Bearwallow Mountain is remarkably close to Asheville but not directly accessible from the Blue Ridge Parkway so not nearly as well known as some of the other area mountains.
The hike itself is pretty easy, about a mile up a forest road which is maintained because of all the radio and cell towers at the top. On a clear day there are good views of Asheville, Hendersonville and Lake Lure.
Panthertown is a valley in the eastern portion of the Nantahala National Forest, just north of Lake Toxaway. It is not heavily used and this was our first visit to it – a few days after Toxaway had received more than 10 inches of rain.
The trails in general are not well-signed and there are old trails that are being reclaimed by the forest, new trails that will eventually be official, and then some unofficial trails. It’s generally a map and compass area. Schoolhouse Falls is easy enough to find however. Almost everyone else we saw in the forest was in the vicinity of Schoolhouse Falls which has a lovely big swimming hole at the base of it.
About 2 miles upstream from Schoolhouse is Greenland Creek Falls. The trails go up out of the gorge and connect back with the river about a half mile from the falls. We decided to bushwhack up the river directly. There was an old trail on the east side of the river but portions no longer exist. With high water, this is a strenuous hike that involves almost as much climbing as hiking. There are several more falls along the way. Pothole is the most impressive of these but it involved hanging over the river from branches just to get a glance at it.
The Greenland Creek Falls trail is not marked but it mostly heads upstream from an old forest road. At high water it involves crossing several tributaries.
There are a bunch of waterfalls in DuPont State Forest, most of which we have neglected to visit so we decided to check out a couple of them.
Triple Falls – named for obvious reasons is only about a quarter mile hike along the river. The only vantage point where you can see all three sections is from the trail well above it but there were people scattered all over the rocks at each level of the falls.
Another half mile or so down the same trail is the creatively named High Falls. There are probably about 5 “High Falls” within 30 miles of our house and oddly enough none of them are really all that high. This is a rather popular picknicking area. There are several nice pavillions on the ridge above the falls which no one uses. Instead, most people prefer the rocks at the base of the falls.
Also partial to the base of the falls is Trout. This is actually a little ways below Triple Falls but it was a moderately hot day. This hike appears to generally be very popular with dogs.
South Mountains State Park is about halfway between Asheville and Charlotte, located off a confusing network of roads south of Morganton. Despite the relative difficulty in getting there, it was pretty crowded on the day we went.
The park has a dense network of trails in the eastern half. By far the biggest draw is High Shoals Falls which is about a mile or so from the parking area. Several different sources bill this hike as easy. While it’s short it actually involves a lot of climbing on uneven, slippery stairs.
Technically, there’s no swimming at the falls although we saw about 20 people directly in front of the no swimming sign. There are a multitude of decent swimming holes along the trail though which generally follows the bank of the river.
From the Black Balsam parking lot, it’s about a 5 to 6 mile loop along the Little Sam trail to Chestnut Bald and then back around to the Balsams on the MST and the Art Loeb Trail.
In early August, we were able to collect a bit more than a pint of wild blueberries. We could have almost any number of blackberries if we’d wanted as well but we have plenty of those in the meadow at home.
This is the view south from the saddle between Chestnut Bald and Silvermine Bald, neither of which are particularly bald these days. There are good views further along the Art Loeb Trail and also good open meadow campsites.
These two falls are located in the southwestern part of the Pisgah Ranger District. Toms Springs Falls, besides being hard to pronounce has about 4 other names depending on the map you use. It’s not particularly difficult to get to, there’s a trailhead a bit west of the fish hatchery and it’s a half mile hike along an old forest road to the falls. It’s fairly impressive but there’s not really a good spot to sit at the base of it or swim in a pool.
