Big Creek Wildflowers

Although we had not gotten rained on at all on Saturday, there was a wicked storm overnight. I woke up at some point in the middle of the night to ground-shaking thunder, bright flashes of lightning and torrential rain. It sounded like a warzone outside, but I was able to fall back asleep quickly. By morning, the storms had passed and it was dry again. However, the heavy rain overnight had increased water levels and Big Creek was flowing pretty hard.

We had a light breakfast and then broke camp and made the short drive to the Big Creek parking area. From here, we started hiking up Big Creek Trail. Like yesterday, the forest floor was ablaze with wildflowers, though I don’t think anywhere could be as impressive as the area around Little Fall Branch. In a little over a mile, I stopped to see a nice cascading falls along Kirby Branch right alongside the trail.

I doubt this would be noticeable had we not got the overnight rain storm. From here, a path led down to Big Creek and I scrambled down expecting to see Midnight Hole.

We hadn't quite made it there yet, but the cascade on Big Creek was quite scenic, especially in high water. Shortly after this point, we took a quick detour down to see Midnight Hole.

This is a 6-foot waterfall between two huge boulders. It’s a small waterfall, perhaps a stretch calling it one, but the pool at the base makes a great swim hole. It was too cold for swimming today, however. Then we continued another half-mile to Mouse Creek Falls.

It’s a scenic 45-foot waterfall on Mouse Creek right where the creek flows into Big Creek. With the recent rains, the waterfall was a raging torrent and quite beautiful. I climbed down on the rocks for some pictures and we ate a snack here. We also saw some interesting fungi growing on a tree right here.

Another gentleman came by for some pictures and we stopped to talk to him for a bit. He was on a wildflower mission, so we told him about the Harmon Den area and how beautiful the flowers were there, so he took our advice and would be heading there next. Although we had gotten our waterfall for the day, it was still early and we weren’t ready to head home yet.

We continued up the trail, crossing the bridge over Big Creek and continuing upstream on the opposite side of the creek.

There were some very scenic spots where we scrambled off the trail to get views of the creek.

We saw a giant rock in the middle of the creek that looked remarkably like a pyramid.

At another point, the water fell between some huge boulders and seemed to be coming from nowhere. As we were getting ready to turn around, we found a large patch of dwarf crested irises right along the trail.

The storms had beaten them down a bit, but they were still quite beautiful. About a mile or so past Mouse Creek Falls, we turned around and started making the hike back towards the car, stopping a few times to see the wildflowers.

There were some showy orchis blooming along the trail as wells as some flowering woodland stone crop growing in the rock faces along the trail.

It drizzled a bit on the way back, but nothing heavy and soon we were back.

We started making the drive home along I-40 east, stopping at Las Salsas in Morganton for a delicious Mexican dinner before heading home.