Lost in the mountains

Map of my trip. I entered the mountains near Brown Moutain Beach Resort and expected to get to NC Route 181 near Brown Mountan Overlook, but instead I ended up on US Route 221 very close to Grandfather Mountain.

In November 2015, I wanted to repeat an experience from 2013 and visit Brown Mountain Overlook in North Carolina, but in daylight (I haven't actually told the story of my previous visit in the dark yet, which is why you, dear reader, of course can't know that I had been there before, but I'll tell that story in a later article). If you want to read that story first, you have to skip reading this article until I upload the other one, whenever that may be, or you can choose to take my word for it. The reason I wanted to return to the location in question in daylight was that I wanted to get photos of some of the other mountains that could be seen from the overlook, but every time I got there, it was either pouring down rain or the mountains were covered in heavy fog, and there was absolutely nothing to see. Finally, one day when the sun was actually shining, I gave it another try, but I shouldn't have. The first part of the trip went perfectly fine, but then something happened. When I looked at Google Earth later, I realized that I should have just ignored the electronic device and driven straight ahead, but I didn't! At that point, my GPS ordered me to turn right, so I did – and once again, I must say that you shouldn't trust women. At least not the ones hidden inside small boxes. Obedient as I was, I followed the orders of the lady, and she led me further and further into the wilderness along smaller and smaller dirt roads, until I completely lost track of where I was, and soon the same thing happened to the lady in the box. "Turn left on the dirt road in 500 feet," she ordered. But unfortunately there was no dirt road, neither to the left nor to the right at that location, so I continued: "Make a U-turn" was the order, despite the fact that I had actually turned off U-turns in the navigation settings, but again I obeyed. When I again approached the place where the dirt road had not been a moment earlier, I was ordered to turn right along it. But for some reason the road had not appeared in the two minutes that had passed since I last passed the place, so again I continued straight ahead. "Make a U-turn" was the order I received once again, and so it continued. After about 85 U-turns over a distance of about 500 meters, I agreed with myself to kill the GPS and take the initiative myself, but that didn't make things much better.

Somewhere on a gravel road in the wilderness - it's getting dark

Fortunately, some time and about 2 miles later, I met a local elderly gentleman at a place where our cars could only pass each other with great caution, so I could opewn my window and talkt with him. At that time, I had given up on visiting the overlook, as the sun had set and it was pitch black outside the car. In addition, the car itself had started to cry out for help – or at least for gas. An onboard gauge told me that there was only fuel for another 40 miles. I took that quite calmly at first, because there could under no circumstances be more than 20 miles out of the mountains. About half a mile later, I stopped taking it easy, because then the gauge said that there was now only fuel for 35 miles! Shortly afterwards, I met the car driven by the elderly gentleman, who with his long hair, long beard (both kept in white), overalls, flannelshirt and wide-brimmed hat, looked like a real hillbilly. Or maybe it was Santa Claus on autumn vacation in civilian clothes. The latter seems likely, as he didn't seem to know the area very well – or his knowlege of the area was limited to a very local area. I first asked for directions to my original destination, but he had never heard of it. He couldn't tell me the way to Morganton, which I thought was the nearest major city, or Lenoir, the town I came from. I probably should have asked where he got gas for the car himself, but at that point I was a bit (a lot) panicked – my cell phone hadn't had coverage for several hours – so I didn't. Instead I asked for directions to the nearest paved road. To this he replied that if I continued about a mile in the same direction as the car was pointing and then turned right, he thought the road would be paved – but he wasn't sure, because it had been a long time since he had been that way. To this day I wonder if he ever got out of the mountains except in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer?

It turned out that the man was wrong. The road did not become paved, but it did lead to another road that was. Unfortunately, I didn't know which one, but I tried to get the GPS to show me the way to the nearest gas station – which, when it got a signal, turned out to be 16 miles away as the crow flies. On the way to the gas station, I discovered that I was on US Highway 221, which I have often driven on. The road is very narrow and very winding on this stretch – and it was in a very different direction of where I had originally been heading. I had been "rotated" so much on the small dirt roads in the mountains. When I finally reached the gas station, I had enough gas left for 7 miles so it was a close call. The gas turned out to be the most expensive of the whole trip, but at that point, I didn't really care about the price, so I filled up and was able to return to my accommodation, an experience richer – but still without having seen "those damned mountains", even though I knew they were there. Perhaps this can be called a "pisgah sight" (which I also explain in connection with the mysterious lights), even though I didn't see anything at all, not even from a distance. However, I have made up for this on later visits. But I haven't seen any more mysterious lights, see the section on this phenomenon in a future article.