Burnthouse Branch Falls Attempt

Monday morning, we woke up and broke camp. When we had everything packed up, we got on NC-181 and started heading south about 12 miles past the Blue Ridge Parkway. Here, we turned left onto FR 982 and went about a mile and a half, turning left on another forest road (not sure the number of this one) and went about 2 miles upstream alongside Upper Creek. There are several great primitive campsites along this road and not surprisingly, all were occupied on this holiday weekend. We stopped at the end of the road before a big jeep mound and started our hike. We were headed to the Waterfall on Burnthouse Branch, a tributary of Upper Creek. According to Kevin Adams’ book, the waterfall was a little over 2 miles from the trailhead and at the end we’d have to go down steeply to the creek and then rock-hop upstream a bit to see the waterfall. The trail was easy at first, continuing along the gravel road for a little bit over a half-mile. Then it became more of a hiking trail, somewhat overgrown, but easy to follow. After a mile or so, the trail become more narrow and steep as it hugged the ridgeline above Upper Creek. It was still pretty easy to follow though and there was some marking tape along the way. When we had gone about 2 miles, the trail mostly ended and the flagging tape indicated that we needed to go down. This bushwhack down to the base was extremely difficult, steep, and overgrown, but soon we made it down to creek level.

I was a little confused as I thought we were on Upper Creek, not Burnthouse Branch, but we had followed the marking tape, had gone about the right distance, and had to rock-hop upstream a bit to see a not-so-impressive waterfall. Kevin Adams had rated it a 2, so I wasn’t really expecting much.

We relaxed a bit down here, got some photos, and saw some a cute lizard sunning himself on the rocks.

When we were ready, we had to make the tremendously difficult bushwhack back up to the trail. After much trial and error and a few slips, we finally made it back to the trail, which seemed so much easier hiking back. We stopped a few times to go down to the creek and get some shots of some cascades and small falls along Upper Creek and then made it back to the car. We were so tired from the bushwhacking earlier, we decided to finish up and start heading home. Once we got to cell reception area, I checked on a picture of Waterfall on Burnthouse Branch and sure enough, we had gotten the wrong waterfall. All that effort and we didn’t even get it. Well, I guess that means we’ll just have to come back. In Morganton, we had a late lunch/early dinner at Las Salsas, my favorite Mexican restaurant, and then headed home after a great holiday weekend.