Black Mountain's
Challenge
The "Front
Porch of Western North Carolina" revitalizes its links to the
past.
By Ralph Grizzle
In just a
few months, 150 or more runners will assemble at Black Mountain's
Lake Tomahawk. Their destination: the highest peak east of the
Rockies. Come daylight February 26, runners from states nationwide
will set off, one group running a full marathon--26.2 miles--to
the Blue Ridge Parkway and back, the other group running an ultra-marathon
to the summit of Mount Mitchell--40 miles roundtrip.
The event
is one of the most challenging races in the country. The weather
alone can be an intimidating factor. Starting an elevation of
2,360 feet, the runners for the 40-mile Mount Mitchell Challenge
will pass through three climatic zones before reaching the 6,684-foot
summit. At that elevation, conditions at Mount Mitchell resemble
those of New England and the southern reaches of Canada, several
hundred miles north. While it may be 45 or 50 degrees down in
Black Mountain, where the average annual snowfall is about a foot,
temperatures at Mount Mitchell, which gets on average 104 inches
of snow yearly, could be well below freezing.
Two years
ago, race participants had to run atop six-to-eight-foot snowdrifts
on the summit. Last year, they trudged through a foot of soft
snow. Conditions can be so challenging that race organizer Jim
Curwen has posted this warning on his web site: "Do not underestimate
the dangers or the difficulties inherent in this event!"
Curwen notes
that the rough terrain coupled with the forces of nature make
it "quite likely" that a competitor will suffer some sort of injury,
ranging from "abrasions, contusions, or sprains . . . to hypothermia
. . . to animal encounters, as this is still the natural habitat
to the wildcat and the black bear."
No, They're
Not Nuts
The upcoming
annual event, Black Mountain's third, underscores a larger, ongoing
effort by merchants and town officials to revive historical links
that will help drive tourism. "The Black Mountain Marathon and
Mount Mitchell Challenge," for example, was originated in part
to stimulate business during the off months. The runners, who
hail from as far away as California, lodge and shop locally for
the days surrounding the event. "We're inviting people in so that
they can find out that in fact the town does not close down in
the winter," Curwen says.
More important
for some in the town is that the race achieves a "rebirth" between
Black Mountain and Mount Mitchell, something that race organizer
Wendell Begley has been eager to do for nearly two decades.
In the early
1980s, Begley helped organize a cross-country ski challenge, but
too much snow thwarted the event the first year and too much rain
the next. Interest dissipated by the time the third annual challenge
rolled around.
A few years
later, Begley and a group of others worked to re-establish the
narrow-gauge railroad that once took visitors from Black Mountain
to Mitchell's summit. The railroad had been used primarily to
transport fir and spruce logs from the mountaintop to a sawmill
in town. Then in 1915, protesters won a battle against logging
on the Black Mountain Range--Mount Mitchell became North Carolina's
first state park, and the Mount Mitchell Scenic Railroad was established.
The railroad ran for about six years until a toll road, which
was less expensive to operate and maintain, replaced it in 1921.
The effort
to revive the railroad "got a great deal of press," Begley says.
Unfortunately the old tracks had been removed, and in the end
the cost to pump steam into the venture was too great.
The marathon,
on the other hand, is comparatively inexpensive to operate and
fairly weather-resistant. Moreover, it maintains important historical
connections by following the old toll road, which originated in
Black Mountain and followed the Continental Divide for nearly
the entire route to the summit of Mitchell.
Swannanoa
Valley Museum's Curator Harriet Styles traveled the toll toad
as a child. "People drove up in the morning and headed back in
the afternoon," she says. "It was so narrow that traffic could
only travel one way."
The "Mount
Mitchell Motor Road" was billed as the "World's Greatest Automobile
Trip." The "privilege of use of Road" was $1, the same cost as
breakfast or "supper" at Camp Alice. The owners of the road advertised
the trip to the top of Eastern America as the "Greatest one day
outing trip every offered to the American people."
An early brochure
promoting the natural spectacles along the road reads: "A few
people just a little while ago awoke to the fact that in a little
120-mile circle about Asheville is indeed the high altitude area
of Eastern America. Very few know it, but in this area just mentioned
are 44 peaks over 6,000 feet above the sea level, while our Mount
Mitchell rears its majestic head 6,711 feet into a sky more beautiful
and glorious than the Italian skies of song and story." (The spirited
brochure copywriters enthusiastically added 27 feet to the mountain's
elevation.)
In 1939, the
Blue Ridge Parkway opened, severing the umbilical tie between
Black Mountain and Mount Mitchell. Since then, "about every ten
or 15 years, someone gets excited about re-establishing the link,"
Styles says. "Highway 9, for example, was supposed to go from
Myrtle Beach to Mitchell, but it stops short at Montreat."
Einstein
Slept Here
Likewise,
to attract tourists, the arts and crafts community also is trying
to reestablish connections to Black Mountain's past. Local artists
and owners of the town's 11 art galleries frequently mention Black
Mountain College, an experimental school that operated from 1933
to 1956. With its emphasis on the arts, the school attracted such
thinkers as R. Buckminister Fuller, who designed geodesic domes;
Josef Albers, the German-born American painter who fled Germany
when the Bauhaus was closed by the Nazis; and American composer
John Cage. Such was the school's reputation that Albert Einstein
once gave a lecture on the campus.
