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We Gather Together LbNA #19671

Owner:Adoptable
Plant date:Oct 8, 2005
Location:
City:Beech Mountain
County:Watauga
State:North Carolina
Boxes:3
Planted by:sewsewbizzy
Found by: G Wilikers
Last found:Jul 26, 2020
Status:FFFaaFF
Last edited:Oct 8, 2005
These boxes were planted to commemorate a family reunion on Oct 7-8-9 2005. Purchase (50 cents) a Beech Mtn trail map at Fred’s Mercantile on Rt 184 (Beech Mtn Pkwy).

FAMILY REUNION 2005
The reunion begins Friday night with a wine tasting. 22 relatives from IN OR VA NJ FL MN MA NM bring a wine from their state’s vineyards.
Begin your hike at the Upper Pond Creek trail head on Tamarack Rd. Over the roads and through the woods to Family Reunion you go. Stopping at Juncos, Brook Trout, Chipmunks and White-Tailed Deer – now you’ve gone too far. 10 steps back the Rock’n party begins in the roots of a tree just to the left.
UPDATE: 7/4/07 - make that about 20 steps back from the White-Tailed Deer as he has moved closer to the road! Log currently missing and contents wet - awaiting maintenance later this summer with new log and a Lock-n-Lock.

A GATHER OF NUTS
Continue on along the yellow striped road, many many hikers proceed you back into the woods. There among the Southern Lady Fern a chipmunk gathers nuts. A white-tailed deer may show the way. At the end of the boardwalk follow back along Pond Creek. In this forest of beech, mountain laurel, and rhododendron there stands an evergreen – its branches draped over what simulates a dropped antler. Look beneath for what you seek.

LAKE COFFEY FAMILY
Your journey not yet done, emerge from the woods to the quack quack honk quack quack honk honk of the Lake Coffey family (and friends.) Only .28 mile to finish the journey. Walk around and take pause on the green bench in the shelter of Rhododendron and find a nesting spot among the beech trunks and one stump. A broken branch, an isolated rock hide this feathered fowl from the passersby. Like the geese so common in SouthWest France, this stamp is a link to our past.

If you didn’t have someone drive to Lake Coffey to pick you up - finish the .28 mile and head back where you started. Or a side attraction might be "How High Can You Go?"

My return hike uphill took 25 minutes at a steady clip from the Lake Coffey Upper Pond Creed trailhead. The trail map shows this as a 1 mile trail, plus the .28 mile fitness loop. Be careful of the rocky terrain when wet and slippery. Most of this trail passes through mountain home$.

Bring your color pens : burgundy (or merlot), black, brown, green, orange