March 15, 2015 Bloodroot at Pearson's Falls

The tiny white flower of the bloodroot is blooming along the stone stepped path up the mountain by Colt Creek to Pearson's Falls.  Colt Creek falls in three steep tiers and flows down down down to the Pacolet. The air is filled with the cool clean breath of water. There is a woman photographing the leaves of the yet to bloom Oconee Bell springing up from a crag in the rocks.  This silver shine clear day of 76 degrees has blossomed out of the cold and muck of winter.  I talk with a family of Romanian immigrants sitting on a bench near the highest viewing place just over the Ethel James Chase stone bridge built by her sons and grandson.  A young couple is lying side by side on a smooth rock.  It is a short walk of only a quarter mile up. There are restrooms and picnic tables.  There is a $5.00 entrance fee for adults used to keep up the 268 acre sanctuary by the Tryon Garden Club.

In the parking lot are cars from Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Florida, North and South Carolina.  A woman in a car with Connecticut plates stops by me and tells me "I just had to get out of the snow.  I booked a room in Saluda and drove down for a week." She tells me that the New Haven St. Pat's Parade is postponed due to the flooding produced by melting snow in the streets.

The Palmetto Trail Head is nearby.

I came up by taking Hwy 108 West from Columbus, NC , turning onto Harmon Field Road where I see a horse event going on and where a Barbeque Festival is held each Spring.  From here Hwy 176 leads to a left for Pearson's Falls Road.

Leaving the park, I continue 3 miles up the winding hwy 176 into the small town of Saluda, NC.  The cozy main street is lined with antique stores and restaurants where there is often live music.  Honking Tonkers Gallery featuring bakery and chocolates, Thompson Grocery, the Purple Onion, the Saluda Grade Cafe.
I come out of the "Somewhere in Time" store of Pace General Store with a yellow and violet frayed quilt, so soft and comforting.

There is an easier way to leave here for home. I go back East on 176 and turn left onto Ozone Road and shortly reach I-26 and the sharp incline down the Saluda Grade where it is possible to see for miles across the flat plain laid out in front of you.  WNCW public radio from Isothermal Community College is wafting the mountain music of fiddles and banjos across the airwaves, the wild old mountain songs of love and murder.
My heart is pounding with the beat as I pass by Lake Bowen whose furled waters are bright and glimmering in the late afternoon light, then home again where the first Japanese Magnolias are opening their pink and mauve blossoms.