The Black
Mountain College Museum & Arts Center is currently spearheading
a campaign to find a permanent home for archives and artifacts
collected from the old campus. Recently, the state's Department
of Cultural Resources awarded $40,000 to the Center. The money
will be used to conduct oral histories with faculty and alumni.
Few people
know about the college. The Center's founding director emeritus
first heard about the school when she moved to Paris in 1980.
"I was amazed that this little town in North Carolina kept popping
up in Paris all the time," says Mary Holden, who now lives in
Sylva. Holden noticed that biographies of artists in galleries
frequently mentioned the school. In 1992, while still in Paris,
she began planning a museum to honor the college.
While Black
Mountain College no longer exists, artists still are drawn to
the region. Glass artist Casey Phillips stumbled upon Black Mountain
on a trip from her home in New York's Adirondack Mountains. She
was looking to relocate in Spruce Pine or Burnsville, but both
towns were too far from the highway for Phillips, who frequently
attended shows to display her wares. On the way to Asheville,
she stopped in Black Mountain. "I could just feel the artistic
energy here," says the happy resident of five years now.
Judith Hollifield,
whose father and brother run Black Mountain Gallery, felt the
same energy when she returned here from Los Angeles for a visit.
"It's a place of power," she says. "Artists and creative people
come here for inspiration and renewal. It's invigorating. I think
people sense that Black Mountain presents them with the way life
is supposed to be lived."
Since the
early 1900s, the area has attracted religious groups seeking a
place for spiritual renewal. Today, there are more than half a
dozen religious conference centers whose denominations have purchased
large tracts of property to hold retreats that attract nearly
700,000 visitors a year.
The best known
of these is Montreat. Its beautiful stone buildings are tucked
into a cove at the foot of the Black Mountain Range. From here,
one could hike to Mitchell's summit on leaf-strewn trails under
a canopy of rhododendrons. Runners will trudge through here, in
fact, on their way up to the peak in February.
Because of
the conference centers' land holdings and the fact that the sloping
hillsides form the second largest watershed in the United States,
the area will likely retain the natural components that visitors
and residents find so appealing, according to Bob McMurray, executive
director of the Black Mountain/Swannanoa Chamber of Commerce.
"It really
is an ecological wonderland from here to Mount Mitchell," McMurray
says, adding that a hike in the nearby woods reveals why botanists
like Andre Michaux and John Fraser were so intrigued with the
region.
McMurray says
that Black Mountain is beginning to tout its trails as one of
the key attractions of the town. Some of the best hikes in Western
North Carolina have their beginnings within a few minutes of the
town center.
Wendell Begley's
dream is that the race will shift increasingly more emphasis to
the nearby trails. Three years ago, when the Black Mountain/Swannanoa
Chamber of Commerce held its "Visions Conference," Begley's Economic
Development Committee was asked what visitors to Black Mountain
twenty years from now might see. In Begley's mind, Mount Mitchell
State Park had acquired the corridor of the old toll road. A visitor's
center marked the entrance of the trail leading to Mitchell.
Of course,
that's all just a dream in Wendell Begley's head, but one that
is inspired by a true passion for the past. <END>
Sidebar:
Black Mountain Beginnings
The 18-mile-long
Swannanoa Valley once served as the hunting grounds for the Cherokee
and Catawba indians. Both tribes had agreed by treaty that neither
would settle in the valley, as it was the natural habitat for
elk, deer, buffalo and, of course, bear.
From early
reports she has read, Swannanoa Valley Museum's Curator Harriet
Styles says the valley seems to have closely resembled present-day
Cades Cove in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. "It was open
valley," Styles says. "I imagine it looked very inviting for settlers."
In 1874, one
settler did venture over from Old Fort. Samuel Davidson came with
his wife, baby and servant girl. But Sam was ambushed and killed;
his wife, baby and the servant girl escaped back to Old Fort.
Soon after, Sam's brother came over the mountain with several
other families, and they were able to maintain a stronghold, establishing
the valley's first community at the confluence of Bee Tree Creek
and the Swannanoa River.
When the railroad
reached the region 1879 the name of the town was changed to Black
Mountain Station from Grey Eagle, the name the Cherokee had given
it, presumably because of an outcropping of rock that resembled
an eagle. (Mount Mitchell was known then as Black Mountain--its
stands of spruce and fir made it appear darker than other mountains
in the region.)
In the early
1900s, Black Mountain became a health center. It was thought that
the pure mountain air was an effective treatment for tuberculosis.
Aware of the perceived health benefits of the region, E.W. Grove,
who built the Grove Park Inn, planned a community near Black Mountain
to be called Grovemont, which would have been the first planned
community in the nation had Grove not died before seeing his plan
fulfilled.
"Our valley
is unique because of the people who were attracted here, many
who came initially for health reasons," Styles says. "But there
were also the Biltmore artisans, such as Rafael Guastavino, who
built a Spanish castle nearby. The conference centers have also
attracted high-class, intelligent people."
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