On a Small Road near North Park

On the edge of North Park sits a road that cars can’t use. There are stories that have been shared about this road over the years. Often, these stories are told during the month of October, as Halloween nears. It’s name is Irwin Road but, it is often referred to as the Blue Mist Road.

    The road is about 2 ½ miles long but only about a ½ mile is drivable. The rest has been restricted for only hikers and bicyclists. When the road was built, it didn’t have any streetlights on it and the trees and vegetation grew close to its edges. There are two bridges on it and because of the cost of upkeep and the dangerous conditions of the road the majority of it was closed to traffic.

    At one time before this section was closed there were a few homesteads, a fruit market, an orphanage and a blacksmith shop. When the county started acquiring land for the park, between 1927 and 1931, these places were abandoned or torn down. The homes and businesses are gone now; this unnamed settlement is basically a ghost town, in a way, very appropriate for this road! Only a few foundations remain and they are rapidly being reclaimed by nature.

    Irwin Road has been called Blue Mist Road for as long as I can remember. There are stories about how a blue mist or fog settles over the road in the evenings and mornings. Having biked and hiked on this road for many years, I have never experienced this. It’s understandable why there might be mists, the road parallels a stream and it traverses a valley, perfect conditions for fog!

    People have told tales and written about glowing eyes, strange shapes and even ghosts being seen in this valley. Some of the structures, when they were still standing were supposedly used for séances and witchcraft rituals. The foundation of one of these structures was supposedly where a witch used to live.

    Rumors are told about how in the past, the KKK used to have meetings somewhere along this road and that lynchings might have taken place. For a long time, a tree grew near the road that was known as the “Hanging Tree”. It has since died and fallen down. Tales also say that when the road was open to traffic, since there were no lights along it, the shadows at night resembled bodies hanging from the trees, their limbs rubbing against the cars as they passed.

    A story has been told for decades about a man that lived on this road who murdered his wife and kids. He hid their bodies in the family’s septic tank. Looking on-line, there are no records, police or historical that mentions this crime. But it is a great story to tell while you are walking along this dark road at night!

    There is another story, this one an unfortunate tragedy. A young man and two friends took a late night hike on the “haunted” road. As they were leaving in their SUV, he sped up his vehicle to scare them and crashed into a tree. Two of the teenagers were killed. A wooden cross marks the spot where their lives ended. Sadly, this tale is true!

    The building ruins that remain are only the remnants of a small farming community. Whether or not a witch lived in one of them, I can’t say. The Klan did exist in our country and unfotunately they did lynch people, but as far as them committing any of these crimes along this road, there are no known records of it, there are only “the stories”. The story about the man killing his family is definitely not true. It never occurred; there is nothing to prove it. As far as the blue mists, ghosts, floating objects and glowing eyes, that is up to you whether to believe or not.

    The stories are told, year after year. They take on new story lines as the generations change. They are basically the same, yet certain things change with each telling. We as humans, tend to get a bit excited when we’re told about possible spiritual events, hauntings and evil criminal events that happened right where we are standing! There may be no proof that they are real, but we still love to hear them! “Could these things ever happen to me? Dare I stay?”

    I recently took a hike with Frank on this road to visit the “Witch House”. The ruins were overgrown with high grass and weeds, only a couple stone walls were standing. Old kitchen appliances sat rusting away in-between thick floor beams. A tree had grown up in the center of the remains. Care needed to be taken with every step because we couldn’t see what was beneath the weeds. It was interesting to explore but we didn’t see or feel anything while we were there. On the many times I’ve hiked and biked this road I’ve never seen anything out of the ordinary. Of course, all my visits have been in the mornings or afternoons. I’ve never been here at night; perhaps a night hike is in my future!

Another Day of Looking for Things in the Woods

         Frank and I took another drive this morning to search for more of those things hidden in the woods… geocaches. We left shortly after sunrise with Frank taking on the driving obligations.

        We hadn’t planned a long day, just a few caches with-in 10-15 miles of my house. The majority of them were hidden in North Park. This is the largest park in Alleghany County’s park system. There are over 3000 acres in the park along with a large lake. The park was built in the early 30’s with help from the C.C.C.

