Sumter National Forest is a beautiful forest, but it’s also a national forest. That means on top of having a lot of trees and beauty, it also has a lot of industry. You wont find a lot of this marked on any maps, but roads that lead to logging companies, rock quarries, and more dot every national forest. It’s a little sad to think that something so beautiful is actually being destroyed from the inside. We think of our National Parks as beacons of who we are. Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon. You cant think of these places and not take a little national pride in them. We’d do anything to make sure those landmarks arent scared by a logging company or open pit mine. National forests on the other hand are just waiting to be picked apart. That’s why they exist. In the meantime though, they offer spectacular views and provide campers and hikers alike a place to visit.
After spending a few hours in the forest I decided to head north. I’d never been to Delaware before and I wasnt sure I’d ever be this close to it again with nothing specific to do over the next few days. (I was still 10 hours way from the state, so close is a relative term.) I hopped in the car and set out back through North Carolina. My travels would take me through Ashville, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Durham. At least they did after I managed to get unlost in the Pisgah Forest. Western and eastern North Carolina couldn’t be more different from each other. The western side of the state has mountains and a lot of hills. The eastern side of the state is full of, well, not mountains. The western side is also home to national parks and forests, in contrast to the central and eastern side. The exception is a decent amount of North Carolina’s coastline is semi protected. After eight hours of driving I managed to get out of the state and into Virginia.
Similar to North Carolina, most of the “wilderness” lies to the west, including Shendoah National Park, the Washington and Jefferson National Forests, and the Blue Ridge Mountains. The AT runs through the state in the west as well. On the east the mouth to the Chesapeake sits. The Chesapeake is fascinating to me. More than 150 rivers flow into the bay, six different states drain into the bay, and at its height had 9000 people working in it (of course not so much anymore thanks to city run off pretty much screwing over wildlife – in the 70s we found out there was a marine dead zone where there was so little oxygen in the water, nothing lived).
That said, it’s still a beautiful area. If you get a chance to drive across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and eat at its cafe, do it. I really enjoyed the view while I ate fresh seafood. The bridge is actually a combination of bridges and tunnels. It actually costs $13-15 for a car to drive across it. I was caught off-guard by how expensive it was, but the view was worth the money. Plus I really wanted to go to Delaware and the only other option would have added about three hours to my drive. So I ponied up and drove the rest of the evening through the “Eastern Shore,” as I learned it was called, until I got into Delaware.
Bivy Life 