Well, what do you know? We haven’t been kidnapped by Sasquatch, or fallen off a cliff, or swept away in a raging mountain river. It has been a minute, as the kids say, since we last posted. We may not be doing this retirement thing entirely correctly, as we have both gotten involved in volunteering with community groups that keep us regularly busy. Still, every now and then we shake free of our self-imposed obligations and venture into the woods. Which is why we moved to western North Carolina in the first place….
In the months since we last posted, we’ve put in a few hikes to waterfalls and other scenic destinations, and we’ve squirreled away some photos and memories which may eventually find their way onto these pages. Speaking of squirrels, we were excited to see that Conserving Carolina has announced White Squirrel Hiking Challenge 7. Every couple of years, Conserving Carolina posts a series of hikes to showcase properties they had a hand in preserving in Transylvania, Henderson, and Polk counties in North Carolina and a sliver of upstate South Carolina. We completed White Squirrel 6 and have been keeping an eye out for the next challenge. The confluence of a new hiking challenge and a new year was clearly an opportunity, so we decided to make our first day hike one from the White Squirrel 7 set.
White Squirrel 7 has eight hikes on it, with two of them nearby. To ease back into hiking after a holiday of the usual feasting and lassitude, we opted to hike close to home in DuPont State Forest. Our challenge hike for the day was the DuPont Loop: Twixt, Rock Quarry Road, and Wilkie trails, a 3.1 mile loop starting at the Corn Mill Shoals parking area off Cascade Lake Road. We moseyed over late in the morning and found the parking lot to be moderately busy, with the usual mix of bikers and hikers.
Our route, as laid out on the Conserving Carolina website, started by crossing Cascade Lake Road and starting on the Corn Mill Shoals trail, which is pretty much how most hikes in this area begin. At this point, Corn Mill Shoals is a wide former road, but almost immediately we turned left (north) onto the Longside trail, which is a narrower track that climbs gradually for 0.2 miles, paralleling Cascade Lake Road. At this point the trail splits, with Longside continuing to the right and Twixt trail also heading north to the left. Our route put us on the Twixt trail, which over its 0.4 mile entirety is an easy amble through the rhododendrons. Twixt emerges onto Cascade Lake Road, and about 50 yards away to the right, on the other side of Cascade Lake Road, Rock Quarry Road is easily visible.
Junction of Twixt and Longside trailsFootbed on Twixt trail
Road Quarry Road is, well, a road leading to a rock quarry. It climbs modestly through a young pine and oak forest. We were expecting to find a typical quarry, a deep rocky hole with a lake at the bottom, but it turns out that this is a retired quarry that, like us, is turning back to nature. As we spotted some boulders tumbled to one side of the road, we took a detour at a clearing to look for the quarry, but quickly turned back when the side trail petered out. At about 0.7 miles from Cascade Lake Road, Rock Quarry Road takes a turn to the left, with a wide side trail to the right. This is nominally the quarry site, where in topo maps it looks like a chunk of the mountain was carved away. We took the side trail for about 0.1 miles as it cut between ridges. Though the quarry was used in DuPont as a gravel source, it appears that it only had surface excavations. It looks like rock was just dug out (or blasted) from the side of a ridge, as opposed to digging a deep hole. If this quarry wasn’t on Rock Quarry Road, I don’t think I would recognize it as a quarry. So it wasn’t quite what we were expecting — but it was even better.
Rock Quarry – Cascade Lake junctionRock Quarry roadQuarry spoilRock Quarry Road to left, side trail to quarry to rightSlab wall
After returning to Rock Quarry Road, we continued uphill to its junction with the Wilkie trail, which generally runs east-west from Cascade Lake Road to Rich Mountain Road. We were joining it a little bit east of its midpoint. Our route called for a sharp turn to the left (south), which was a nice wide footpath along a ridgetop. This is a pleasant stretch, with hints of views to either side. At roughly 0.6 miles from the Rock Quarry/Wilkie junction, Wilkie takes another sharp turn to the left and begins to descend.
Wilkie trail – Rock Quarry Road junctionWilkie footbed along ridgetop
The character of the trail changes at this point, as it becomes single track and the underlying rock begins to show through the fallen leaves and pine needles. As we wound back to the northeast, now below the ridgeline we had just traversed, views began to open up to the southeast. We noticed a handmade sign attached to a tree, bearing the legend “Broke Hip Mountain.” We didn’t know if this was a private joke or subtle hint about the footing, but just to be sure it was time to bust out the hiking poles.
Shortly after this, the trail entered an open area that turned into a great viewpoint to the south and east. Conserving Carolina describes it as a “granitic bald,” and it’s typical of the formations found on the east of Cascade Road, such as Big Rock and Cedar Rock. The soil has eroded to expose the underlying granite, with just a few patches of grass, sand myrtle (probably), reindeer moss, and stunted trees interspersed. Ruth was able to pick out other geologic features in the view, such as Burnt Mountain, using her PeakFinder app.
After a brief break, we resumed our downhill track, which was becoming a little steeper with a surface featuring more exposed stone and less leaf litter. We passed the southern end of the Micajah trail, and over the next 0.4 miles the Wilkie trail gradually descended to meet up with Cascade Lake Road, just about 0.1 mile to the south of the Corn Mill Shoals parking lot. Though the last part of the hike is along the road, the shoulder here is quite wide and you can walk quite safely back to the parking lot.
Rocky descent on Wilkie trail
And with that, there was hike #1 for 2024 in the books, and also 1/8 of the White Squirrel Challenge 7 completed. The remaining hikes in the challenge vary in length and difficulty, but we are on our way. Even if you’re not interested in the hiking challenge, this kid-friendly loop is a good alternative hike in DuPont if you’ve already done the popular waterfall hikes and you’re looking for something different. Parts of the Wilkie trail could be a bit dicey when icy, but otherwise this hike was easy in most sections, well-marked, and well-engineered. Our GPS track shows that we covered 3.28 miles, including a couple of side trails.
As sporadic as our blog has become since we retired, it feels like an accomplishment to get something posted. This marks our ninth year of blogging! We’ve slowed down but we haven’t stopped — maybe that’s our theme for 2024.
Just a little bit off the beaten path, there’s an easy walk to a lovely waterfall, with side trips that require a little more effort to see two more waterfalls, and there’s even a bonus waterfall if you walk a little farther, when there has been rain in the past couple of days. What have we been waiting for?
In early February, after a couple of rainy days, we were keen to get out and check off more waterfalls in the #transy250. I just made up that hashtag to represent the 250 waterfalls in Transylvania County, NC. Maybe it will catch on. Or maybe this blog will be banned in Tennessee. Either way, this 2.7 mile round trip hike in the Pisgah National Forest is not to be missed.
Our targets for the day were Discovery, Log Hollow, and Upper Log Hollow Falls, relatively easily accessible from the trailhead on Headwaters Road (FS475B). Directions to the trailhead are straightforward: from the intersection of US Highway 64 and US Highway 276 in Pisgah Forest, head north up Highway 276 into the Pisgah National Forest about 10.3 miles, passing Looking Glass Falls and Sliding Rock along the way. Turn left onto FS475B, a gravel road. At the time of our visit, FS475B was open, but note that at some times this road might be gated. From the intersection of Highway 276 and FS475B, progress on foot or via vehicle for about 1.6 miles, at which point FS475B makes a hairpin turn to the south. If you’re driving, the road surface isn’t too bad, though you’ll need to drive slowly and be alert for oncoming traffic, as the narrow road offers only limited options for passing another vehicle. Four-wheel drive is not required. There’s roadside parking for maybe 10-12 vehicles, and there’s a National Forest management sign at the turn. More to the point, there’s a gated Forest Service road, FS5043, where the hike begins. Find parking where you don’t block the road or the gate. We figured that a Sunday morning in February would be a good time to avoid crowds, but there were several cars there by the time we arrived mid-morning. Complete solitude on trails in Western North Carolina is largely a myth.
