This hike started and ended at the Hendersonville Resevoir parking area. If you head south from the trailhead, the Trace Ridge trail leads down to the N. Mills River. The last tenth of a mile or so of this trail is extremely steep. It meets the river trail near the confluence of Wash Creek at a very pretty spot.
The Nat’l Geographic Pisgah map shows the N. Mills trail ending here but it actually extends to the east as far as Yellow Gap Road. To the north and west, the trail runs for about 2 miles to meet a forest service road which connects back up to the trailhead. We did this hike during the drought (yet another drought) due to the high number of river crossings it entails. In fact, we counted 10 river crossings (11 if you start at Yellow Gap Road). One of these has a suspension bridge option, but the rest involving wading. A couple of the crossings were knee deep, even at very low water levels. There are quite a lot of good swimming holes along this trail and it’s a rather popular fishing spot as well.
