beyond! I decided to try my hand at sugar free meringues with an erythritol based sweetener I just purchased recently. The brand is Swerve and I purchased it from Luckyvitamin.com. It claims to have no aftertaste! Meringues can be a bit tricky to set up due to humidity and given that it was a hot August day in North Carolina, I think they turned out pretty well! The texture was good on most of them but a few of them were still a bit soft in the middle.  Factors working against me: I didn't have enough egg whites I didn't have cream of tartar I was attempting sugar free I didn't have parchment paper Humidity You may be thinking, why even bother? Well, I don
Read more