At the gate to FS5043, the Siniard Ridge trail heads uphill to the right. This was a little confusing, as most online sources conflate the Siniard Ridge trail and FS5043 (also known as Log Hollow Road between the trailhead and Log Hollow Falls). At any rate, the route we took was to go around the gate and walk down FS5043. It was easy walking along gentle grades. At about 0.25 miles, we reached a bridge over a creek, with a faint side trail to the right, just before reaching the bridge. This is the trail to Discovery Falls.
The spur trail to Discovery Falls isn’t marked or blazed, but the footbed is fairly easy to follow as it rises up a drainage of Case Camp Ridge. The lower reaches of the trail were a little boggy in places, but it quickly dried out as it rose fairly steeply. Discovery Falls is soon visible through the trees, and at a mere 0.2 miles from FS5043 we arrived at the base of the waterfall. This 50-foot cascade-type waterfall is formed by an unnamed tributary of Log Hollow Branch as it drains Chestnut Ridge to the northwest along the Blue Ridge Parkway. We caught it at a period of average flow, judging from other photos I’ve seen of the waterfall.
This hike was off to a good start, as we had already seen a quite nice waterfall in just 0.45 miles of walking. We retraced our route back to FS5043 and turned right (south) as the road crossed the creek and continued on a long curve to the east. In only 0.3 miles, Log Hollow Falls became visible and audible to the right of the road, just before another bridge.
Log Hollow Falls is a charmer. It’s the kind of waterfall that runs up and gives you a big ol’ hug, asks how’s your mom and ’em, and insists you’ve lost weight since it last saw you. The side trail to the base is roughly at the level of the road, just across the bridge, and is only a few yards long before arriving at a clearing right at the base of the falls. This 35-foot fall is on Log Hollow Branch, another drainage of Chestnut Ridge, and features a striking zig-zag as the water strikes some orange-colored rocks and splits into two main flows, both of which empty into a small plunge pool. It’s just the most cheerful and perky little thing — I love it to pieces! And if you skip the side trail to Discovery Falls, it’s just a smidge over half a mile from the trailhead on a wide, easy trail.
There are taller waterfalls in the Pisgah National Forest, and wider ones, and ones with a more dramatic setting, but for the ratio of ease of access to beauty, Log Hollow Falls has to be a top choice. We tarried for a while and took note of a side trail that led uphill to the left of the waterfall. This is the route to Upper Log Hollow Falls, but we decided to delay our ascent briefly, opting instead to return to the road and continuing to the south and west. There was one more waterfall within easy sight of the road, just another 0.5 miles from Log Hollow Falls. Names seem to vary for this one. NCwaterfalls.com and AllTrails call it Logging Road Falls; Google Maps goes with the less mellifluous “Falls on tributary of Big Bearpen Branch.” More sources seem to go with Logging Road Falls, though Google is correct in stating that it is a waterfall on a tributary of Big Bearpen Branch that drains Chestnut Ridge and South Spring Top Mountain. This narrow waterfall drops around 75 feet in a series of little cascades and drops before disappearing into a culvert under the road. This one would be difficult to see when the foliage is out.
We had unfinished business back at Log Hollow Falls, as we had plenty of time and energy to go for Upper Log Hollow Falls, our fourth waterfall of the hike. After returning to Log Hollow Falls, where a young family was enjoying its attentions, we slipped by them onto a steep side trail that ascends along the left side of the waterfall. This trail is also not signed or blazed, but the narrow footpath is obvious as it tracks upstream and uphill. Log Hollow Branch was always visible, or certainly audible, as it slid over a rocky channel just above Log Hollow Falls. We clambered uphill for 0.1 miles, at which point Upper Log Hollow Falls came into view as it flowed over a rock outcropping. The trail wound around a few more yards to end at the plunge pool at the base of the waterfall, right by the rock face. It was kind of tight quarters for a photograph, so I went clambering across some rocks and fallen logs to get a better view from the center of the waterfall. I had managed to stay dry, but as I made my last stride up a small embankment, a broken-off branch was perfectly angled to neatly slide up inside my pants leg to about mid-calf. The other end of the branch was firmly attached to a log, so it wasn’t going anywhere — but I was, over face-first into a tangle of rhododendron branches and logs. It was a hard fall, made worse by my attempting to protect the camera. Heartfelt and vituperative imprecations followed until I determined I was only a little bruised and battered. Enjoy the fourth photo below — I paid for it.
After packing up the camera gear and breaking off the offending branch (not in that order), I crossed back to the trail, complaining about how Upper Log Hollow Falls was clearly the bad seed in the Log Hollow family. It was a steep but short hike to get there, and then the fall was kind of a bully and knocked me over. (Of course my inattention and clumsiness had nothing to do with it.) As we were turning around to begin our return trip to the trailhead, I instinctively checked to make sure I still had my wallet, keys, and phone — and my wallet was missing. It was a shock, and my mind raced as I tried to confirm that I had not left my wallet at home and that I was carrying it earlier in the hike. Still, we’d be retracing most of our route, and the majority of it was on a gravel road, so I had a slim chance of coming across the wallet on the return trip. However, Occam’s razor occurred to me, as the most likely time to have dropped my wallet was when I was body-slammed on the far side of the plunge pool, so I thought it was worth the long shot of once again clambering over there. And in the brush next to where I had taken my nosedive, there laid my wallet! Thank you, liberal arts education, and shame on you, Upper Log Hollow Falls, for mugging me.
Our return trip after that was without further incident. Our GPS track reflects a round-trip hike of around 2.7 miles, but the side trip options make this a flexible option for hikers of varying abilities. Just the walk to Log Hollow Falls is worth the trip, an easy stroll for a little over one mile round trip, with slightly more challenging add-on options to see three more waterfalls. Though you most likely won’t find total isolation on this hike, you’ll avoid the crowds at DuPont State Forest, Looking Glass Falls, and Sliding Rock. If you want a waterfall payoff for a relatively easy effort, a little off the beaten track, this is the hike for you.
We’ve made a few trips to Upper Whitewater Falls, possibly the highest waterfall east of the Mississippi River, and have posted about it in December 2021 and August 2022. Only about 30 miles from our house, the Whitewater River drops 411 feet just barely inside North Carolina as it drains the Cashiers area and empties into Lake Jocassee in South Carolina. Hiking to a viewpoint for the Upper Falls is a doddle, as it’s a paved 0.25 mile walk from the parking lot to an overlook. A 154-step wooden staircase descends to a viewing platform with even better views.
So this begs the question — we know about Upper Whitewater Falls, but its name implies there is a Lower Whitewater Falls, so what’s that like? We’ve been meaning to find out ever since our first visit, and in late January we decided to have a look.
Indeed there is a Lower Whitewater Falls, about two miles downriver from Upper Whitewater Falls across the border in South Carolina. However, there’s no short, easy, paved trail to an overlook. You’ll have to put some skin in the game (or rather, some shoe leather) to get a look at the 400-foot Lower Whitewater Falls. That’s a pretty impressive height for an eastern U.S. waterfall, but it’s eclipsed by its taller upstream brother, a whopping 2.75% higher. Poor thing!