Catheys Creek Falls is located right along side Catheys Creek Road. There are a series of cascades visible if you walk along the precipitous edge of the road and peer over. Well below most of the drops there’s a tiny pull-off, big enough for one car and a goat path leading down to the river. This picture is just the bottom section of the falls, most of it is not visible here. We couldn’t find a decent vantage point of the whole thing. Trout was disappointed to discover that Catheys Creek isn’t a good spot for swimming either. There’s a small pool here but more rocky drops just below it.
This entry could be called Round Butt Bald because that’s the mountain we circled but since we didn’t summit it that seemed wrong.
From Bearpen Gap on the Blue Ridge Parkway we took the connector trail to the Mountains-to-Sea trail and followed that to Wet Camp Gap. Wet Camp is a high open meadow filled with blueberries, blackberries and assorted wildflowers. There’s also a small pond in the center but it was mostly empty on our visit except for a couple remnant pools that were packed with tadpoles.
There’s an unofficial but easy-to-find trail leading southwest out of Wet Camp Gap. This eventually becomes a steep manway to the summit of Gage Bald where there are excellent views of the surrounding mountains. We had a bit of a picnic up here. By the way, these little sling chairs are incredibly light but they’re a bit tricky to set up and it’s definately a learned skill to get out of them with any modicum of grace.
Usually we expect to be scratched up after any sort of bushwhacking. We were after this hike but it wasn’t from Gage Bald, it was actually from the MST heading around Round Butt Bald back to the Blue Ridge Parkway at Haywood Gap. This section is narrow and treacherous, especially overgrown with blackberries and nettles. At the high point on this trail we considered hiking up to the summit of Round Butt Bald. The east approach to the top was pretty much a wall of blackberries and after donating some blood to them we abandoned the attempt and decided to try some other time in a less-summery season (like say, winter).
Green Knob is located just off the Blue Ridge Parkway a little north of Mt. Mitchell State Park.
It’s a half mile hike from the parkway or it can be reached from the Black Mountain campground which is much longer and more arduous. There’s not much of a view on the way up but the tower is situated to give a spectacular view of the Black Mountains.Inside Green Knob Fire Tower
The tower is open to hikers and slightly more comfortable than the rocks below it. The top of the trail is overgrown in the summer and requires a bit of pushing through rhododendrons. The view is also partially occluded in June, so it’s probably a better trip in early Spring or late Autumn.
After the short hike to Roaring Fork Falls we drove over to the Black Mountain campground. The setrock trail branches off of a campground road and once the trail starts it’s only about a quarter mile to the falls.
There’s a shallow rocky pool at the bottom of setrock falls so it’s not as good for swimming as roaring fork is. From here, we headed up to the Blue Ridge Parkway
Thompson Creek trail is not heavily used at all. We saw almost no signs of any recent use. The trail is a bit foreboding on a map as it ascends almost 1800 feet vertically in just 2.4 miles. Both our topo map and our pisgah forest trail map show this trail as ascending right up the center of Thompson ridge. This is no longer accurate. After crossing the tributary the trail ascends along Thompson Creek – rarely going out of sight of the water. At the cross trail we backtracked to see how far our topo map was off. The old trail along the ridge is still there and can be fairly easily discerned (with some minor bushwhacking). The trail up to the Pisgah Inn also still exists. The traverse across the Thompson Creek headwaters is the most difficult portion.
The lower portion of Thompson Creek was completely hemmed in by flowering mountain laurels. The trail starts just across from the Pink Beds and the laurels definately carry over. The ascent along the creek is not really all that bad. The hideously steep bit is a series of switchbacks onto Laurel Mountain near the top of the trail. We had hiking poles with us and still found this very challenging. Ultimately, the Thompson Creek trail ends at the Pilot Rock trail about a mile from the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Instead, we turned south and came back down on the generally easier Pilot Rock trail. There are some difficult rocky switchbacks on this trail and it’s amazing that mountain bikers managed to make it down and across some of the boulder fields. The trail traverses the top of Pilot Rock which we more or less completely failed to notice. Ok, that’s not exactly true. We stood there for a moment and wondered if this were the top of Pilot Rock and then decided it wasn’t dramatic enough so we moved on. Oh well. The roundtrip hike with the forest road is about 6 miles. We also followed parts of the old abandonded trail just because it was on the 1986 topo quad.