        Our first stop should have been a rather easy find. It was a “guardrail cache”. It was hidden on, in or around a guardrail. We searched from one end to the other without seeing it. We looked in the near-by trees and under rocks. Eventually, Frank found it right where we originally looked. Why we didn’t see it, I don’t know. Let’s just say it was early and we weren’t quite into the game yet… Yeah, that will work!

        Our next find was what is called a Multi-Cache. You are given clues and with them you have to figure out where the final cache is hidden. We had both figured out where it was. It was another guard rail cache, hidden in the end of the rails. An easy find, once we had figured out the location.

        In the park, we had to walk up an old dirt road to get to the next cache. Watching our GPS’s as we neared the site, the arrows pointed to the left so we headed into the weeds. The grass wasn’t too high but our pant bottoms got soaked from the dew.

        Our GPS’s showed different spots so I went in one direction and Frank went in another. I searched the “usual” spots without any luck then I heard Frank yell. He had found it, further up the hill. Once I joined him I found it easily. It was hidden under the roots of a large tree. (One of the “usual” spots!) We signed the log and returned it to its hiding spot, a little bit better hidden than when we found it.

        Our next “find” took us for another jaunt into the woods. The beginning was a nice wide path which took us through a nice fairly level section of the park. While we walked we kept an eye on our GPS’s, watching as the distance lowered. Once we were within 30 or 40 feet our geosenses kicked in.

        Geosense is when your experience at finding caches helps you in locating other hides. You compare the site you’re at, to all those other sites you’ve been to and start going over the possibilities. Usually, this works pretty well! You notice small paths in the weeds, you start looking at all the different spots where a cache could be hidden, such as under logs, rocks, trees or guardrails. The Geocaching.com site also tells you how big the cache is and how difficult it is to be found, along with what the terrain is like. This gives you an idea of what you’re looking for also. There is sometimes a hint included with the description, these can be REAL important!

        This find was in what is called a bison tube. It is a small cylindrical container, just large enough to hold a rolled up piece of paper for a log. It was hung on the trunk of a large pine tree.

        The next find was about a ½ mile away, over the top of a large hill and down the other side. Being the wimps we are, we opted for taking the truck rather than walking. It was a good decision!

        We found a trail that was about a ¼ mile away and started down the hillside. Nearing ground zero, (GZ) we started looking around. This one was easy, as long as you were standing in the right spot. It was out in the open, behind a log. We signed, re-hid and then climbed back up the hill.

        The final cache of the day was another Multi-cache. We went to the location specified and had to locate a plaque with some numbers on it. The numbers were used to figure out where we had to go to find the final hide.  After a little basic arithmetic, we quickly figured out that the cache was a ¼ mile away. We grabbed our hiking staffs, our cameras and holding our GPS’s, started down the trail.

        I have been on this trail many times and I’ve always considered it to be one of my favorite spots to hike in North Park. It descends into a valley and follows a stream. It is a nice quiet trail with a few tough sections and you rarely see anyone on it. The sounds of the stream makes a nice background for your hike.

        We passed through the ruins of an old park shelter and then crossed the stream. We passed cliffs where Native Americans used to camp. We saw lots of fallen trees, evidence of the storms we have recently experienced. We passed above a stone wall that was probably built by the C.C.C. when they were working on the park in the 30’s, along with a few old dirt roads which were no longer passable.

        At the bottom of a steep hill we came to GZ, it was somewhere between the stream and a steep cliff. We started searching. Frank made the find, hidden in the cliffside.

        We signed the log, I dropped off a TB and then re-hid the cache and started back up the trail to the truck. Nearing the top of the hill, the truck mere feet away, I realized that I had left my GPS at the cache site. Frank waited as I hoofed it down and back again. Twenty minutes, not bad. I was drenched with sweat. The cache was a bit tougher than it should have been, due to my own forgetfulness!

        We were back at my house before 11, not bad for one of our expeditions!  It was a good morning; we found all of the caches we set out to find and had a good time doing them. The morning was exceptionally nice, a perfect day for geocaching and hanging out with a friend. We also managed to get some exercise in the process. We’ll probably both be taking some Tylenol tonight, but you know... it was worth it!