Trail association co-founder Jake Blood can’t get enough of the 6,000-footers in western North Carolina.
Sam Dean
Jake Blood: “In the entire eastern United States, there are under 50 peaks over 6,000 feet and we’ve got 16 of them here in that 15-mile ridgeline.”
Upon retiring from the military—he from the Air Force, she from the Army, both as intelligence officers—Jake Blood and his wife Cynthia were driving through the Southern states in 2006 with an eye on moving closer to family when they stopped at the U.S. Forest Service facility in Burnsville, North Carolina, to pick up some maps.
“My wife swears I was in there for over an hour,” says Blood, 68, president and co-founder of the NC High Peaks Trail Association, which maintains and promotes two dozen trails in the Black Mountains. When he finally emerged from chatting with the rangers, he couldn’t stop talking about the pluses of Yancey County: It was small and rural, like his hometown of Midway, Utah. Eclectic Asheville was only a short drive away. And then, of course, there was the Black Mountain range and Mount Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi River.
“We don’t have just the tallest, Mount Mitchell, but we have 16 other peaks that are over 6,000 feet,” says Blood, a friendly fellow who is obviously energized by the topic. “I mean, in the entire eastern United States, there are under 50 peaks over 6,000 feet tall, and we’ve got 16 of them right there in that 15-mile ridgeline.”
Blood harbored a passion for peaks long before he moved to Burnsville. Growing up in Utah, Idaho and Nevada, near ranges like the Timpanogos Mountains, which were featured in the 1972 movie “Jeremiah Johnson,” he says, “I’ve always loved the mountains. I was a Boy Scout as a teenager. My dad had horses, and we’d ride into the Idaho wilderness areas and go fishing. My ancestors came to Utah from Switzerland, a little village called Grindelwald. There, you have the Jungfrau, the Monch and the Eiger, three gorgeous mountains that are just unbelievable. The mountains are just a part of who I am.”
During his travels with the Air Force—he joined, he says, to see the world and give back to his country—he flew over mountain ranges across the globe, further fueling the attraction.
Soon after moving to Burnsville, Blood jumped headlong into his new community, first as president of the Yancey History Association. In 2008, officials at the Yancey County Economic Development Commission were so impressed with his ability to ask detailed questions during the interview that they hired him as part-time director. The job, however, turned out to be more than “part-time,” so a couple years later he retired—again. He also joined the Carolina Mountain Club, the oldest hiking and trail maintenance club in western North Carolina. (It turned 100 this year.)
For an avid hiker like Blood, something was still missing, several things actually. Two large textile factories had closed, devastating the economy of Yancey County and its population of fewer than 20,000. The U.S. Forest Service had lost funding for trail maintenance in the Black Mountains, and publicity for the area’s outdoor recreation was scarce. And there wasn’t a group focused solely on maintaining and promoting the Black Mountain trails.
“We’ve got the Forest Service here. We’ve got Mount Mitchell State Park here. We’ve got the Blue Ridge Parkway here,” Blood points out. “The Appalachian Trail goes through the northern part of the county. The Mountains to Sea Trail goes through the southern part. Outdoor recreation could be a driver. One thing that I tell everybody is: Nobody’s going to take our mountains away. Mount Mitchell and the Black Mountains will not close up and move away.”
In 2010, he and three fellow hikers formed their own nonprofit, NC High Peaks Trail Association, to preserve the nearly 100 miles of trails in the Black Mountains, offer monthly guided hikes and boost public awareness of the outdoors. Today, about 150 people, from hands-on trail maintainers to birders and dog lovers who welcome the chance to hike on pooch-friendly paths, make up a diverse membership.
Of all the tracks High Peaks maintains, the Mount Mitchell Trail is the best-known and most-used. “You start down at the South Toe River at about 3,000 feet and, in just six miles, you climb up to 6,684 feet,” Blood says. “You go through five distinct ecozones, from basically the deciduous leafy trees down below up to the top where you’ve got the pines. That’s where the Black Mountains got their name. They look black compared to the rest of [the mountains] of North Carolina.”
Blood knows just about every inch of the trail and has singlehandedly surveyed the whole thing for the Forest Service, using photos, a notebook and a distance measuring wheel to document “everything that was wrong with it,” from downed trees to mud puddles where water backs up. A lot of folks would go nuts with such a detailed assignment. Not Blood.
“Well, I am military. I am kind of focused on getting the stuff done the way that it’s supposed to be.”
Striking a balance between drawing more attention to the Black Mountain trails and conserving the wildness of the area hasn’t been easy.
“Hardly anybody knows about what’s north of Asheville in the Black Mountains. We want to bring in more people to appreciate what we have here,” Blood says. “With that also comes the responsibility to protect the Black Mountains. We do not want to become a place that is overrun and has too many people coming in. But right now, you can come up and hike the Black Mountains and you won’t see anybody.”
These days, Blood enjoys hiking with his wife, daughter and 5-year-old granddaughter and seeing the forests he loves through the little girl’s eyes. Beyond the official trails, he says, there are old railroad grades, mica mines and plenty of other sites to explore. For the past decade, he has created trail maps and now provides them for Mountain Mitchell State Park. He also serves as chair of the Explore Burnsville Travel & Tourism Committee, which publishes the maps and makes them available at the visitor center and local campgrounds.
Despite his hard work to preserve and promote Yancey County, Blood never tires of bragging about the area he now calls home. “The Great Smokies, yeah, they’ve got more peaks, but they’re scattered out over how many millions of acres? All this is right here. It’s just unbelievable the concentration that is right here. The ruggedness of them, the way they look, the waters that flow down from them—I’m just baffled why it’s still undiscovered.”
Jake Blood’s 3 Favorite Hikes in the Black Mountains
The end of the “J hook.” “There’s a rockface just off the Big Butt Trail, and you’ve got the entire view of the Black Mountains right there, and you can see all of those 6,000-footers. It’s just a gorgeous, breathtaking place, with the Cane River drainage down below you.”
Right below Celo Knob. “The Black Mountains Crest Trail starts at about 3,000 feet and climbs up to just below the summit of Celo Knob. You’re climbing up and just as you break the ridge, the Black Mountains are laid out for you, except this time you’re at the needle, or the top of the J and you’re looking down at the spine of the Black Mountains. For me, that’s most reminiscent of being out west.”
Mount Mitchell. “It is a state park and it’s paved all the way up to the summit. You have 360-degree views and they’ve marked it well. You have that view that you would expect from the highest peak in the East. On a clear day, you can see all the way to Charlotte.”
The story above first appeared in our March / April 2024 issue. For more like it subscribe today or log in with your active BRC+ Membership. Thank you for your support!