On Top of The World - Hiking Challenge Benchmark

Around 7:55 a.m. on Good Friday, Justin Rollins texted me: “I’m ready to rock.”  

After a stop to get more water, we were headed from Spartanburg to the Blue Ridge Parkway to hike 13 miles up Black Balsam on a beautiful, clear Good Friday morning.  

Sunshine, clear skies, cooler temperatures and the mountains in the distance. Hip Hop and pop music playing on my new sound system in my 2004 Jeep Rubicon as it made the steep climb up the mountain.  

Only a couple of months earlier, I had mentioned to Justin that I was looking for another goal to accomplish. Justin likes to call these challenges benchmarks. I had fit into my fitted suits ahead of schedule and now I was eager to complete another goal.  

Justin suggested hiking the 13-mile Black Balsam, which he has hiked several times. “It will take us all day,” he messaged me. “It’s off the Blue Ridge Parkway. You can do it. A lot of elevation but you will be good. It’s a giant loop and the payoff is incredible, mile 12, best view ever. Plenty of photo ops.” 

“We can take the Jeep,” I replied.  

In preparation for the trip, the Jeep had an oil change, transmission and cooler fluid checks, new spark plugs, tire rotation, and new headlights installed. Plus, a brand-new sound system. We were ready for anything.  

Black Balsam Knob is in the Pisgah National Forest and is the second highest mountain in the Great Balsam Mountains, according to a description on Wikipedia. 

HIKING 101   

I was going to be hiking with three-time Boston Marathon runner and All Elite Training owner and personal trainer Justin Rollins so I knew I would be safe and that he would be a good guide. 

Before the hike, I asked Justin a lot of questions about hiking. What do I wear? What kind of shoes do I need? What should I pack? How should I train?  

I’ve hiked local trails like Cottonwood, River Birch and the Mary Black Rail Trail. I’ve also hiked Crowders Mountain, Table Rock and Caesar’s Head. Nothing prepared me for what lay ahead on Black Balsam.  

Justin suggested some good waterproof trail shoes and a backpack. He said he would handle the food and First Aid Kit.  

I purchased a salmon-colored Osprey backpack at the Local Hiker and ordered some waterproof Oboz trail shoes which didn’t arrive in time. I filled my backpack with a water bottle, bug spray, sunscreen, an extra pair of socks, lip balm, travel size Lysol and some wipes. 

When we arrived and parked on the Blue Ridge Parkway, it was a cold 54 degrees and the wind made it feel even colder.  

We decided to take one first photo by the Jeep and we would take another photo at the top of the summit.  

Unfortunately, we would never take that final photo.  

BEWARE OF BEARS 

I wore a long-sleeved shirt, long pants, a jacket, my Old Bay Seasonings cap, thick socks and my New Balance sneakers.  

Justin wore hiking pants, his colorful $30 FILA trail shoes, thick hiking socks, a couple of long-sleeved shirts, a hooded jacket, a cap and a couple pairs of sunglasses.  

Justin’s backpack was loaded with trail mix, beef jerky, chocolate covered pretzels, and a couple of water bottles and a small bottle of Fireball cinnamon whiskey. We would take three swigs from that Fireball bottle along the trail. The first one went down hard. The second was easier. The third at the end of our trek went down like water, literally.  

Justin also carried some Bear repellant spray and a knife – just in case we met with some trouble along the way. 

There are several signs along the trail which give hikers warnings if you come across a bear.  

“While you are visiting the backcountry, you are a guest in many black bears’ homes.  

“If you encounter a bear, make yourself big and be as loud as possible. If attacked, fight back with anything you have.” 

Justin had the knife. I had my salmon-colored backpack.  

THE FIRST LEG  

We started our hike and Justin said to let him know if I wanted to stop and take photos or if I needed to rest. We had all day to make the 13-mile hike, he said.  

