Grandfather Mountain, NC

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Today we venture to Grandfather Mountain and the Mile High Suspension Bridge.  Highest point in North Carolina.

On our drive to Grandfather mountain, we could see this large white structure on the far mountain top.  You can barely see it in this picture.
Below is a close-up of the white structure. 

We are not sure if it is a hotel or apartment.  Either way it is huge!

The closer to the top of Grandfather Mountain we get the more we see the low clouds.

Above is the Sphinx Rock.  Below is Split Rock.  We are almost there.

Here we are in the parking lot of the Swinging Bridge on Grandfather Mountain. The clouds are between us and the valley below.

We are at the bridge.  Isabel and I are getting ready to cross it.

This is the view from the middle of the bridge.  We enjoyed watching the clouds float by.

We all made it to the other side.  We are in the clouds.  Tic is close enough so it is hard to tell.

Tic went out to the far edge and got this picture.  Cool perspective!

As you can see, we are in the clouds again.

This is a view of the bridge from the parking lot.

The park also has Environmental Habitats for several kinds of native animals. See below.

This is a 2 year old male bald eagle.  He will not get his white head and tale until he is about 5 years old.

Here is the young male's father.

This is one of the black bear habitats.  The bears are pinned up while they clean their pool. They told us they were almost finished and the bears would be released in the next 5-10 minutes.

So we walked over to the bear cub habitat.  This is their only cub at this time.

This is more of the cub habitat.

Here are some interesting facts about bear cubs.  Check it out.

This is the male black bear in his habitat.  I did not know that black bears come in 3 main colors; black, cinnamon, and brown.

This female black bear is shedding.  She is in the same habitat as the male shown above.

The female has gone into the water hole they just cleaned.

There was a small museum and restaurant at the nature area.  We decided to have some lunch since it was already 1:30pm.

The burl pictured below is what this huge bowl was made from.

This amethyst cluster was uncovered Nov 4, 1972 in the Reel Mine in Iron Station, NC.  It is 2 feet long, 2 feet wide, 1 foot high and weights 165 pounds.  It was said to be the finest and largest amethyst cluster found in this continent.

After lunch and seeing the museum we headed back to the habitats.  Here we see the sea otters playing.

Nana and Isabel are looking at the eagles again.  The young eagle is moving around.

The clouds were building and rain was expected so we decided it was time to head home.  On our way we saw this little lake.  Price is a family name on my father's side, so we had to get a picture.  Also we noticed that the sign had a long list of no no's including ice skating.  We got a kick out of no ice skating.  Coming from the south we don't see signs like that.

If you are ever in the area, we recommend this park.  There were lots of hikes, but due to the weather we did not take any of them.