Reaching the trailhead for Lower Whitewater Falls is pretty easy — just continue south on NC Highway 281 (Whitewater Road) past the turnoff to Upper Whitewater Falls for about 0.45 miles. The highway will change numbers to SC Highway 130. The first left turn after crossing the state border is Bad Creek Road; turn left there into a Duke Energy facility (the road is gated but it’s usually open). Bad Creek Road is a nice paved route down past the Bad Creek Reservoir. In about two miles, turn left onto the Foothills Trail access road, which leads to an enormous paved parking lot with a second lot right next door. There are porta-potties on one side of the main lot.
A kiosk in the northeast corner of the parking lot marks the start of a spur to the Foothills Trail. The trail is graveled at this point, rising slowly from the parking lot. A sign notes the mileage to the Foothills Trail (0.6 miles) and to Lower Whitewater Falls (1.7 miles). We found this a little ambiguous, so to clarify the one-way distance to Lower Whitewater Falls from this point is 2.3 miles — 0.6 miles to the Foothills Trail, plus 1.7 miles on the Foothills Trail and another spur trail to the falls.
After about 0.1 miles, the trail splits with one route continuing straight (more or less east) and the other turning left (north). The route to the east heads to Lake Jocassee. Our route led north, following the blue blazes of the spur trail. The gravel ends at this point, and the spur trail continues to gently climb on a natural surface, winding around the flanks of an unnamed knob to eventually descend to an intersection with the Coon Branch Trail, and past that a crossing of the Whitewater River. We weren’t sure if there would be a bridge there, and we were right — there were two! Two lovely metal bridges spanned the river, with a nice stone bench on the opposite side.
Spur trail continues north
We enjoyed our lunch on the bench, given in recognition of wildlife biologist Skip Still and conservationist John Garton, and watched a trout fisherman try his luck in the rushing waters. Just to our north, a kiosk marked the intersection of the spur trail and the Foothills Trail. We continued north on the Foothills Trail, somewhat confusingly blazed as both white and blue on this stretch. I think the idea is that the blue blazes are the route to Lower Whitewater Falls, which for a time coincides with the route of the Foothills Trail. At 1 mile from the parking lot, we reached a split where the Foothills Trail, blazed white, continued north, but the route to the falls, blazed blue, headed to the east. In case the sign at this intersection is confusing, the distance to the falls from this point is 0.9 miles, not 9 miles as the sign seems to suggest.
The spur trail continued briefly, for only about .15 miles, through a wooded patch before reaching the wide graveled expanse of Musterground Road. Musterground Road is seasonally open for hunters and ATV enthusiasts, but was closed at the time of our hike. The spur trail/road junction is at a graveled ATV unloading area. We continued southeast on the road, and very quickly Ruth spotted something remarkable in some ephemeral puddles — frog eggs! Masses of eggs floated in the puddles. These looked to be relatively early in the development cycle, but I’m no herpetologist. Given the depth of the puddles and our rainy winters, I liked the chances for our amphibian friends.
We continued down Musterground Road for about another .15 miles before the spur trail split off to the right, with a double blue-blazed post marking the intersection. At this point we were back to hiking in the woods on a wide trail, winding around the west flank of Whitewater Mountain. From the junction with Musterground Road, the spur trail descended along the .65 miles to the viewing platform.
And there it was — the mighty Lower Whitewater Falls, dropping roughly 200 feet in a series of slides and plunging down a rock face for its final 200 feet with a mighty roar, even when viewed from a distance.
The spur trail ends at the viewing platform, so this was the end of the line for us. After soaking in the views for a little while, we retraced our route back up Whitewater Mountain to Musterground Road and headed back toward the frog eggs and the ATV unloading area. However, instead of taking the spur trail back into the woods we decided to make the final part of the hike a loop by continuing down Musterground Road back to the parking lot. It was a much less scenic route, but was easy walking downhill to where the road crossed the Whitewater River, and it also had the advantage of bringing us close to the actual falls. We reached the river in 0.6 miles from the ATV unloading area and crossed on a nondescript concrete bridge. The relative calm of the waters below belies the violent drop just a few hundred feet downstream. The road briefly flanks the river and you can hear the waterfall, but there’s no clear view of it. I took a short detour off-road to see if I could find an unobstructed view, but the gorge drops off pretty steeply here and I knew that a mistake here would probably be fatal. Back to the safety of the road, thank you.
From the river to the parking lot was another 0.6 miles, trending uphill, with occasional glimpses of Lake Jocassee in the distance to the south. The walk itself was pretty routine, just trudging along a gravel road until Musterground Road emerged next to the parking lot. The total mileage, according to our GPS track, was 4.2 miles. In contrast to the mileage sign at the beginning of the hike, we reached the viewing platform in just a smidgeon over 2.0 miles, so as the saying goes, “your mileage may vary.”
So now we have collected the entire set, as it were. Upper and Lower Whitewater Falls are of similar heights, and neither has developed trails to the base of the waterfall, so the only safe viewing is from a distance. But the viewing experience varies in one important way — other than the trout fisherman we saw on the way to Lower Whitewater Falls, we didn’t see another soul on our hike. That’s an extremely rare experience on a waterfall hike in North or South Carolina, especially on such a relatively short and moderately easy walk. And we logged another tiny segment of the Foothills Trail, which I guess we are segment-hiking. At our current rate, I think we’ll finish it in about 50 years.
Our first hike of 2023 was enjoyable but a bit tame, so we were looking for a little more adventure on our next outing. Our rainy winters are terrific waterfall fuel, so we took off to Panthertown on a Friday morning to check out three waterfalls along the Devil’s Elbow trail.
This was our fourth trip to Panthertown, which is a 6,300-acre backcountry area of the Nantahala National Forest north of Sapphire, North Carolina. We’ve hiked many, but not all, of the trails there and have seen several of the waterfalls. There are 30 miles of officially-recognized hiking trails in the Panthertown Valley, with a subset of those trails open for equestrians and mountain biking.
Panthertown is the source of the Tuckasegee River, which forms at the confluence of Panthertown and Greenland Creeks and flows generally northwest, passing through Cullowhee, Dillsboro, Silva, and Bryson City, NC, before flowing into Fontana Lake in Tennessee, ultimately ending at the Little Tennessee River. I hadn’t really thought about it, but we’ve had many vacations where the Tuckasegee was in the background, where we’ve crossed it dozens of times on bridges. In researching this post, I discovered the happy speculation that its name may be a derivation of the Cherokee word daksiyi, meaning “turtle place!” Given Ruth’s love of turtles, it has to be kismet that we would find ourselves hiking along its first couple of miles.
So we were off on a cool but clear Friday morning in early January, arriving without incident at the Cold Mountain Gap trailhead on the east end of Panthertown. We were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves the first to arrive, which boded well for having some solitude on the trail. Another group pulled up just as we started down the Panthertown Valley trail, just to the right of the kiosk.
The first segment of the hike was familiar territory, as this end of the Panthertown Valley Trail descended briefly through the woods for 0.15 miles before crossing a little stream on a bridge, then intersecting with the gravel road that constitutes most of the Panthertown Valley Trail. We turned left on the road, passed through a powerline cut, passed a second kiosk and an open gate, and at about 0.45 miles arrived at a sharp bend in the trail. In our past hikes, we’ve stuck to the official trail (the road), but thought we’d try something different and instead took a user-created trail as a shortcut down Boardcamp Ridge to the bottom of the valley. The trail was well-established and not particularly steep, and we soon found ourselves back on the Panthertown Valley Trail, where we turned right (north) to continue to the junction with the Devil’s Elbow Trail in 0.15 miles.