He also said how we were going to encounter many different types of trails along the way which he described as being like different chapters in a book. Some would be easy while others would be a bit more challenging.  

Balsam would have many stories to tell that day.  

At one point I looked all around me, and it was beautiful. It was calm and peaceful. It was Mother Nature in all its glory. Even the photographs taken with my new iPhone camera wouldn’t do it justice. 

At one point, I swear I could hear the wind climbing up the mountain. Maybe it was my imagination or maybe even Mother Nature must hike to reach the top of Black Balsam?  

TAKE A HIKE 

Throughout the hike, Justin was using an AllTrails mobile app which would guide us and make sure we were going in the right direction.  

The first part of the trail had a steep climb and then it would level off for a while. The final part of the trail would be a long, never-ending climb which I would dub the “Stairway to Heaven” and many other off-color things.  

There would also be three cold streams to cross along the way if we were ever going to make it up to the summit.  

THE FIRST FEW MILES 

Justin and I chatted a lot during the first eight miles. I heard Justin’s undertaker story and learned about his love for the Twilight Zone. Two thoughts that would come to mind a lot and I mean a lot later on in our trek.   

For the most part, we were out there alone and on our own. So, if we heard a sound or a voice, our Spidey senses would be activated.  

One of the first hikers we met along the way was a female hiker and her dog and she said she sensed that she had passed by a bear. But her dog, who is not afraid of bears, didn’t make a sound.  

We gathered that it might be that time of year when bears were coming out of hibernation. We were now on high bear alert.  

We thought we might see the female hiker and her dog again, but we never did.  

TRAILS COME AND GO  

Justin gave me a lot of hiking advice along the way. First, he would tell me how to position my feet when I was coming down the mountain. He said to dig my feet into the ground or on the side of the mountain or trek sideways down a slippery path. He also talked me through how to fall if I slipped and fell so I would have less impact on my body. Fall backward on your butt and not forward on your hands. That advice came in handy later and I was able to steady myself and keep myself upright and safe during a near slip. There were many of those near falls but thankfully no accidents.  

On a hike, you learn quickly that leaves can be deceiving. They are slippery and your foot can fall straight through. Mud is also slippery. Your foot can sink deep into the mud and get stuck for a moment.  

We both had a lot of near misses along the way – an unsteady rock, a root jutting out along the pathway could cause a near trip, but we were both able to keep our bearings and not fall. That is a victory in and of itself. 

Many times, along the way, the trail would just disappear, and we (Justin for the most part) would have to figure out how to get us back on track. 

One of my first challenges was when the trail sort of disappeared out of nowhere. And I was stuck on the side of the mountain. To get back on the trail, we would have to shimmy across.  

So here I am hugging, clinging onto the side of this mountain. There was not much to grab onto. One false move and I would slide down. I jammed my New Balance shoe into the wet, muddy side of the mountain to give me a foothold and I held onto anything I could.  

Justin said if I did go down there was a tree that would stop my fall. I didn’t want to take that chance, so I held on. I grabbed onto any stable tree branches I could find and guided my way across the side of the mountain, in almost a vertical bear or alligator crawl (thank you 600 Calorie Burn) and we found our path again. 

In an ironic twist, out on the side of Black Balsam, in the middle of nowhere, miles from civilization, my phone rang, and it was The Local Hiker calling about the hiking shoes I ordered. I sure could have used those on Black Balsam.  

THREE STREAMS TO CROSS 

When we reached our first stream, we noticed the water was higher than expected.  

Later in the day, we would learn from our tow truck driver that Asheville and western North Carolina had a lot of rain earlier in the week.  

The stream we were about to cross was fed by this rapidly flowing waterfall. Justin quickly started to assess the stream and how best to cross it. Was this the best section for crossing?  

At one point, Justin was lifting heavy rocks and tossing them into the creek bed to see how deep the creek was.  

It was Justin vs. Nature.  

