Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2013 - 61

Credit the view of the Black Mountains.
“I mean, look,” Cissy says, pointing to the
distance, far beyond the main cabin’s front
deck. “You wake up, and that’s what you see.”
CLEAR CREEK RANCH offers a dude-ranch

lifestyle, serving three meals and two group
tours on horseback each day. Open since
the mid-1990s, the ranch spreads across 58
acres at the edge of the Pisgah National
Forest, where horse trails twist into a tapestry of twigs, rocks, rhododendron, ferns
and fir.
Snake-shaped roads get you here, roughly
an hour from either Asheville, N.C., or the
outskirts of Johnson City, Tenn.
“It’s the middle of nowhere in a good
way,” says Heidi Graves, a veterinarian from
Jacksonville, Fla. “It’s the middle of nowhere
with a lot of people you really like.”
Graves rode horses with her five-yearold son, Ryan Streator, an enthusiastic lad
who loved the mud sloshing beneath his
horse’s feet. Both mother and son also
became fond of the friendly wranglers, like
Levi Shutt, the assistant barn manager,
who lives here with his dog, Rebel, and
Sydney Pitman, another wrangler, who
grew up in Madison, Ala., and took a summer job on the ranch “for experience and
for fun.”
Everybody becomes part of a family,
Graves says. “You get to know everybody
on such a one-to-one basis, just being out
on the trails and talking to folks. The people make this place incredible.”
Rex Frederick, the ranch owner,
requires his wranglers to have gone to college at least one year before working here.
“And our staff,” Frederick says, “makes
everybody feel at home.”
All sit down – guests and staff – for
three communal meals a day, serving
steak, pot roast, shrimp-filled pasta, hamburgers and all kinds of breakfast food.
“It’s delicious,” Cissy Rogers says. “One
meal is better than the other. It just keeps
on getting better.”
Pine-paneled walls are decorated with
a cowboy motif in the main lodge. Wooden
walkways and stone steps connect the
horse barn, the hammocks, the playground
and the cabins.
“We got the best cabin,” says Clyde
Rogers, 58. “It’s just pretty, nice and comfortable. Big front porch, rocking chairs.
It’s nice and cool.”

Clear Creek Ranch
offers a dude-ranch
lifestyle, serving three
meals and two group
tours on horseback each
day. Open since the mid1990s, the ranch spreads
across 58 acres at the
edge of the Pisgah
National Forest.
And it smells good, Cissy Rogers says.
These cabins are covered with log siding, made of cedar. “Nothing is artificial,”
says Frederick, 76. “We could have gone
with just rough-sawn lumber. But that’s
what we chose to do. And this is a wood
that lasts 40, 50 years – 60 years, 70 years.
It’s a lifetime wood.”
UP HERE on the mountain, nobody locks

the doors, and everyone is known on a
first-name basis. Cell phones don’t work.
You cannot find an Internet connection
until you get to the main lodge.
Frederick also did not put televisions in
the cabins “because people stay in the
rooms,” he says. “We want them out here
with us. We want them doing things. We
want them down there doing whatever
we’re doing.”
Like porch-sitting on rocking chairs or
swimming in the pool. You can fish for
trout in the pond, with corn supplied from
the kitchen.
Come Saturday night, the staff puts on
a variety show, mainly for kids, called a
Hootenanny. “And a lot of it is funny
stuff,” Rex Frederick promises. “The adults
like it, too.” 

Next issue -

Harvest
ES

GREAT RESTAURANTS, DINERS & DIV

FALL FESTIVALS

NEW IN THE MOUNTAINS

Plu s, MOUNTAIN-FLAVOR RECIPES

IF YOU GO

Clear Creek Ranch, 100 Clear Creek Drive, Hwy.
80-South Burnsville, N.C.
828-675-4510
clearcreekranch.com

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Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2013

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