I grew up picnicking on the Blue Ridge Parkway north and south of Asheville. In our family’s wood-paneled station wagon, my father at the wheel, we would sail along the winding path of the parkway, enjoying the endless sea of blue and green, eternal mountains. Mount Mitchell, Craggy and Pisgah were our waypoints, our picnic spots.
I was 7 when my parents dragged my two brothers, my sister, and me up from our beloved, flat-as-a-tree, subsea-level New Orleans and drove us into the highest mountains east of the Mississippi, the vast river we had left behind. It was 1967, and with my father, a doctor, in the process of establishing a cardiac program at Memorial Mission Hospital, there would be no family vacations any time soon. But my parents, Nancy and Charlie Keller, pulled themselves together, and on Dad’s days off, we kids immersed ourselves in the mountain scenery and culture of Western North Carolina.
My husband was immersed in mountain life much earlier, on the lap of his grandfather, Asheville Citizen Times Editor and General Manager (1920-54), D. Hiden Ramsey. When young Graham Ramsey crawled onto Pappy’s lap and asked for stories of old, D. Hiden told tales of his youth, hiking and camping in the Craggy and Black Mountains, decades before the Blue Ridge Parkway was built.
As I have described in these pages, D. Hiden was deeply fascinated by the mountains of western North Carolina. Blind in one eye as a child, he never drove. As the newspaperman and his wife drove their grandchildren up the Blue Ridge Parkway in their 1953 Chevy, Mary drove.
As the family traveled to D. Hiden’s favorite haunts, Craggy and Mitchell, Ramsey named every tree and shrub, every plant, and, when a suitable sight presented itself, the birds. Hampered by illness in his later years, naturalist Ramsey’s greatest joy was opening his grandson’s eyes to the treasures of their mountain home.
When I was 11, I met an educator with a love of the outdoors as deep as D. Hiden, my seventh and eighth grade science teacher, local legend Steve Longenecker. Of course, I didn’t know he was a legend. I didn’t know he had pioneered the most famous climbing route in Western North Carolina, The Nose, on Western North Carolina’s most impressive granite boulder, Looking Glass Rock.
In addition to traditional tasks like dissecting pigs’ eyes and cows’ hearts, Mr. Longenecker had his middle school students go into the woods, block off a patch of earth, sit down, and observe for days. This intense engagement with nature fascinated me, but what impressed me even more was Steve’s encouragement to get us hiking, camping, and climbing in our own backyard.
Of course, our first camp was at the base of Mr. Longenecker’s favorite rock, Looking Glass. But our second camping trip — with the first night at Graveyard Fields, an unexpected overnight snowstorm, Steve’s encouragement to lace up our boots the next morning anyway and hike five miles into the Shining Rock Wilderness for a second night — was the semi-epic adventure that introduced me to the thrill of mountain exploration firsthand at a young age.
As for my husband Graham, his greatest adventures in the outdoors occurred in his twenties with his childhood friend, avid climber and outdoor store owner Lloyd Hammarlund. In the 1980s, when he himself had not been climbing for long, Lloyd led Graham directly up Devil’s Courthouse, a landmark on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was Graham’s first ascent. Today, this rock with its stunning views is only accessible by foot from the backside due to the protection of native bird species.
While Lloyd and Graham climbed many famous crags in WNC, their greatest adventure occurred atop Grandfather Mountain. Veteran winter campers Lloyd, Graham and their friend Bill Wilke regularly tested gear for Lloyd’s Outdoor Shop on Mount Mitchell and Grandfather. However, during a second night on Grandfather in January 1985, temperatures dropped to a record-breaking -22 degrees below zero, with wind gusts of 50-75 mph.
As the Asheville Citizen reported, the ice-covered young men tried to save themselves and their snow-covered tent from flying off the mountain. Despite numb toes and fingers, Hammarlund reported, “We were definitely humbled, but we would love to do it again.”
On a recent hike to Flower Gap on the Art Loeb Trail, I realized that I have been hiking in the Shining Rock Wilderness for over 50 years. I was speechless, but quickly overwhelmed with gratitude. My greatest joys – hiking with my husband Graham through our remarkable, ancient Blue Ridge Mountains, picnicking high on one of my favorite rocks, reminiscing and thanking those who brought us to this magnificent wilderness.
Leslie Ann Keller is an artist and writer from Asheville. She is married to Graham Ramsey, grandson of D. Hiden Ramsey.