We would use that along the way: Man vs. Mountain. Jose vs. Mountain. Mountain vs. Jose.   

We would have to cross three creek beds in one day if we were going to make it up to the summit.  

On his previous hikes up to Black Balsam, Justin said the water levels were much lower.  

Justin plunged into the freezing, rapidly rushing water. I wanted to see every step he took so I could put my feet down in the same spots. From the surface, the depth of the creek could be deceiving.  

Justin was good at showing me which steps to take along the trail. Sometimes he would step onto a large rock that wasn’t firmly rooted in the ground and if it was wobbly I knew I would slip if I stepped onto that same rock, so I would take another step. 

So, I mustered all my courage and I put one foot into this ice-cold rushing water and then my other foot and followed Justin’s lead. It was freezing cold, and the water was pushing at my legs. It was slippery and it was getting hard to keep my balance, so I crouched down a bit. I was holding onto slippery rocks and trying to stay steady. One false move, one slip and you could fall and hit your head on a rock or worse.  

Justin reached out his hand to help me, but I didn’t want to pull him in if I slipped. So, I hugged onto the rocks keeping my feet steady. I then lunged for the rock bed, and I was safe on dry ground. I literally hugged that rock bed.  

We got baptized in ice cold water three times that Good Friday.  

One time in a creek crossing we were soaked from our knees downward. This time, Justin did have to pull me onto the rock during the deepest part of the crossing and I gladly accepted his help. 

In this stream, Justin had removed his shoes and socks and waded into the ice-cold water. At another creek bed, he even jumped over a large puddle onto a rock. I wasn’t about to try that. I just stepped into the puddle to get to the other side.  

I kept my shoes and socks on all three times during the cold plunges. Was this our very own version of the Polar Bear Plunge? Or was it a Black Bear Plunge?  

Luckily, the temperatures on Black Balsam would get warmer in spots and our socks and shoes would dry quickly. Other times, out of nowhere, it would get cooler, and we would welcome the cool breeze in warmer parts of the trail.  

After a quick photo, we were back on our way to the summit.  

THE HARD PART  

A lot of times in life, it’s best not to think about the hard stuff you might have to face in life.  

So, I didn’t really put much thought into how I was going to get to the top of Black Balsam. Justin had warned me that it was going to be a steep climb, but I decided I would worry about that when we got to mile 8. 

After a quick stop for a lunch of beef jerky, trail mix and water, we rested in the beauty of the tall trees and the endless skies. Our picnic table and benches along the way would be moss-covered boulders or fallen tree trunks. It was unspoiled nature. And because of the cooler temperatures I never had to use my bug spray.  

At this point, I still had a lot of energy and my legs felt good. 

Plus, we both had buried into the back of our heads that when we parked on the Blue Ridge Parkway earlier that morning there had been smoke coming from the engine of my Jeep and the transmission light had come on. 

At the time, we both decided that the Jeep would be fine once we got back to the parking lot at the end of the day. The Jeep was tired from making that long trek up the mountain and having to pass through those cool tunnels, we surmised. Those were some cool tunnels. 

We were in a Zen headspace, I guess.  

So onward we went without a care in the world. We were literally on top of the world, or we would be by the end of the day. Later, we would have to figure out how to get down from the top of the world. 

By mid-afternoon, we were hiking upward and downward and talking about where we would eat for dinner. Justin said we should get a big order of chicken wings and a large pizza at Side Street Pizza in Tryon, N.C. One half pepperoni and one half Deluxe.  

I also wanted a pitcher of water and a pitcher of sweet tea. I was getting so thirsty. My lips were chapped and puckered. I might have even been dehydrated. I would drink so much water later that night at our dinner at the Waffle House. 

ON TOP OF THE WORLD  

The last part of the trek up Black Balsam is fuzzy at times to me. All I remember is that it was a steady climb upward. I could only imagine that we would be literally touching the sky when we got to the top -- if we ever got to the top. That’s why I dubbed it the “Stairway to Heaven.” I would be meeting Jesus on Good Friday.  

