Repeat Adventure

For the Labor Day weekend, Sandy and I headed out to the Wilson Creek area to get some more waterfalls, mostly ones that I already had, but she did not. We left early Saturday morning and started heading west on I-40. We got off the interstate in Morganton and stopped at Subway to pick up a couple footlong subs - our lunch and dinner for the day. Then we continued on NC-181 into the mountains, turning right on Forest Road 982. After about a mile, we crossed Upper Creek and turned left on Forest Road 197. About half-way down this road, we spotted an open campsite and stopped to claim it. This was a lovely campsite across the road from Upper Creek with a decent parking area and a huge open, flat space for tents. It’s one of my favorite primitive camping sites in the forest. Unfortunately, whoever had camped here previously left a huge mess. We were in a hurry, so we set up our tent, and then continued up FR197 to the end. It seems that the Forest Road used to continue a little further, but part of the road washed out so the Forest Service built a jeep mound further back. We parked before the jeep mound and started hiking up road. In about a half-mile, there was another nice campsite and the road becomes more like a trail. Although there are no signs or blazes, I believe that this is Greentown Shortcut Trail (#268A). Although it may be an “official” trail listed on the Forest Service's website, it is clearly not maintained and has become very much overgrown with poison ivy, stinging nettle, and various other plants. And since this trail is not well-used, we also had to make our way through countless spider webs across the trail. The trail is rather scenic as it follows Upper Creek upstream past countless small cascades and tumbles, but we were too busy cutting through spider webs, trying to avoid noxious plants, and swatting at pesky insects to really enjoy the trail. The high temperatures and humidity didn’t make it any easier. The trail also becomes progressively more difficult. Initially, the trail seems to continue following an old and very overgrown logging road, then becomes more of a hiking trail. It becomes ever more steep and narrow and finally near the end, heads up to a ridgeline then back down to creek level, just before crossing over Burnthouse Branch. From here, we made our way through a mess of downed trees and then rock-hopped up to the base of Waterfall on Burnthouse Branch.

Sandy and I had attempted to visit this waterfall on Memorial Day, but were unable to find it. I had come back a few weeks later to get it, and now Sandy has gotten it too.

Good thing, as I was getting a little tired of hiking this very overgrown trail, now on my third time this summer. We climbed up onto some rocks near the base and ate half of our subs for a late lunch while enjoying the view of this waterfall. It’s a rather interesting waterfall. The water flows down a cliff face about 25 feet in two streams and then tumbles under and around a bunch of moss-covered boulders. In a few places, the water appears to be seeping out of the moss.

It’s hard to get a good picture, though. The cliff face that the water flows down is in the shadows while the top of the cliff is in direct sun. I might have to return early in the morning to try and get a better picture.

When we finished eating and getting some pictures, we started making our way back. Fortunately, the hike back gets progressively easier. We had to hike up to the ridgeline at the start, but it was all downhill from there. The trail got less steep and less narrow as we hiked, soon becoming an old logging road and then back to the car. The end of the Forest Road was surprisingly crowded with cars as quite a few families were here, enjoying the nice swimming holes on Upper Creek. We talked to a one man who asked about the waterfall and other swimming holes further up the creek. From here, we passed our campsite and drove back to NC-181, turning left and then an immediate right on Forest Road 228. It’s about 4 miles to the end of this narrow, gravel road. Towards the end, there are a bunch of big primitive campsites that were occupied by a very large number of campers. I’ve never really wanted to camp down here as the sites are just too overcrowded, each with five or six vehicles and probably more than a dozen campers. We parked at the end of the road and hiked along Steels Creek Trail (#237). In a quarter-mile, we came to a creek crossing at a nice swim hole. A guy here used the rope swing to dive into the pool at the base of a cascade. We were hot and sweaty, but the water looked a little shallow for diving. We crossed the creek and turned right on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail where the two trails join together.

The trail dips down to creek level, where we stopped to see some pretty cardinal flowers blooming on the water's edge, then climbs up to a ridge through dense stinging nettle.

We hiked cautiously to avoid any painful contact. Soon we reached the scramble path to Waterfall on Steels Creek. Due to recent rains, the rocks were wet and getting out to a good viewpoint for the waterfall was tricky, so we scrambled down slowly and cautiously.

We got a couple pictures of the waterfall and then made our way back. We were considering trying to figure out how to get to the lower section of the waterfall, but it was getting late in the evening and would likely be dangerous and everything was wet.  As we got back to camp, two Forest Rangers stopped by our campsite. We explained to them that all the garbage was here when we arrived and we promised to clean up as much as we could. Not planning for a litter clean up, we didn’t have many trash bags, but we did try to pick up as much garbage as we could. We built a nice campfire and ate the second half of our subs for dinner before turning in for the night.