Bluff Mountain Outfitters, Again!

Although age and infirmity have put an end to my backpacking days, I still can't resist the lure of a good outdoor store. I look longingly at the new equipment, knowing full well buying it would be a waste of money since it wouldn't/couldn't ever be used. Yet on each of our frequent trips through western North Carolina we have to detour through Hot Springs for a visit to Bluff Mountain Outfitters. And we almost always make a purchase. But now most frequently it's books.

Bluff Mountain has a small, but excellent, offering of books by regional authors. These are the books you almost never find in the big box national chains. Frequent readers will recall that we've discovered several new favorite authors there. Our last visit was no exception.

Cataloochee, is a first novel by Wayne Caldwell, an Asheville native. It is set in a high mountain valley of that name that now is part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Cataloochee, which is in North Carolina, is similar to the more familiar Cades Cove on the Tennessee side of the park. This novel deals with settlement of the valley and the coming of the National Park. A second novel, Requiem by Fire, picks up the story where the first novel leaves off. We haven't read it yet; maybe we'll find it next stop in Hot Springs.