Hiking the Art Loeb Trail

Its been almost two weeks since my last post as I’ve had a very busy schedule.  After returning from my trip to Madrid, my week at home was jam packed.  It included some major honey dos around the house, a medical procedure and then I finished the week before heading off to work with two days of hiking on the Art Loeb Trail.

I’m very involved with my two sons and their Boy Scout troop as an assistant scout master.  Our troop attends two week long boy scout camps during the summer.  This year we decided to go to Camp Daniel Boone for our first camp.  Camp Daniel Boone is our council’s managed camp and is a little over 30 miles away from Brevard as the crow flies.  So a few of the boys that were attending camp and the scout master decided we’d hike to camp.

Due to my work schedule I was only able to hike the first two days, Thursday and Friday, from downtown Brevard, NC to Black Balsam Knob.

I also rented a Leica Elmarit-M 28mm f2.8 ASPH lens for the hike as I’m interested in another lens that is just a bit wider than my Leica Summicron-C 40mm.  I enjoyed using the lens and found it worked great on my Ricoh GXR.

I used a small carabiner attached to the upper portion of my left shoulder harness to my pack.  Then connected a pair of OpTech USA Uni-Loops to the left lug on my GXR and the other loop to the carabiner.

We left Brevard, NC from the First United Methodist Church where our boy scout troop meets.  Our scout master was able to get prior approval from the owner of an old logging road enabling us join the Art Loeb Trail at Cat Gap Loop and Art Loeb Trail junction.

On Thursday night we camped near Butter Gap and on Friday continued on the Art Loeb to Black Balsam Knob.

I hadn’t had to carry a full pack in a while and the two days was another indication that I’d lost a bit of my conditioning from hiking at the Philmont Scout Ranch a year ago June.

Below are a few photos from my Ricoh GXR and Leica Elmarit-M 28mm: