Morrow Mountain Bridle Trails

Saturday morning was quite chilly when I woke up.  I had a quick breakfast and drove to the Kron House parking at Morrow Mountain State Park.  Dr. Kron was the first trained doctor in the area and built his homestead in what is now the park.

A reconstructed house, greenhouse, and office were here for visitors to get a glimpse into the history of the area.

After some pictures, I followed the road past the gate and picked up the Bridle Trail Long Loop.

In a couple miles, I came to Rocks Trail and went left and followed the trail to the end.  A rock outcrop provided nice views over the Pee Dee River.

I had to climb down the rocks for an unobstructed view.

In a few more miles, the Duck Blind Cove Spur led out to another nice view of the river.

At the Bridle Middle Loop, I went left again and took the Mountain Creek Spur out to where the creek flowed into Lake Tillery.

Continuing on the bridle trails, I finished up the Middle and Short Loops and back to Long Loop.  There was some holly with lots of bright red berries along the trail.

I finished the long loop back up at the Kron Homestead.

The hike was bit longer than planned and I was really hungry, so drove into Albemarle for dinner and then back to camp.  I got some more firewood and built another big fire before retiring for the evening.

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.

White Pines and Morrow Mountain

Yesterday, we started our plan to do monthly hikes from Joe Miller's book, 100 Classic Hikes in NC. This month, we tackled hikes 35 and 44. We started with White Pines Nature Preserve, south of Pittsboro. From the parking lot, we hiked the Gilbert Yager Trail to add a little distance to this hike.

Then we turned right onto White Pines Trail and then right again onto the River Trail until we reached the Deep River.

We followed the River Trail to where the Deep and Rocky Rivers meet then turned left to continue along the River Trail along the Rocky River.

At the end, we took the short Schoolkids Trail in a short loop to see the remnants of the Old Cable Bridge. We took the River Trail back up to the White Pines Trail and back to the parking lot to complete this hike.  Then we headed to Morrow Mountain State Park.  We parked at the Horse Trailer parking lot and hiked the Sugarloaf Mountain Trail in the counterclockwise direction until intersecting the Morrow Mountain Trail.

We followed this surprisingly strenuous trail up to the summit of Morrow Mountain.

A short section of this trail has nearly 500 feet of elevation gain in a half mile. At the top we headed over to the scenic overlook for some pictures then took the Mountain Loop Trail around the summit to meet up with the Morrow Mountain Trail to head back down.

It was just as difficult going back down - this time hard on the knees instead of the lungs. When we met back up with the Sugarloaf Trail, we turned right and traveled a while before another steep slope up to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain. We went the opposite direction as suggested by Joe Miller and know I know why he suggested the way he did - the Sugarloaf Trail is much steeper going counterclockwise. At the top of Sugarloaf Mountain, it started to rain a bit, so we quickly headed down the more gradual slope down the mountain and back to the parking lot. Back in Cary, we had beer and wings and celebrated completing the first two of one hundred hikes from the book.