Panthertown Valley TrailheadUser-created trail at sharp bend (photo from a previous hike)
The Devil’s Elbow Trail is another old logging road that heads north, then northeast, to the geological feature of the same name, which is a sharp bend in the Tuckasegee River. There is nothing particularly demonic about the trail itself — it’s nice and wide with gentle grades, gradually climbing along the north side of Boardcamp Ridge and passing under the powerline cut again. Not long after passing under the powerlines, about 0.09 miles to be exact, we reached the side trail to our first waterfall of the day, Warden’s Falls.
The trail down to Warden’s Falls is not an official Forest Service trail, so there is no signpost. However, someone has kindly marked the route with orange flagging tape, and the footbed is obvious. On the day of hike, you could plainly hear the waterfall, engorged after several days of rain. The route to the top of the waterfall is only a smidge over 0.1 miles, and we were pleased to find a little bonus on our way — a geocache in plain sight at a bend in the trail! Of course we had to stop and add our handles to the logbook before continuing down to the waterfall. Moments later, we reached the top of the falls, where we had an obscured look at a torrent pouring over a drop in the riverbed. We then headed downstream to find a suitable place to descend to the bottom of the fall. The path quickly ended, still well above the river, with a piece of webbing tied to a tree and flung down a steeply sloping bank.
So I ask you, here you are on your first visit to a trail, and there’s a strap dropping down a slick rock face to a landing point not quite visible from the top, where a tumble into the river would lead to certain injury and quite possibly death. On the other hand, that’s the only way to get a good photo of a waterfall. What do you do?
Of course, you pull hard on the strap to test it, wrap it around one arm, and you lean backward and slowly walk down the rock face to a narrow ledge. Then, because the waterfall is not entirely in view, you crawl along the ledge, over and under rhododendron branches, to get another angle.
It was slow going. The high water made this more challenging than is probably typical, as you could probably wade into the river to get photos when there’s not as much flow. This wasn’t an option for this hike, as I preferred to see the next two waterfalls from the bank, instead of as a participant. Ruth had stayed up at the anchor point of the strap, no doubt composing my obituary as she waited to see if I would make it back.
Seven weeks later, as I write this from my hospital bed … just kidding, I made it back just fine. The rock face, though wet, actually had pretty decent traction and the strap held firm. I wouldn’t suggest this side trip unless you have footwear with decent grip and some upper body strength. We retraced our route back to Devil’s Elbow Trail and turned left (northeast) to continue our route. Unlike some previous hikes, I had spent some time on researching this route and knew that we’d have to cross Little Green Creek without a bridge. With the water expected to be relatively high, we acceded to the inevitable and packed water shoes for this hike. About 0.4 miles after rejoining Devil’s Elbow, we reached Little Green Creek, which was just wide enough and just deep enough to make it worth our while to change to the water shoes for a quick splash across the creek. Again, on many days you could probably make the crossing without getting your feet wet, but not after heavy rains. On a cold day, with miles yet to hike, prudence wins over inconvenience.
About 0.1 miles after the creek crossing, we came to a trail split, with Devil’s Elbow continuing uphill and to the right, and Riding Ford Trail heading downhill to the left. For this hike, we wanted to visit the two falls on Riding Ford, so we headed left on a similarly wide, well-graded trail. I had read that along this stretch of the Riding Ford Trail that there would be a side trail down to a campsite on the Tuckasegee, with Jawbone Falls just a short distance away. We hiked about .1 mile from the trail junction to where Riding Ford Trail crosses the Tuckasegee without seeing an obvious side trail. The junction of Riding Ford and the Tuckasegee is the top of Riding Ford Falls, which like most waterfalls is not that impressive when viewed at the top. We did a little bushwhacking along the riverbank here, and ultimately headed upstream on a well-worn user-created trail to quickly arrive at a clearing where the discolored ground made it obvious we had arrived at the campsite. Again, orange ribbons led from the campsite back toward the river, though it was hardly necessary as the roar of Jawbone Falls made it easy to find.
Jawbone Falls is in a lovely location, with a huge relatively shallow pool at the base which would be an excellent swimming hole on a hot day. It was a cold day, and the sun was awkwardly placed to get a good photo, so if you’re looking for better light it’s probably best to arrive in the afternoon. We sat on a log and ate our lunch, enjoying the roar of the water and the weak winter sun.
We had already glimpsed our last waterfall of the trio, Riding Ford Falls, so it was easy to backtrack to the campsite and back to Riding Ford Trail. The trail actually continues on the west side of the river, eventually ending at the Powerline Road Trail, but that’s a hike for another day. Given that this trail looks like an old road, “the” Riding Ford was probably a shallow crossing of the Tuckasegee easily managed on foot, horseback, or in a vehicle. Though the river is shallow at this point, there was quite a bit of water moving in it so we stuck to the east bank and bushwhacked downstream to a better vantage point for Riding Ford Falls. There wasn’t a convenient user-created trail here — lots of over and under and around, with scaling some boulders involved to get a decent photo.
From here, it was just a routine walk back to the parking lot on Riding Ford, Devil’s Elbow, and Panthertown Valley trails, though we did give our knees a break by taking the longer route up Boardcamp Ridge by sticking to the official trail instead of steeper user-created trail. Overall, our GPS track says we covered 4.4 miles, and we can check off the first three waterfalls on the Tuckasegee.
I think it’s best to give former North Carolina poet laureate Kathryn Stripling Byer the last word. As she wrote in her melancholy poem “Tuckasegee:”
Until / it runs out like the river, / our time is the music / the water makes, leaving / who’s left of us listening.
After our last hiking adventure, we wanted our next hike to be something simple and easy. Our schedule on New Year’s Day didn’t allow for anything terribly ambitious, so it was a good opportunity to visit one of the most kid-friendly short hikes in the area — the Andy Cove Nature Trail in the Pisgah National Forest. Andy Cove is a dent in the side of Little Hickory Knob, draining the south side into a little feeder stream into the Davidson River.
This 0.7 mile trail, despite its diminutive length, has a pedigree. It’s a National Recreation Trail and a Kids in Parks TRACKS trail, built by the Youth Conservation Corps. Though it’s not ADA-compliant, the trail’s elevation changes are minimal and well within the capabilities of preschool-aged kiddos.
The starting location for this hike is behind the Pisgah National Forest Ranger Station/visitor center (1600 Pisgah Highway, aka U.S. Highway 276, Pisgah Forest NC). Since it’s a loop trail, there are actually two trailheads. Most folks start at the easternmost trailhead, which is at the western end of the main parking area, in the woods between the parking area and the visitor center. The visitor center, with restrooms, is open year-round. Signs abound to make the trail easy to spot.
A kid-friendly short trail has to pack in the attractions, though in truth you don’t need a lot to keep the littlest ones occupied with an abounding assortment of rocks and sticks available. Almost immediately upon entering the woods on a nice dirt footbed, we noticed little corrugated plastic signs representing the local wildlife that might be spotted on the trail, or more likely, deeper into the Pisgah National Forest. We were there in the winter, so the cardboard critters were the only fauna we noticed.
Minutes afterward, we came to the first of three or four wooden staircases that are on the loop. None were particularly tall and they were all sturdy, but I mention them in case you were thinking of taking a stroller on this hike. After a brief uphill climb, the trail levels out, with an observation deck to one side overlooking the woods and nearby Pisgah Highway. At this point the nature of the trail changes quite a bit, as the footbed switches from dirt to an elevated boardwalk.
After a brief jaunt on the boardwalk, the trail winds around to the left and there is the glory of the Andy Cove trail, a swinging bridge! You’ll swap the comfort of the too, too solid earth for swaying gently over a drainage of Little Hickory Knob. The bridge is about 40 yards long and around 6 feet wide, with cable handrails on each side.
