Redwood Road Detour

Saturday, we took Alex for a hike at Falls Lake Trail.  Last year on my Falls Lake hike, a sinkhole had formed in Redwood Road.

It was closed to traffic, but we could hike it to connect sections 17 and 18.  Since then, the road has been completely removed and there is no way to cross, on foot or otherwise.  Initially, there was a 7 mile road walk to detour around for the Mountains-to-Sea Trail.  Now, there is a 2-mile trail hike for a detour, so we went out to check it out.  We parked on Hereford Road at the east trailhead for section 17.  This section is a little over a mile and we came out at Redwood Road.  To the right, the road was barricaded, but a blue-blazed trail picked up across the street.  The trail was very well blazed and easy to follow heading upstream on Panther Creek.  About a mile up at the creek crossing, there was no reasonable way across.

So we bushwhacked upstream to just past an island in the creek and found an easy to cross and stay dry.  Continuing through the woods a short ways, we came to an old abandoned railway and turned right.  This old railway went all the way to Redwood Road on the other side of the gap.

Part of the way down, was the remains of an old bridge - much safer to just go around this one.

As we got to Redwood Road, I went out to the lake, since the water was so low to get a picture of Redwood Road.

We continued on sections 18 and 19 and went as far as the tunnel under I-85 before turning around.

Lower Haw River Hike

I had Friday off for the holiday weekend, so Sandy and I took Alex to Lower Haw River State Natural Area for a hike.  We took US-64 west past Jordan Lake and once across Haw River, made a U-turn, crossing the river again in the eastbound direction.  A small pull-off was on the right immediately back across the river.  We parked here and followed a trail down towards the river and under the highway.  There's no official trail, but the "social" trail was very easy to follow the river upstream.  The Haw is very rocky and the water level was low so there were a number of spots to head out into the river for a picture.

Soon we came to the first of three tributary crossings.  The water level was low, but the banks were steep so we had to go upstream a little ways to find a way across.  There were a lot of downed tree over the trail, which I would have expected given the trail is not maintained.  But there's another reason there are so many trees down - beavers.

The beavers had clearly been busy taking down trees along the river here.  A little further up, we came to a real scenic cascades in the river next to an island.

Continuing north, we reached the last creek crossing at Pokeberry Creek.  Unlike the previous ones, this creek had a good amount of water.

We followed the path upstream a ways to where we could get down to creek level and rock hop across.  From here it was only another mile or so to the north trailhead in Bynum.  When we got here, we continued a little further to the Old Bynum Bridge.  In the past, cars could drive over, but the barricaded it so only pedestrians can cross now.  We went out on the bridge to where we could see the US-15/US-501 bridge over the Haw River.

A little further back, there was a nice view of the river where the road was not visible.

We had a snack and then started making our way back.

All three of us had worked up an appetite by the time we got back, so we stopped at Grill and Go and got lunch, including a hot dog for Alex.