Rufus Morgan falls is located on an isolated loop trail on the east side of Siler Bald. The forest road access to the trail is off of Wayah Rd and it’s about the only maintained trail in that area.
The trail is a loop of about a half mile on either side with a decent elevation gain up to the falls. The main falls can be seen in the background where the trail crosses the creek.
Up close, it’s impossible to see the entire cascade at once but the main drop is impressive and it’s about 5-10 degrees cooler in this little cove than the surrounding forest. There isn’t much of a pool at the bottom of this one.
Probably everyone who has ever been here has a picture involving this prominent rock. Now we do too. Trout usually wanders out of the frame before a picture is taken but for some reason he wandered into this one and sat down nicely in the center.
Big Laurel Falls is located deep into the Standing Indian area of the Nantahala National Forest. If you drive in past the campground, across the creek and a few miles further on – the trailhead is along the right side of the road.
Melanie isn’t tired yet in this picture – the crossing of Betty Creek is only a few hundred yards into the hike but I couldn’t get her standing up and the stream under the bridge at the same time.
It’s a short (0.6 mile) and pleasant hike along a couple different streams to Big Laurel falls. The falls themselves form a nice pool which one might consider swimming in if one is somehow immune to hypothermia. Maybe it’s better later in the summer but even Trout wasn’t willing to stand in this one for too long.
It’s a fairly easy rock scramble to get to the mid level of these falls but we’re probably supposed to mention that waterfalls are dangerous and you shouldn’t mess around with them. Don’t try this at home if you happen to have a 25 foot cascade at home.
Just a half mile or so further down the forest road from the Laurel Falls trailhead is a pull-off for Mooney Falls. You should be able to see the falls off the south side of the road as you approach. It’s just a couple switchbacks down to the river but the canyon is narrow and overgrown through here so it’s difficult to get a view of the entire cascade. This picture is probably less than half of the total drop.
After our two waterfall hikes (below) we felt we needed one more short hike to round out the day. Cowee Bald was a tempting target with it’s prominent location at the north end of the Cowee Mountains and it seemed like it might be a good place to watch the sunset over the Smokies.
Forest Service road 70 is the key to getting up Cowee Bald. It’s sort of hard to find in the maze of roads north of Franklin. Once found it’s a long way up with some fairly steep gravel grades. There’s a gate about a half mile from the summit so we parked there and hiked up to the lookout tower which unfortunately was locked halfway up.
Due to towers for cell phones, radio transmitters and such the view north is non-existant. The view in other directions isn’t bad though. This is looking south towards Franklin, NC. and Dillard, GA.
On Memorial Day, we bravely hazarded the stretch of US 276 through Pisgah Forest between Looking Glass Falls (approximate number of cars parked here = 40) and Sliding Rock. This is the location of the Moore Cove trail which is a 0.7 mile spur up to the falls.
This was after a day and half of rain so presumably the falls is often just a trickle. The trail mostly follows the creek upstream crossing on wooden bridges several times. There are other smaller falls in the vicinity as well.
The ‘cove’ portion of the falls is quite impressive on its own. There is substantial space inside the overhang.
The location of the falls is well-shaded and the water was frigid but it was worth standing in nonetheless. Trout, of course, only stood in the falls long enough to get damp before finding some mud to lie in. We had intended to change into more serious hiking footwear after this trail and visit something a little more obscure but the rain moved back in shortly after we got back to the car and hasn’t really stopped since.
We took the scenic route back from Danville along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Our intent had been to hike in the Linville area but it just kept raining and raining. Finally we gave up and decided we were just going to get a little wet. How bad can the half-mile hike to Linville Falls be anyway?