After crossing the bridge, the footbed is again a dirt path, winding gently along the west side of the drainage. A set of steps helps with one of the steeper declines, and the trail crosses a small feeder creek on a nice wide footbridge. The trail gradually loses elevation over its last half, with the exception of two short staircases, and follows the creek until it eventually crosses it on another wide footbridge. There’s access to the creek here, so this would be another spot to tarry, especially on a hot day. There were some kids playing in the creek as we passed, so even on a cool day it’s a good place to explore as the creek is only inches deep and flows gently here.
Shortly after the creek crossing, the Andy Cove Nature Trail tees into the Exercise Trail, a mostly flat 1.5 mile gravel trail that loops around the north and south sides of the Davidson River. We turned left and were back at the visitor center about 100 yards later.
Not every hike has to be a long one. If you’re looking for a short, fairly easy hike with a couple of points of interest, this is a good option. As an introduction to hiking, this is probably one of the best local trails for very young children, and it is by far the easiest access to a swinging bridge in the immediate area. The trails at the Cradle of Forestry are another great option for kids’ hikes, though the Cradle is only open April-November and charges a modest admission fee (well worth it). We didn’t hike Andy Cove when there was any wildflower activity, but given its vicinity to a creek it’s a good bet it would have some wildflowers. Given its proximity to the visitor center and low degree of difficulty, it’s also a good bet that this trail sees lots of use, especially during warmer weather, so if solitude is your thing you’ll want to give this one a pass.
This hike was a good way to ease into 2023, and it will be a good way to ease into hiking for nearly anyone if you’re new to the outdoors or if you’ve been out of the hiking game for a few years.
My apologies to anyone who got the reference in the first part of this post’s title, as you no doubt have a soundtrack of adolescent sniggering now playing in the back of your brain. For those of you who didn’t get it, it’s a nod to a catchphrase from MTV’s notorious animated series Beavis and Butt-Head. If you’ve never seen it, count yourself lucky. I thought it was astoundingly stupid when it debuted in 1993. I can’t say I’ve been a regular watcher of the show, but I’ve come to appreciate the satire and social commentary intended by the show’s creator, Mike Judge.
The show centers around two teenage boys who, as Rolling Stone put it, mostly watch heavy metal music videos and go on “mundane, sordid” adventures. Throughout each episode, the characters offer alternately insipid and suggestive dialog, punctuated by continual sniggering at their own jokes, which they don’t even understand. Beavis frequently transforms into an alter ego he calls “The Great Cornholio” whenever he overdoses on caffeine or sugar, during which he pulls his hoodie up over his head and pretty much turns into a raving lunatic.
This is not a television blog, so thanks for sticking with me up to now. This post is about an outing by two 60-somethings, who despite knowing better, turned a routine hike into an adventure though a series of stupid mistakes. Don’t fret — it all turns out fine, but I made an art form out of overthinking and underthinking on this one.
We were really keen to get in a hike prior to Christmas, as we had been caught up in the usual holiday frenzy and needed some outside time. A small window opened in our schedules, along with clear but cool weather after a series of rainy days. I had my eye on a return to Graveyard Fields up in the Pisgah National Forest, where we had previously done part of a loop hike but bailed early due to threatening weather. There’s a waterfall we didn’t get to on that hike, and with the recent rain there would probably be great flow.
However, the rainy stretch had been followed by a cold snap. Though we had stayed ice and snow-free down in Brevard, Graveyard Fields is at a higher elevation, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway. The National Park Service is quick to snap the gates closed on the BRP when it’s icy, so I checked their road conditions web page the day before the hike. It appeared that the stretch including Graveyard Fields was open, but on the eve of our hike below-freezing temperatures were in the forecast. The webpage said it would be updated by 10 am the next day, and since this would be a relatively short hike, close to home, we decided to wait until after 10 to head out, after taking a final check of the road conditions website.
So we slept in and made a leisurely start to the day. I checked the BRP road conditions website at 10 am — no update. Checked again at 10:30 — no update. By 11 am, I made one final check and still no update. At this point, given the uncertainty, we decided to go for a Plan B hike in the nearby DuPont State Forest. There’s still quite a bit of DuPont that we haven’t visited, and the Corn Mill Shoals area is one such example, so I took a quick peek at AllTrails to see if there were any recent problems noted there. I quickly plotted out (mentally) a loop hike that would take us along Big Rock, up Cedar Rock, along the Little River, and back to the trailhead. I then remembered I had downloaded an Avenza map for DuPont onto my phone, so we’d have an excellent GPS-enabled map to track our progress. It would be about 3.6 miles, a nice amble.
The weather, however, posed a bit of a puzzler. It was pretty cold, in the mid-30s, and in that awkward zone where it’s too cold to wear our “technical” bottoms (lightweight, quick-drying trousers), but too warm to go with insulated ski pants. So against our usual practice, we donned jeans for relative warmth and comfort. The map did indicate a couple of creek crossings, but these are usually small or bridged in DuPont, so we didn’t expect to do any wading. We rushed out of the house, to make sure we’d have time to complete the walk well before dark.
The drive to the Corn Mill Shoals parking area was uneventful, and there was only one other car in the large gravel parking area off Cascade Lake Road. I should mention this was at mid-day on a Friday, in a less-popular part of the park, in case you get the impression that DuPont is an easy place to visit. As Yogi Berra famously said, “Nobody ever goes there — it’s too crowded.” This is true for all summer and most weekends at the parking lots with access to the most popular waterfalls. Corn Mill Shoals is more popular among the mountain biking crowd, and is hilly and waterfall-free, so it’s not the first choice for casual visitors.
As is the case in the DuPont trailheads, there’s a large kiosk with maps and information at one end of the parking lot. As is the case in NO OTHER DuPont trailhead, this kiosk is not located where one should actually hike. We found this out the hard way, as I recalled from my previous glance at the map that there’s a creek crossing almost immediately upon starting the hike. We headed down the worn path to the right of the kiosk to a creek with no obvious crossing point and high enough water that would require taking off our boots and rolling up our jeans. We thrashed around for a little while and Ruth found a crossing point upstream a few yards away, and we were finally on our way. Except that the trail on the other side of the creek immediately faded out. Finally in exasperation, I pulled up the Avenza map and discovered that we had stupidly started our hike on the west side of the parking lot when the actual trailhead is across the road! A more careful perusal of the map would have prevented this blunder. I was fuming by then. Maybe the area on the east side of Cascade Lake Road didn’t lend itself to a large parking area, but there was plenty of room to put a kiosk there. Who came up with the decision to put the kiosk literally as far away as possible, Beavis or Butt-Head?
After crossing the road to the obvious start of the Corn Mill Shoals trail, we were finally on our way, immediately crossing a creek routed under the trail in a culvert. So our first creek crossing was barely noticeable. Like several DuPont trails, Corn Mill Shoals is an old gravel road, an erstwhile service road back when the park was in its previous incarnation as a series of industrial facilities. After .1 mile of easy, level walking we reached the junction with the Big Rock trail, which headed off to the northeast and meandered uphill between the imaginatively-named Big Rock and a lobe of Cedar Rock. The slope wasn’t too bad, and we soon noticed an area of bare rock just off the trail to the right. We took a quick look then rejoined the trail, which at this point had shrugged off its soil cover and was just a corridor along the bare rock. At about .5 miles we reached a nice overlook with views to the northwest, and also met a pair of mountain bikers, the only folks we’d see for quite a while.
At .9 miles we reached the junction of the Big Rock and Cedar Rock trails, just past the summit of Cedar Rock. Here we opted to go left, to the east, so we would have a longer loop. Going right (south) at this point would knock about 1.5 miles off the route, if you’re looking for a shorter route. We liked being on top, with a crisp breeze blowing and the bare rock under our feet. The Cedar Rock trail slowly descended its namesake rock, mostly alternating between rocky open clearings and passing through little pine groves. At about 1.6 miles, the trail skirts a powerline cut, with the sound of Bridal Veil Falls below and to the east. The trail quickly ducks back into the trees to the west of the powerline, and ends at the Little River trail at 1.8 miles. The last .2 miles of the trail was a little boggy in places.
Now that we had descended Cedar Rock (never saw any cedar trees, by the way), the next part of the loop was a mostly-level jaunt along the Little River. This may sound delightful, but it’s really not all that scenic. The river is only visible in a couple of places, neither of which is particularly photogenic. With the recent rain the trail was wet in a number of places, with one feeder stream crossing requiring a little bit of navigation to skirt around. The Cedar Rock trail connects to the Little River trail in two places. We had joined from the eastmost junction, and the other end of the Cedar Rock trail joined up at about 2.4 miles. Between those two junctions the map showed a stream crossing, but it was an easy hop.
Wet weather stream crossingLittle RiverStream crossing between the two junctions of Cedar Rock and Little River trails
In the next .5 miles, the Little River trail continues to parallel the river until it curves away to tee into the Corn Mill Shoals trail. At about the halfway point, 2.65 miles into our hike, Tom Creek joins up with an unnamed creek that drains the south side of Big Rock, just west of the Little River trail. On the Avenza map, this is marked with a blue squiggly symbol, which at a glance I had associated with a waterfall. However, flooding on the right of the trail eventually made its way onto the trail itself, which disappeared under a few feet of water. Staring at the map, I at first concluded that the squiggly symbol represented shoals in Little River. Looking a bit to the south on the map, another such symbol spanned the Little River itself, where the Corn Mill Shoals trail crosses the river. Finally it dawned on me that the squiggles represented a major unbridged crossing. Now we had a choice to make — we could wade across Tom Creek to continue on the Little River trail, or turn around and take the western leg of Cedar Rock trail back up to the top and retrace our route down the Big Rock trail. Neither choice was palatable. The retreat would mean another uphill climb for about the same mileage. The creek crossing was relatively short, but also relatively deep, certainly mid-thigh, and we weren’t dressed for such an adventure.
Surprise creek crossing just south of the center of this image
After some debate, we decided that since we were only about a mile from the trailhead, on what would be relatively flat and easy walking, we would take the risk of getting our jeans wet and just ford the creek. Any thoughts of briefly doffing the trousers were quickly squashed by spotting our third human of the day on the other side of the creek. (Side note: here’s a free survival tip should you get lost in DuPont State Recreational Forest. Just drop your pants and I guarantee someone will show up within 30 seconds. I speak from experience. If Nature calls, answer her about 70 yards off-trail, under what cover you can find.)
I took off my boots and socks and tied them around my neck, then stepped into the creek. We had hiking poles for balance, but that first step put me in water up to my shins. About five yards into the crossing, I could hear Beavis cackling, “I am the Great Cornmillio! You’re going to get icy water all the way up to your ….” B&B fans know what word will follow here. For the rest of you, a brief anecdote. One of my daughters had a club soccer coach who was a bit of a character. When one player complained during practice that her knee was hurting, he asked, “Which one? Your low knee or your high knee?” In response to her confused look, he pointed to his knee and said, “low knee,” then pointed to his posterior and said, “high knee” (hiney, to any non-Southern readers out there). To this day, my family refers to the mid-leg joint as the “low knee.”
So at mid-creek, the water was up to my high knee, which meant it could be waist-high for Ruth. Fortunately, she learned from my mistake and took a route through slightly higher terrain so she got soaked just a little south of her high knee. It was about 40 degrees at the time, with little wind. Hiking in wet jeans is definitely not recommended, but the trail immediately widened and we made quick work of the .25 miles until the Little River trail met the Corn Mill Shoals trail. By the way, if you turn left (south) here, you’ll soon come to a major unbridged crossing of the Little River, one that appears on the Pisgah Map Co.’s paper map and the Avenza map, but not on the PDF map on the Friends of DuPont website. Only the Avenza map depicts the high water crossing of Tom Creek.
We turned right (north) here and made quick work (we were motivated!) of the .7 miles back to the parking lot. There was another crossing of Tom Creek on this stretch of the Corn Mill Shoals trail, but the creek ran under the trail via a culvert. It was a soggy ride home, but we weren’t out in the cold for very long. The GPS track says we covered around 3.8 miles.
So this hike was hastily planned and over-reliant on a single map, and we weren’t properly prepared for the conditions. It was poor form for experienced hikers, but we had enough experience to take a calculated risk with the creek crossing. Had it been a wider creek, or had there been more current or uncertain footing, or had it been a longer and/or more difficult route back to the parking lot, we would have (grumpily) climbed Cedar Rock again. On the plus side, we had an adventure that was far from mundane, and despite our stupidity we’ll back back for another episode. And we will almost certainly not be as asinine as a couple of cartoon characters I could mention. (“Heh heh heh. You said ‘ass.'”)
Oh, I nearly forgot — we’re on Instagram now! We plan to post some photos there weekly. If you do the ‘Gram, give us a follow @WoodlandsandWaters2023.
It was a quiet year for our little blog, chugging docilely into its seventh year. As retired persons, Ruth and I have continued pursuing efforts important to us, now that we have leisure time available in nearly unlimited quantity. Now that we do only what we want to, we’ve chosen to throw ourselves into community service activities. We’ve both put in massive hours volunteering for Friends of Silvermont, a local historic mansion and park, and their annual Pumpkin Fest fundraiser. Ruth has been very active in the local chapter of the American Association of University Women (AAUW), a group that I jokingly say runs the town (but they do). I’ve been participating in reader’s theatre at Silvermont (it serves as our local senior center), with a couple of public performances toward the end of the year, and taking a guitar class. Ruth has been one of the organizers of a group to bring together new and established Brevard residents for informal get-to-know-you events. The calendar is surprisingly full.
So as you might guess, we weren’t filling up all our time with hikes and outdoor adventures. But we did manage a few, and we even blogged about some of them. In 2022 we put up 10 posts, as compared to 25 posts in 2021, so our output was way down. A lack of new content to drive people to the site was reflected in our viewing stats, as expected. Even so, in a year in which we put forth minimal effort we still generated 23,133 page views from 12,907 visitors. Compared to last year’s 37,669 views, that’s about a 39% drop. We had 20,283 visitors in 2021, so that’s about a 36% drop in 2022. Considering that we put up less than half the amount of new content, that’s not all that bad. About 97.7% of our views came from the U.S., with views from nine different foreign countries.
We like to track which individual posts had the most views over the year, and once again two perennial favorites emerged to claim the #1 and #2 spots. The evergreen A Comparison of Three Southeastern Hike-in Lodges had 897 views in 2022, just nipping Marker Trees and Indian Tomb Hollow to the top spot with 895 views. These are old posts, so they’ve had plenty of time to get ensconced in search engine results. Our most popular of the 2022 posts was a tie between Local Color: Bracken Mountain Preserve and Next on the Docket: Devil’s Courthouse, each with 40 views. The Bracken Mountain post, from January 2022, documents a November 2021 hike. Our busiest month of 2022 was March, with 2,734 views.
There’s one unique thing about 2022, our first full year in North Carolina. Previously, we blogged on nearly every hike we took. In 2022, we didn’t get out on the trails quite as much, and we blogged about only a handful of our hikes. According to the blog posts, we hiked a total of around 46.73 miles. Ruth keeps a separate spreadsheet to track miles on all hikes, when we remember to record the mileage, and we actually covered around 85.25 miles in 2022. So, roughly speaking, we actually hiked about twice as much as our blog would suggest. Our shortest hike, going by the blog posts, was a 1.5 mile hike at Upper Whitewater Falls in the Nantahala National Forest. Our longest hike was a 7.2 helltrek on the Green River Cove Trail in the Green River Game Land in Polk County, NC. For the first time in the history of the blog, all hikes were done in one state, though we did have a couple of hikes in South Carolina that we didn’t blog about.
Of the hikes that we did blog about, we traveled in a city park, national forests, state forests, game lands, one unit of the NPS, and private preserves. We both had the same favorite hike in 2022 — our little jaunt to Upper Whitewater Falls, described in the post I Found My Thrill. We had done this hike previously, and reluctantly re-visited as part of White Squirrel Hiking Challenge 6. We caught the trail in a magnificent wildflower display, easily the best we’ve seen so far in North Carolina. Speaking of that hiking challenge, completing it was the hiking highlight of the year, with some particularly memorable trips. We’re looking forward to the 7th version of this challenge, and might even go back and finish some of the previous years’ iterations.
I’ve included a few favorite photos from hikes in 2022. Some were included in blog posts, and some are making their debut in this post. We might comb through the archives and write up a few of the 2022 hikes in 2023, or some of those photos and memories will remain unpublished. We do what we want to! But we’re glad that our content from the Tennessee Valley is still being looked at, and hope that over time we’ll build a similar following in North Carolina. Happy 2023 everyone, and get out there and have some outdoor adventures!
Eastatoe Trail, JanuaryHooker Falls, JanuaryLittle Bradley Falls, FebruaryJohn Rock, FebruaryBiltmore Estate, MarchOconee Bell, Devil’s Fork State Park, MarchPearson’s Falls, AprilSam Knob, AprilCatesby’s Trillium, Upper Whitewater Falls, AprilWintergreen Falls, MayGraveyard Fields, AugustFrolictown Falls, AugustGreen River Cove Trail, SeptemberYoungs Mountain, SeptemberReese Place Falls, OctoberHeadwaters State Forest, November
As newcomers to the area, Chet and I are always on the lookout for new-to-us trails to hike and areas to explore. Because of that, Conserving Carolina’s challenges have been a perfect way for us to find out about different trails and challenge ourselves to get out and enjoy them. At the end of last year, we completed their “Flying Squirrel Outdoor Challenge” (see Chet’s post about it here) but we had actually already decided to try to complete their “White Squirrel Hiking Challenge 6.” It seemed extra appropriate since we are now proud residents of Brevard — the city with all the white squirrels! (We call the one in our neighborhood “Cheeky,” in case you were wondering). Unlike the Flying Squirrel Challenge, the White Squirrel Challenge was an all-hiking one and we had to complete all 8 hikes to qualify. We weren’t entirely sure about the timeline for it, but it was announced in October 2021, so we figured we had until October 2022 to complete it.
For those who are not familiar with it, Conserving Carolina is a Land Trust focused on protecting lands in western North Carolina and upstate South Carolina. They cover Polk, Transylvania, and Henderson counties in North Carolina, and also have some properties in surrounding counties. In South Carolina, they have properties along the border as well as in Spartanburg and Greenville Counties. They preserve 47,000 acres, as well as create trails and community parks. Check out their website for more information on all the things they are involved in.
We started our White Squirrel challenge in November of 2021 and completed our final of the 8 hikes in October of 2022.
Here’s a quick overview of all 8 hikes.
Bracken Mountain Preserve
First up was the closest preserve on the list, our very own Bracken Mountain Preserve. Though this is a City of Brevard Park, Conserving Carolina did lend a hand by creating the Pinnacle Trail in 2019. To get credit for the challenge, we had to hike that specific trail, which meant we ended up hiking nearly every trail in the preserve, logging 6.7 miles. It was a glorious fall day and the leaves were absolutely breathtaking, so though some of the trails were steep and our legs were a bit tired by the end, we thoroughly enjoyed the trails and all the informative signage along the way. Check out our blog post here for more details, but these wonderful photos Chet took should give you a taste of what we experienced.
DuPont State Recreational Forest
Next up was another nearby favorite, DuPont State Recreational Forest. Conserving Carolina actually got its start as an organization by playing a major part in the creation of the Forest, so it is a place near and dear to their hearts. The first of two hikes in DuPont for the challenge was a 4 mile loop that included Fawn Lake, Lake Julia, and the old airstrip. Like many others, our forays into DuPont up to that point had been limited to the very popular waterfall trails to Hooker Falls, Triple Falls and High Falls. This hike starts far from the crowds at the Fawn Lake Parking area. This loop was lovely in the fall. The charmingly small Fawn Lake was a jewel reflecting the colors of the surrounding trees, and the airstrip on top of a mountain was a fun surprise! Check out our blog post here for a more detailed description of the hike.
Fawn LakeDuPont AirstripLake Julia
Still in DuPont, the next hike for us was a different way to hike an old favorite waterfall, Hooker Falls. Conserving Carolina helped in the creation of a new route to Hooker Falls using Holly Road. This new route was created to be more sustainable and includes some informational signs about some of the techniques used. Hooker Falls as always did not disappoint.
Bearwallow Mountain
Though our initial hikes were pretty close to home, the next ones took us further afield. First up was a trip to Bearwallow Mountain east of Hendersonville. Here, Conserving Carolina has a conservation easement on 476 acres of land and maintains trails that will eventually form part of the ambitious Hickory Nut Gorge State Trail. This planned network of trails will eventually include more than 100 miles of trail, connecting Bearwallow Mountain with other preserves, like Chimney Rock State Park and Lake Lure. 38 miles of trail have been completed so far and work is continuing on other segments. The trail to Bearwallow Mountain is a perennial favorite — a short 1 mile from the parking lot to the top of the mountain, where hikers are treated to 360 degree views that include Mount Pisgah, Mount Mitchell, and Hickory Nut Gorge. We hiked it on a cold and windy but very clear day and the views were spectacular.
Since we were in the area anyway, we decided to do a two-for-one deal and continued our hike from the top of Bearwallow Mountain to take in the Wildcat Rock Trail Extension. The original Wildcat Rock Trail starts about 2 miles north and east of Bearwallow Mountain and is a challenging 6 mile round trip hike that includes a nice waterfall and a rock outcropping. However, in November 2020 Conserving Carolina completed a 2 mile extension that connects Wildcat Rock Trail to the top of Bearwallow Mountain. Hiking just the extension added another 4 miles (round trip) to our hike, but allowed us to check off both pieces of the challenge.
Whitewater Falls
We had hiked the Foothills Trail from Whitewater Falls down to the Whitewater River in late September on a hot day when we also took in several other waterfalls. Our impression of the trail was that it was pretty hard for us and we were wiped out when we got home. When we saw that this same trail was a part of the hiking challenge we were at first excited that we’d already done one, until we looked at the dates and realized we’d hiked it about 2 weeks too early to “count” for the challenge. We’d have to do it again. Argh! We kept putting it off because we weren’t that excited about hiking it again just to get a checkmark. Our memory of it was that it was pretty steep and rocky and tough going back uphill. However, when we hiked it again in April 2022, it turned out to be one of our favorite hikes. We hit it at the peak of spring ephemerals season and tons of wildflowers just covered the steep hillsides. It was glorious, and somehow didn’t seem all that steep and difficult this time out. Check out Chet’s blog post about it, here.
