| TrailRidge Mountain Camp - the Buladean Years |
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I recently had a camp reunion with some folks from the very first year of camp, Gus Jerdee, his folks Tom & Marian Jerdee, Danny Moore, and Randy Nentrup (the original "Waste Watcher." Randy brought us the bad news that Bob's Dairyland is no more! It has been bulldozed off the land but not out of our memories. I'm sure lots of TrailRidge campers and staff will remember those Bob's Dairyland Hikes that started at Carver's Gap at Roan Mountain and finished up with one of Bob's famous milkshakes. 
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I've been following the "Six Pack Hikers" on their thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. It's a mom, dad, and four kids. I don't know them except what I've learned from their daily reports from the AT. This one is from their day 32 and it's their trek from the Clyde Smith Shelter to Roan Mountain. Many TMC campers will remember this section of the trail. If nothing else, you can get a glimpse of what Hurricane Helene did to this area.
You can also go back to day 31 and watch their report going from the area of Beauty Spot to Iron Mountain Gap (which was devastated by the storm requiring a detour) and then right behind the old TMC to the Clyde Smith Shelter. https://youtu.be/6gChc-QYMa0?si=-knTPEW6IYomr8y5 Roan Mountain is the site featured to represent North Carolina in the new AT postage stamps.3/6/2025 If anyone had asked me, Roan Mountain would have been the exact place I would have suggested. I think my second choice might have been Max Patch. "Rhododendron blooms in the Roan Mountain highlands of western North Carolina grace the first stamp of row four."  Ben Parker sent this notice to me today about the closing of the Overmountain Shelter. I imagine several dozen of our campers/counselors stayed in this shelter on one of their "Bob's Dairyland Hikes" that took adventurous campers on the AT from Carver's Gap down to 19-E in the town of Roan Mountain.
Read the story. Wonderful Earth Day news for lovers of the Roan Mountain area. Billionaire Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, has made a donation of 7,500 acres of land to add to all the other wonderful land making up that land mass.
Check out the story on WLOS-TV. https://wlos.com/news/local/earth-day-gift-thousands-of-mountain-acres-donated-to-conservancy?fbclid=IwAR227wN5L4ME2YD61MSS6J9uvZGAK9mzusFXqJD0ANt2_mmumn6hUoe6buo Pretty much all of our campers visited Roan Mountain at some point or other...either on a backpacking trip or as a day trip by van. It is a magical mountain. Check out these photos and captions found on the "Only in Your State" online newsletter:
Click to check it out. So TrailRidge folks, after traveling with my MindStretch Travel Adventures groups for years...we finally took the guys on a trip into the old TMC neck of the woods. We hiked up to Round Bald and a little beyond from Carvers Gap. It was 59 degrees when we arrived there this past Wednesday. And when we were done...guess where we had lunch with those famous milkshakes? You guessed it - Bob's Dairyland. Nothing has changed except the "outhouse" at Carver's Gap is slightly fancier than before. We did meet a couple of Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy caretakers and they had some news about the old TMC property. I will wait until I visit the old TrailRidge before posting any info. That's not happening for several weeks.      Sit down when you have a few minutes and watch this video shared with me today by former TMC staffer, Ben Parker.
It's about "our" Roan Mountain and how a chunk of it got its protection from mining back in the early 1970s, about a decade before TrailRidge opened. This is a story I've never heard. It's told by Jay Leutze who just happened to be a high school classmate of Ben. Click the link below to view the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTctPLabiEk Finally after many years, I decided it was time for a trip to Roan Mountain. And of course, I went via Hughes Gap Road in Buladean so I could at least drive past the old TrailRidge property. We sold the property 22 years ago (can you believe that?). I did not feel like driving into the property so just glanced at it as we slowly drove by. I couldn't see much, but it looked like the property could use some tender loving care. The purpose for my visit was to hike up on Roan so I did get to do that with a good friend of mine. We stopped at Hughes Gap just because it was there. And then we headed on up the road to Carver's Gap at Roan. Even in the clouds, it was beautiful...and COLD. At around 12:30 it was 30 degrees on top of Roan. And this was on October 25. We decided to hike up the road to Roan High Knob instead of on the balds. It was just too cold and windy in that direction. The road is closed this time of year so walking is the only way to get to the top and we had the place to ourselves. It brought back a flood of memories. Check out a few photos from the trip. |
Mark's BlogJust some random thoughts about how TrailRidge came to be and about life at the camp in those first 15 or so years in Buladean. Archives
August 2025
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