View From the Top

On Thursday morning, I headed out of Rock Hill with Elizabeth and Victoria to go to Crowder's Mountain State Park. Our goal for the morning was to take the Tower Trail up to the top of Crowder's Mountain. A couple of years ago, we had made a similar drive and hiked to the top of King's Pinnacle.

My confession is that while I am not much of a camper - my idea of roughing it is a hotel room without ESPN - I enjoy hiking a lot. I like seeing the wildlife on the trail. I love hiking beside streams and waterfalls. But my favorite part of the hike is getting to the top and looking down over the houses, trees, and cars and seeing the landscape roll off in the distance.

When we crested Crowder's, we walked past the communications towers and up a small path to a rock ledge that gave us a great view to the east. We ate PB&J sandwiches, drank a bottle of water and took some pictures.

We'd been there about 30 minutes when I noticed that off in the distance I could see the skyline of downtown Charlotte. WOW! Thirty to forty miles from downtown and yet I could see the skyscrapers in the distance. In a few hours, we would be in the parking lot at the base of the mountin and not able to see the Charlotte skyline. We would drive toward Charlotte on I-85 and still wouldn't be able to see the Charlotte skyline. It was only from the top that we were able to get a different view on our surroundings, to see things in the distance, to see things that we wouldn't otherwise be able to see.

I don't get to the top of enough mountains. Life gets busy. Schedules get squeezed. I get too tired or lazy to make the climb. But when I do, I am always amazed by the view and awed by the perspective.

-- Peace, Jamie

PS - If you want to check out some pics from the top of Crowder's Mountian and you're on Facebook, go here.