Mt Mitchell On Top of the World as far as us East Coasters are concerned Seven or eight years ago, Jeremy and I were spending our usual couple of weeks in Asheville during the month of July. The free music festival Belle Chere is held there every year on the last weekend in July, and we had our pre-parenthood traditions that included lots of late nights listening to music in crowded bars, followed by sleeping in until all hours, and then maybe getting around to an afternoon hike. One of these lazy afternoons was hot and humid enough to chase us up to a higher altitude. We learned early on in our mountain explorations that if you want to escape the heat, just go up a few thousand feet. And bring a sweater...and a raincoat, because you never know. So we decided to head up to Mt. Mitchell, the highest point east of Mississippi. We werent up for any of those real hikes (on account of all that music in bars), so we stumbled onto the Balsam Nature Trail, an easy mile loop full of stones and ...