This part of the trail was called Greasy. Justin and I joked a lot along this path to keep our mood upbeat. 

And the more we climbed, the more we started calling Greasy -- Greazy. And we rhymed every other word we could think of to describe Greasy – freezy, breezy, sleazy. Sneezy for the runny nose and snot bubbles that were forming at the end of my nose.  

When we felt we conquered Greasy, I called it “cheesy.”  

“Is that all you got, Greasy?,” I taunted.  

But Greasy kept coming back with more and more steps upward – steep, difficult, winding, punishing, ankle-twisting, never-ending, twisted, jagged steps. 

At one point, I thought I might be in a Twilight Zone episode, and I would be climbing these steps every day for the rest of my life. I only hoped Justin’s backpack had enough beef jerky, trail mix and water to give us enough energy to keep climbing. 

That light backpack on my back kept getting heavier as the day wore on too.  

The writer in me kept thinking this could be one of those cool stories you read about in the Reader’s Digest. Will they make it out alive? Will they have to send out a helicopter to lift me out of here like they do in the movies? 

“Man climbs mountain. Man gets stuck on mountain. News at 11!”  

BLACK BALSAM CAN BE DECEIVING 

Many times, we would think we had gotten to the top but alas it was not to be. We would soon realize there was a lot more of the mountain to climb and conquer and we had to continue climbing upward.  

To get to the top, I decided to just look at the steps ahead of me and not think of that tall mountain side we had to climb.  

Justin would yell back at me, “Don’t look up!” He didn’t want me to see the steep mountain that we still had to climb. Too late. I had already looked up to a mountainside that reached to the heavens. 

I could only say “Crap!”  

I started moving slower. I imagined I was walking like Tim Conway in those old man sketches on the Carol Burnett show. 

One time Justin looked back, and I was literally hugging a tree. He asked if I was ok. So, I just said, “I need to hug this tree.”  

In a way, the tree gave me a chance to catch my breath and steady myself. I hugged a lot of trees on the hike up that mountain.  

One time we came upon this tall, thick tree trunk that had fallen along the path. We had to climb over it. I lay down on my stomach on that trunk like it was one of those Sealy Serta sleepers they advertise on TV. It felt so good to just rest for a minute. But we had to keep moving. The sun was going down.  

Once again, trails would disappear from us along the hike, and Justin would try to find our way back using his AllTrails App.  

That trusty AllTrails App.  

We needed that App to get off this trail, reach the summit, see the spectacular view, and then head back to where I parked the Jeep. 

That’s when Justin’s phone battery died. We would have to rely on Justin to get us out of here using his senses and memories of past trail hikes up Black Balsam. We guessed we had three more miles to go. Instead, we would have to hike an additional five miles that day.  

We were taking so long to find our way we decided that we probably weren’t going to make it to the summit and should take our photo at this point. It was up high, and it was beautiful.  

We also took our final swig of whiskey to mark the occasion. I also drank the last of the water from Justin’s second water bottle he had packed.  

That’s when I realized both of my phones were dead too. 

Three dead phones. We had no way of reaching the outside world.  

There would be no photo at the top of the summit either.  

END TO GREASY, HELLO ART LOEB 

When we finally reached the top of this Greasy trail, we exited onto this huge clearing.  

“Is this heaven?” I was thinking but remembered I had seen this clearing on the Black Balsam website.  

In the distance, we could see a tent set up in the middle of this field and we could hear some voices. 

Finally, humans after all these many miles and countless hours. 

Justin went over, told them where we were headed and asked for directions to the parking lot. Were we headed in the right direction to get to the summit? 

The male hiker gave us directions to the Art Loeb trail, and we thought that would be the best way to reach the summit to see that spectacular view.  

Justin walked out ahead of me to make sure we were going in the right direction. We were. He called out for me to follow him.  

