Voice of the Rivers 2008

April 18. Jenna Pace. Today was the first part of our Voice of the Rivers trip. We met up at Ross Hall (the building which houses Brevard College’s Wilderness Leadership department). Packing the two vans started around 1:00 and took until about 2:30.

Scott Brown, John Greene, Carilea Potter, Brian Randall, John Wargo, Kelsey Bracewell (teacher’s assistant), James Davisson, Ken Chamlee (English professor), Clyde Carter (Wilderness Leadership professor), and me were those who attended this weekend trip. When everything was ready, we headed up to Lake Toxaway for the true beginning of our awesome experience!
Getting to the head of Cardinal Lake became very time consuming after dropping off one of the vans and making a few wrong turns that caused us to have Scott and Brian get out of the van and remove the trailer in order to turn it around ;-). After a few mishaps, however, we were at the head of Cardinal Lake dropping off our boats. The sun was high in the sky as we unloaded our kayaking gear and headed off to get our weekend hiking really started.
We drove to the top of Raven Rock Mountain, which is the highest point of the watershed and holds such an amazing view! A lovely green meadow stretched across the mountain landscape from both sides of the road. Here we met Mr. David Belcher and his beautiful dog, Misty. Mr. Belcher owns the land where the river’s springs are found. He spent time talking with us about the environment in which we were standing and how people are gradually destroying the land. When he spoke, he showed great emotion in his love for the land and how important it is to take care of the environment. Mr. Belcher then started Misty and us on our hike down the mountain. He showed us areas where natural springs were supposed to be, but because of the many years of drought there was little to no water there. He took us down the hill until we came to a cul-de-sac where we parted ways and then continued, literally sliding down the steep grade of the mountain.
After we came to the bottom we began to hike the trail along the Toxaway River, which is the greenway for the Lake Toxaway Property Owners Association (who had given us permission). We stepped through the flowing river and passed pouring waterfalls along the way until we got back to our kayaks at the head of Cardinal Lake. Once we had carried our kayaks down to the water, we began to paddle across Lake Toxaway. The sun drifted down behind the mountains creating purples, pinks, and blues across the darkening sky. Once we reached Lake Toxaway’s dam, we headed back to Charles Reyner’s home where we were able to use his dock in order to get out of the kayaks and load them up.
That night was windy! When we got back up to the top of Raven Rock Mountain it was very cold. We had permission to use the private park’s pavilion for shelter. Kelsey Bracewell taught us how to cook a great meal, even while trying to keep a warm fire going through the wind.
After finishing our meal and cleaning up, we all gathered around to hear Brian Randall provide history about Lake Toxaway and the dam. He found that E.H. Jennings came to Toxaway and built Toxaway Inn on the lake. Wealthy visitors were attracted to this place, especially Lucy Moltz and her family who came and fell in love with the lake, therefore building the Greystone Manor (her home, which is now Greystone Inn). She helped transform the lake into an exclusive vacation resort. We learned how the dam fell and was rebuilt, but that the flooding had caused the Toxaway Inn to diminish forever. Through this, we learned that the dam was built to create a lake solely for recreational purposes, the only one on our trip that is not also tied to power production.
I believe that this first day was vital in getting to know our team and learning about what type of environment we would be embarking on. It was a truly amazing experience learning about what we had hiked and kayaked that day, and how it was all intertwined and builds such a bigger picture that will become full-screen as we continue our Voice of the Rivers 2008 expedition.