Butter Gap/Cat Gap Loop, Pisgah

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
8/5/2022	8.9 miles	5 hours 45 minutes	1,552'	1.9 mph	582.9

Parking: 

• Fish Hatchery

Maps:

• 100 Favorite Trails of the Smokies and the Carolina Blue Ridge (for directions)
• Pisgah Map Co., Pisgah Ranger District (for navigation)
• Gaia GPS app

Directions:

• See 100 Favorite Trails map

Carolina Mountain Club Challenges:

• 100 Favorite Trails #59
• Pisgah 400 - Some of Art Loeb Trail
• Pisgah 400 - #123 Butter Gap Trail
• Pisgah 400 - #120 Some of Cat Gap Loop trail

I took the day off work to go hiking :) Glen, Krumm, and I joined Marie and Karen on this 100 Favorite Trails hike. Marie was scouting it for a future CMC hike. We did this hike clockwise, so that we'd get our climbing done in the morning. It was a warm, humid day, and we were all hot during our climb. We encountered one wasp nest but passed it successfully - phew! We passed by Cedar Rock, a pluton. That's a word I had never heard of before moving to North Carolina. We encountered many mushrooms and stopped to investigate them. Karen used the Seek app to identify them, and we tried to come up with fun names for them - steak mushroom (blood red with a white rim), hamburger bun mushroom (yellow/tan colored mushroom), insect bath mushroom (sunken center), etc. We took a lunch break at a funky shaped shelter on the Art Loeb trail - I've never seen a shelter like this before. After lunch, our hike became easier, and thus felt a little cooler. We did get thunder (without rain) for the remainder of our hike. Soon after we finished and started our drive home, the skies opened up and down poured. What perfect timing!

Looking up at Cedar Rock. I've read that you can hike up it.

Triangular shaped shelter

Pine Sap plant