We found the sign for Art Loeb.  

That Art Loeb trail was another steep trail with these jagged, uncomfortable, unforgiving rocks that you had to step on to climb your way up this other side of the mountain. I called these punishing rocks “Jagged Little Pills.” But they weren’t even little. They were “Jagged Big Pills.” 

Keeping up our dark sense of humor, I told Justin, “I would like to have a word with Mr. Art Loeb.” 

The 30.1-mile Art Loeb Trail is one of the longer and more difficult trails in the state, according to the Hike WNC website. Loeb was an activist who “deeply loved these mountains.”  

Justin would always walk out in front of me to make sure we were on the right path, and he would also stop any other hiker along the way, chat, and ask questions. Most were very friendly, but a lot didn’t know where we needed to go.  

One hiker about a quarter up the steep Art Loeb trail advised us to go back and take another much easier trail to the parking lot. He said the path we were going on had a lot more chances for us to get lost.  

Sundown was coming in about an hour. Would we make it in time? 

Justin hesitated once we got down to the beginning of the Art Loeb trail and wondered if we should try to make it to the summit. In the end, we decided to take the hiker’s advice and follow the trail to the parking lot. 

We met up with another hiker from North Carolina and his AllTrails App was working and he said we were headed in the right direction, and he would walk with us.   

This was no easy path either. It was non-stop jagged rocks and puddles. It was punishing on the feet. It added a couple more miles to our day, and we guessed we hiked 15 miles in total that day.  

Justin looked back at me and said, “You completed a half-marathon.”  

My iPhone Health summary, before it died, recorded that we had walked 34,234 steps that day and that was before those extra three miles we hiked.  

JEEP GET US DOWN THE MOUNTAIN  

Once we reached my Jeep and said goodbye to the North Carolina hiker, Justin said “let’s hope the Jeep cranks up.”  

We needed to get down the mountain and needed to charge our phones and we needed food. We had all those extra 10-ounce water bottles in the Jeep, and I drank four on the way down the mountain. I was thirsty.  

The Jeep started up. Justin put his phone on the charger, and I hit the gas. The Jeep jerked forward and shifted into gear sluggishly. It was fighting me, but I got it up to 40 mph. I couldn’t go past 40 mph, or it would start fighting me and I didn’t want to push it.  

Justin said he would call my roadside provider once he got power to his phone. All I needed to do was drive and get us down the mountain. 

Justin finally got some juice to his phone, and he made the call and handed the phone to me. I started to talk but would soon lose service – we were up on the parkway. One time I tried handing the phone to Justin and I almost ran off the road and off the side of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I quickly corrected and got us back on the road. I did that one other time and a driver behind me flashed their headlights. Those cool tunnels on the way in would also drop my call every time I tried to talk to the tow truck dispatcher. I finally parked the Jeep on the side of the road, and I told the tow truck driver: “I’m trying to get the Jeep off the Parkway and find a place to eat. You can pick us up there.”  

“I need to get off this (expletive) mountain,” I said laughing in frustration while driving the Jeep down the mountain. I said that many times as it got darker and darker.   

For the most part, I coasted that Jeep off the mountain and sometimes it would seem to be working okay. While other times, it would get stuck and didn’t want to move any faster or slower than 40 mph.  

I missed the exit at the entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway where we could get food, so I had to make a quick U-Turn on this narrow road.  

My Jeep wasn’t cooperating. I would put it in Reverse and it would move forward toward some tall trees and off the side of the road. I just had to put it in Drive, twist the steering wheel as far left as I possibly could and got us back on the road. 

I almost drove us off the side of the parkway that day three different times, but I was determined to get us off that road and to a place where we could find some food.  

We now needed to find a place to eat and wait for the tow truck.  

Justin was so hungry he said he could even eat at McDonald’s. He didn’t care anymore.  

