Art Loeb Trail to Grassy Cove Top, Shining Rock Wilderness

Both the Art Loeb and the Ivestor Gap Trails head north from here into Shining Rock Wilderness. On this day, we were taking the Art Loeb to Grassy Cove Top. It is the northward trail on the right. You can also tell because it is the one going up. If you’re going deep into the wilderness to Shining Rock, The Narrows, and on to Cold Mountain, it is best to take the Ivestor Gap Trail and avoid the rollercoaster of all the mountains and gaps.

Shortly past Ivestor Gap, the Art Loeb enters a small pine forest that is the only time you won’t be in direct sunlight on this hike. You did remember to lather up with sunscreen before you started, right? Don’t get used to the shade though, it doesn’t last long.

The trail actually skirts around Grassy Cove Top to the east, winding around to approach the summit from the north. This is thick, thick laurels, blueberries and grasses. It’s very difficult to see your feet and the trail. Two in our party of three took a fall, including me. Fortunately, no harm done. Meanderthals do bleed, but our hide is tough. It comes with age.

The spur trail to the summit of Grassy Cove Top isn’t marked. You just have to keep an eye out for it on your left. You will be on the north side of the mountain and the spur takes off due south, upward. It’s very narrow, and not particularly well defined, even tighter than the Art Loeb was around the mountain. It may be easier to see in winter when the bushes and grasses are down, but this was my first time to this specific place.

It’s only a couple hundred feet climb in about a quarter mile up this thick, tight trail. As you approach the summit, it begins to clear out some. There are a few grassy areas with fire rings, although I wonder who in their right mind would camp on top of a 6000 foot bald. The weather is quick and dangerous. By now we were pretty hungry. Just about the time we were wondering if we should simply sit down on the grass, we reached a perfect rocky outcropping to rest our weary bones.

While we enjoyed lunch, I setup the tripod to grab some pictures of the amazing scene. Including Grassy Cove Top that we were sitting on, we could see five mountains that measure over 6000 feet. That’s the photo at the top of this post. You can click it for a larger view. Looking southward, Tennent Mountain, with Black Balsam Knob behind it were straight ahead. The double-peaked Sam Knob was to the southwest and further to the west was Mt. Hardy over in the Middle Prong Wilderness.

Even the clouds were beginning to cooperate. There were a few puffy whites beginning to form to help with distance perspective. This is one of those sights you want to stay and enjoy. With lunch and good conversation we stayed on Grassy Cove Top about half an hour, and unlike the rest of the hike, had the summit to ourselves.

We got to thinking that since there was a spur trail from Art Loeb up the northern side of Grassy Cove Top, there is probably one down the southern side too, back to Ivestor Gap. So we went looking. Sure enough, much to our delight, there was one. This would save probably 20 minutes on the return trip. What we didn’t factor in was how steep and rocky it would be.

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