Badin Lake Hike

Friday, I headed to the Uwharrie mountains for a long weekend of hiking and camping.  Sandy had to work at the last minute I so I went out solo.  I left pretty early and arrived at Badin Lake Recreation Area in Uwharrie National Forest around 8.  I parked along the road and picked up Home Trail (#710) to Canebrake Horse Camp and then got on Josh Trail (#702).

These multi-use trails were rather hard to follow for horse trails and I inadvertently got off several times.  After crossing the paved Forest Road 544 twice, I got on Blackburn Trail (#701) that made a loop, passing West Branch Moccasin Creek.

I also took Greg's Loop (#700) and found some rocks to take a break and have a snack.

Then I finished the loops up back on Josh Trail.  This trail ended near Badin Lake Trail (#94), a hiking only trail that led along the lake.

There were several really scenic spots to view the lake.  The trail passed by King's Mountain Point and Badin Lake Campground.

At the southern end, it went through Arrowhead Campground and then finished up the loop.  I took Josh Trail and Home Trail back to the start.

From here, I headed to Morrow Mountain State Park and set up camp.  It was little chilly at night, so I built a nice campfire.

Morrow Mountain Peaks

Saturday, Sandy had the day off so we took Alex to Morrow Mountain State Park for a couple hikes.  It rained quite a bit on the way down, but died down when we crossed the bridge into Stanly County.  We first parked at the visitor center to get a stamp for Alex's passport.

From here, we followed the Morrow Mountain Trail south towards the park's namesake.  It wasn't particularly hot, but very humid and steamy.  In about 2 miles, the trail got real steep as we headed up Morrow Mountain and approached the road.  This trail then ended and we went right on Mountain Loop Trail.  Soon we made it to the overlook at the summit.

We stopped for a bit as there was a nice breeze up here.  Then we continued on the loop trail around the summit of the mountain.  Some open spots along the trail made for great views of the surrounding countryside.

After finishing the loop, we followed Morrow Mountain Trail back down the mountain and returned to the parking area.  Continuing through the park, we stopped at the boathouse parking for another hike.  At the far end of the parking lot, we picked up Fall Mountain Trail.  The trail starts out along following the shoreline of Yadkin River just upstream of the confluence with Uwharrie River.

Views of the river were very pretty and some mountain laurel were blooming.  After following the river for a while, it crosses a tributary and begins following it upstream and away from the river.  There were some spiderwort blooming along the trail here.

The trail got steeper and eventually a series of switchbacks led up to the summit of Fall Mountain.  Unlike Morrow, it was completely forested and there were no views with the foliage out.  Alex was getting hot so we took a break up here and then headed back down the mountain.

Leaving the park, we wanted to make one more stop on the way home so headed to Badin Lake Recreation Area in Uwharrie National Forest, just across the river.  We followed FR-576 for about 7 miles to where it crossed a small tributary.  Parking just after crossing, we followed a path down to a campsite and then to a nice overlook of Yadkin River between the dams.

The tributary we had crossed makes a small waterfall in two sections here and we scrambled down to a spot at the top of the lower main section.

It was good to come here after the recent rains as this tributary is very small.  The upper section is a rocky 10 foot drop.

The lower section is maybe 20 feet but I'm not sure how to view is well except by boat.

I climbed as far down as I could to get a view from the side but couldn't get any further down.

After some pictures, we headed back and made the drive home.  We stopped at Cook Out for dinner and Alex got a hot dog.