The falls are quite impressive, especially after several hours of rain. There is an upper view point (just below those very top cascades in this picture) but by then we were soaked in a persistent downpour so we figured we might as well keep going.
Here are Melanie and Trout at the overlook. Trout didn’t seem to consider this a proper sort of hike. He would’ve been more than happy to jump in a river and swim around but he’s not thrilled to be rained on.
How much did it rain? A lot. Notice that you can’t see my toes in this picture and I’m standing on the trail. There were pools of water six inches deep – but, we did get at least one small hike in.
This section of the AT starts in North Carolina and finishes in Erwin, Tennessee. We parked at Uncle Johnny’s Hiker Hostel in Erwin and he shuttled us up to Spivey Gap which is about 11 miles away by trail.
There’s a bit of a climb out of Spivey Gap and a couple short climbs further on in the hike but for the most part it’s downhill with an elevation loss of 2000 feet from the highest point. There are plenty of stream crossings in the first half of the hike. No Business Knob Shelter (yes, that’s the name of it) is almost exactly halfway through this hike.
The last two miles of this hike is pretty much all down. There’s a long series of switchbacks descending into Erwin. To make up for this at every left turn (heading northbound) there’s a rocky overlook of the Nolichucky River with occasional views of Erwin as well.
With day-sized backpacks, this hike took us just a bit over 6 hours with two stops for food and one stop for a tragic shoelace emergency (thanks random thru-hiker with a lighter!)
Lover’s Leap is a popular overlook of the French Broad River and the town of Hot Springs, North Carolina. It’s a fairly short hike up from the parking area just above the Hot Springs bridge.
This is the view about halfway up which also happens to be the Appalachian Trail through here. The rocks themselves are located at a trail junction and are named (supposedly) after a Cherokee legend.
If you’ve been hiking southbound on the A.T. this would be a sudden and dramatic viewpoint. If you’ve come up from Hot Springs though it’s just a slightly clearer view of what you’ve been looking at for the last half hour. From here, we continued on the Applachian Trail which wraps around the ridge to Pump Gap. About a half mile or so from Lovers Leap there are good views up the French Broad River.
Frank Bell’s rapid – the most difficult on the commercially rafted section of the French Broad is visible way off in the distance. At Pump Gap, we followed the pump gap trail back down to the trailhead which is a pleasant hike along a stream. Actually, it’s a particularly steep descent at first and having hiked up it in the past (see the Mill Ridge entry) we can say we much prefer going down it.
This wasn’t our first hike of the year, but it was our first interesting hike – outside of the Asheville commuter section of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Big East Fork trailhead is on 276 just north of the parkway.
There are a couple trails that leave from the area but we followed the Big East Fork trail which follows the Pigeon River all the way up to the headwaters of one particular branch. Just above that the trail meets the Mountains-to-Sea trail near the parkway.
Along the way are some great swimming holes. Since there was still snow in shaded valleys, we didn’t actually test this. Trout did though and he seemed to like it.
Ok, so we were just at Max Patch a few months ago. However, since we were unable to get up the road to Snowbird Mountain, which was our intended hike, we came back to Max Patch.
As always, the views are superb. The meadows had recently been mown so there was more picnicking and camping than usual on the summit. We hiked up to Max Patch along the Appalachian Trail from where it crosses the forest road. After summitting, we followed the trail back down through a patch of forest. Ultimately it follows a series of meadows that make up an equestrian trail on a parallel ridge.
Roaring Fork Shelter is only a couple miles north of Max Patch Road. It doesn’t have direct access to the Roaring Fork river but you’ll have crossed the stream a couple times getting there and its a good place to stop for a snack.
On the hike back, we followed a combination of the equestrian trail and the Max Patch loop trail which stays below the summit but still crosses some big meadows and has excellent views into North Carolina. Trout found meadow hiking to be altogether confusing as it’s difficult to determine where the trail is.
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.