We were going to have to eat at the closest eating establishment we could find while we waited for the tow truck.  

I saw that beautiful yellow Waffle House sign and knew that’s where we needed to eat.  

Justin was hungry and I was thirsty. Justin ordered a Waffle House Texas cheesesteak plate with hashbrowns on the side and washed it down with a tall glass of chocolate milk, plus he ordered a cheeseburger on the side and ate half a waffle the waitress gave us. He was even eyeing a piece of pie.  

I don’t even remember eating my cheeseburger, but it was the best cheeseburger I had ever eaten. I washed it down with two tall glasses of water. 

I called the Tow Truck driver and asked if he could give us a ride down the mountain. He was going to be driving my Jeep to my house anyway.  

When I asked if he could give us a lift, he said that we could ride in the Jeep on the back of the flatbed tow truck.  

Could you imagine us sitting in the Jeep on the back of a flatbed tow truck from Asheville to Spartanburg? It would be like we were in a fast-moving parade.  

I told Justin that didn’t sound safe. What did he think? Justin decided to Google it and found out that it isn’t even legal. But is it safe? I said half-jokingly.  

We decided to rent a car. So, Justin finds me a car rental place and I start calling. I’m on the phone with that guy and Justin says, “Why don’t we Uber?” And I was like “Yes, let’s Uber.”  

So, I’m in the middle of the conversation with the car rental company and I’m like “I’ll call you back.”  

My phone needed to be charged. So, I leave my half-eaten cheeseburger and hash browns and go out to the Jeep to charge my phone.  

It’s taking forever but finally it charges up BUT won’t let me add the Uber app. So, I go inside and ask the waitress if they have an outlet so I can charge my phone. There were two options. There was an outlet by the juke box and an outlet by the table on the far left of the diner. I go with the table. There were some dirty plates on it so I knew no one would be sitting there for a while.  

So, I go back to the table to try to finish my dinner. As soon as I sit down, I hear a DING from my phone, it’s charged with enough juice to let me set up an Uber. But the tow truck driver arrived, and I bravely asked him if there was any possible way we could ride up front with him.  

He says “Yes!” He just must clean out the front of his truck and the middle seat. It was one of those middle seats that folds down into a cup holder but can fold up into an extra seat. 

“Amen!”  

I go and tell Justin the good news. We’ve got a ride to Spartanburg!  

I appreciated the driver giving us the lift. He told us about his fiancée, his living in Inman about 10 years ago, a vacation trip he took to the Isle of Palms, and we even talked about the upcoming Mike Tyson bout. He also listened to our stories from our day. He knew about the beautiful view from the summit of Black Balsam. He’s been up there – the easy one-mile trek. He laughed along with us as we told him about our countless adventures – getting lost several times, getting soaking wet in three creeks we had to cross and being on the lookout for bears or other wildlife and those steep, steep climbs. We knew we would have stories for years to come. If a stranger found some humor today in our adventures, what would our friends and families think? 

On Saturday morning, Justin was leading the 7 a.m. 600 Calorie Burn Class and later that day he texted me that he was running 10 miles.  

I played it safe by taking the 600 Calorie Burn Class and then later dropping by The Local Hiker to check on my trail shoes, and to Lean Kitchen for some low carb meals and then off to the chiropractor who said my hips were out of alignment and my shoulders were up to my ears. That will happen to you after carrying a backpack for 15 miles. 

Although the trip was challenging, I’m glad we did it. We’ve got great stories on almost every step of the way.  

We laughed a lot along the way and enjoyed being out in nature and forgetting the outside world for a day.  

If Justin was tired or frustrated, he didn’t show it. He kept his cool the entire way and kept motivating me to keep going and stay safe. I asked him about that the next day, and he said “Nah, LOL, I knew we would be ok.” 

Plus, we knew we would have so many funny stories to share for years to come. 

And one day we’ll be back to see that spectacular view from the top of the summit.