Green River Cove Trail
Continuing our “farther from home” explorations, we next decided to try Green River Cove Trail in the Green River Game Lands near Saluda. We had tried to get to this trail in the spring, only to discover that after driving down possibly the windiest road I’ve ever been on, the road was actually closed because a bridge at the bottom was out. To be fair, we’d ignored the “Road Closed” signs because it looked to us like they’d been moved aside and were no longer applicable. We were very wrong though. All was not lost, as we ended up seeing Little Bradley Falls on the map and had a lovely hike there that day. Months later, we decided to try Green River again, this time taking a longer route that avoided the 10 hairpin turns we’d gone down before. All went well this trip and we arrived at the trailhead ready to hike what we’d thought would be a long but easy hike along the Green River. We were wrong. It was long — 7.2 miles instead of the advertised 6.5 — and yes it did follow the Green River, but frequently not at river level. It was a lot more up and down than we were mentally prepared for, plus there were several blowdowns that we had to navigate around or climb over. I think it’s fair to say that this trail was our least favorite of the batch.
Youngs Mountain Trail
Our final trail for the challenge was one that required a bit of planning. Because the trailhead is actually in a gated neighborhood, you need to register in advance to get the gate code. We registered for a day in the middle of the week in the fall and got a response with the gate code very quickly, though so don’t let that requirement hold you back. Youngs Mountain Trail, near Lake Lure and Chimney Rock, is the newest link built as part of the planned Hickory Nut Gorge State Trail. It is fairly short — 4.2 miles round trip — but for me this was the most physically challenging trail of the year. It starts benignly enough, but of the roughly 2 miles to the top, the middle 1 mile gains something like 1200 feet in elevation. It’s very steep and for me I was not prepared for it. By the time we got to near the top, I was stopping frequently and just willing my legs to keep going. Even with all that whining, I have to say the view from the top was totally worth it.
And with that, we’d done it! Another hiking challenge in the books – and another cute patch for our hiking patch display.
Even casual readers of this blog will have gathered that Ruth and I are wildflower enthusiasts. Often, I remember hikes that we’ve done by recalling particularly memorable flowers. I might not remember the name of the trail, but I’ll say, “You know, the one with blue-eyed mary,” and Ruth will say “Taylor Hollow.” Or, “You know, that hike where it rained and I was miserable, but then we saw that flame azalea,” and Ruth will say, “Curry Mountain.”
Blue Eyed MaryFlame azalea (Rhododendron calendulaceum)
After years of hiking in the Tennessee Valley, we got to the point that we knew many of the local wildflower hot spots, and even began to time visits so that we could see particular displays, such as the Virginia bluebells on the Sinks Trail at Monte Sano State Park in Huntsville or French’s shooting star at Cane Creek Canyon Nature Preserve.
Virginia BluebellFrench’s shooting star
When we moved to western North Carolina last year, we arrived after the peak of the spring ephemerals, and what with the hurly-burly of moving and getting established, we didn’t get out on the trails as much as we would have liked. However, we were ready to see what WNC had to offer by spring 2022, so we hit the trails more frequently. It turns out that WNC is a little slower to reveal its charms, as compared to north Alabama, but that’s probably due to the higher altitude here.
There was one wildflower in particular we were keen to see — the gorgeous painted trillium (Trillium undulatum). We had noticed on a late-summer hike on the Pink Beds Loop trail obvious trilliums with relatively large scarlet fruit, which we tentatively identified as painted trillium, and made mental notes to come back in the spring to confirm our theory. After a visit to Pearson’s Falls in Saluda (which we’ll write about in a separate post) in early April, in which we saw three different trillium species in bloom (but not painted trilliums), we guessed that it must be trillium season so we planned a return trip to Pink Beds. But before then, we wanted to knock off another hike in the Conserving Carolina White Squirrel hiking challenge — a return trip to Upper Whitewater Falls. We had previously hiked here in September 2021, before the hiking challenge was officially underway, so this was just a formality so we could check it off the list.
Painted trillium, from a hike years ago in the Smokies
Our return to Upper Whitewater Falls on April 15 began with the usual pause to admire this stunning waterfall at the second (lower) observation deck before we left the crowds to continue our descent to the Whitewater River on the spur trail that connects to the Foothills trail. To be honest, we weren’t terrifically excited about this hike as it was familiar ground to us, but it was a beautiful day and we were feeling good.
And then, serendipity struck. Our previous hike here was in the fall, and we didn’t notice that the trail was just festooned with wildflowers. We were barely off the observation platform before I spotted trailing arbutus clinging to some rocks, and halberd leaf yellow violets were abundant.
Trailing arbutusHalberd leaf yellow violet
The trail soon began a series of switchbacks on its way into the gorge, and as we came around a bend, to my delighted surprise I spotted my personal favorite among the trillium species, a stand of Catesby’s trilliums (Trillium catesbaei). This is a demure little beauty, with the flower hanging below the leaves, and the pink (or sometimes white) petals recurving, as if it is peering up at you bashfully. In fact, one common name for this wildflower is bashful wakerobin, and it’s also called a rose trillium due to its delicate color.
Just moments after finding this stand of Catesby’s trilliums, we came across a stand of yellow trilliums. With its mottled leaves and the flower sitting on top, this is an example of another main trillium subgenus, the sessile trilliums.
Yellow trillium (Trillium luteum)
These were two lovely finds, but as it turns out these were far from isolated stands. The spur trail joined the Foothills Trail, and as we continued down into the gorge there were numerous examples of yellow and Catesby’s trilliums, nearly the entire length of the trail segment down to the Whitewater River. They often grew next to each other, and each stand of flowers seemed better than the last.
We were so taken aback at this abundance of trilliums that we gave scant attention to other more familiar wildflowers in the white and green palette, such as foamflower and false Solomon’s seal and sweet white violet and wood anemone. But they too were part of this botanical symphony, and a most welcome sight.
FoamflowerFalse Solomon’s sealSweet white violetWood anemone
This hike had far exceeded our expectations, but as it turned out there was another astonishment to come. At a bend in the trail, I spotted a dash of color off to the left and upon investigation found the first of several Vasey’s trilliums (Trillium vaseyi) that we would see toward the bottom of the gorge. This brilliant dark red variety with lush petals is a real stunner.
At this point, the song sprung unbidden to my lips: “I found my thrill on trillium hill.” Technically, we were descending the northeast slope of Grassy Knob, but forever this shall be known to me as Trillium Hill.
Finally, we reached the bottom of the gorge, at about .75 miles, where we found the river tumbling along nicely among the boulders, with the steel bridge still in place over it (albeit still requiring a rock scramble to reach it). Since we had already done that part of the hike, we turned back here and headed uphill. Though the trilliums had petered out just below the bottom of the gorge, there were still a few other wildflowers in bloom near the river — cancer root, quaker ladies, and wild oats. And sharp-eyed Ruth spotted a very nice jack in the pulpit.
Cancer rootQuaker ladiesWild oatsJack in the pulpit
The ascent back to the parking lot seemed to fly by, as we knew we’d get another chance to admire the trilliums along the way. We had crossed another hike off the White Squirrel challenge, but got so much more out of this hike than just a checkmark.
No doubt, I’ll be recalling this hike at some point in the future, and will say, “You know, trillium hill,” and Ruth will say “Upper Whitewater Falls,” and we’ll both smile fondly. We probably won’t remember that we didn’t see a single painted trillium. And we never even missed them.
Woodlands and Waters 