Goose Creek Hike

This past Saturday, I headed to the coastal plain of eastern North Carolina for some hiking at Goose Creek State Park. I met up with Jason, Anna, and Shawna in Durham at around 7 and we carpooled out to the park, arriving just after 9. There was a trail race at the park and it was quite crowded. The parking lots were full, so we had to park along the side of the road just past the picnic area then waited for a while at the visitor center for everyone else in the group to arrive.

Once everyone was ready, we headed off hiking down the Palmetto Boardwalk Trail. This trail is only about a half-mile and nearly the entire trail is a boardwalk over a swampy area.

The trail race was almost finished, but we passed a few stragglers hiking down the boardwalk. At the end of this trail, we turned left to start hiking the Tar-Kiln Trail.

This is the newest of the park’s trails and leads from the boardwalk towards Mallard Creek. There are the remains of several old tar kilns along this trail.

At the first, we stopped for a few minutes and Bill gave a brief history lesson about how tar kilns work and the importance of the logging industry and specifically, tar and pitch, to the area. We also learned where the term "tar heel" came from. From here, we continued on a to the end of the trail and turned left onto Mallard Creek Trail.

It was only about a quarter-mile to the end of the trail at its namesake creek, but it was a particularly scenic section of trail with the trees draped in Spanish moss.

The trail ends at an overlook on Mallard Creek with nice views of the wide marshy creek.

We returned on the trail and took the short Huckleberry Trail to Live Oak Trail, passing an old cemetery dating to the late 19th century.

Not much is known about the cemetery or those who are buried there, but it's believed that there was a disease outbreak across the Pamlico River and people buried there loved ones across the river to prevent the spread of disease.

Past the cemetery, the Live Oak Trail runs along the shore of Pamlico River and there were some beautiful spots along the narrow sandy beach.

Although it was a little cool out, the sky was clear and the river was beautiful from the beach, lined with Live Oaks and Cypress trees draped in Spanish Moss.

One tree had the beautiful orange leaves of autumn with much Spanish Moss draped in between - I had never seen the combination of fall color and Spanish Moss before and it was gorgeous.

We ate lunch at the picnic area here and then got on Goose Creek Trail heading northwest.

The trail was mostly a sandy path heading through a pine forest with a couple spots of boardwalk traversing black gum and cypress swamps. As we approached the campground, we turned left onto Flatty Creek Trail and hiked the loop out to the overlook near where Flatty Creek joins Pamlico River.

Heading back, we turned left back on Goose Creek Trail and followed it to the end past the campground where Goose Creek feeds into Pamlico River. There was a really cool tree here at the edge of the water.

Much of the earth that anchored the tree in place had eroded and the roots were clearly visible. Vertical roots went straight down into the sandy soil and horizontal roots went across, connecting to the edge of the ground. There was several feet between the river bank and the base of the tree where the roots emerged and we climbed up onto the tree. After getting some pictures here, we hiked back along the campground road and turned left onto Ivey Gut Trail and followed this trail back to the start.

Where the trail crossed the main road, there were cute little stop signs at the trail crossing. Back at the Palmetto Boardwalk, we turned left to follow this back to the visitor center and finish our hike.

Clemmons Forest Hike

This past Saturday, I headed over to Clemmons Educational State Forest near Clayton for an afternoon hike. Betsy was leading the hike and there were about 15 of us participating. The forest doesn't open until 11, so we got started around 1130. We started off from the Water Quality Deck near the pond and got some pictures of the nice fall color on the pond.

The still waters on the pond made an almost perfect mirror, reflecting the vibrant colors of the tress along the shore. Walking past the pond, we got on the Talking Rock Trail and listened to some of the interpretive displays describing the geology of the area. We also saw the oldest loblolly pine in the forest along this trail.

After finishing the short loop, we started hiking the Demonstration Trail, making a quick stop to see an old pine straw baler just off the trail.

Shortly after this detour, we hiked through an area near Beddingfield Creek where a large number of ferns were growing in the floodplain of the creek.

The Demonstration Trail makes a double loop and at the far end, we got on the Watershed Extension Loop that runs along the northern perimeter of the forest. There was some nice fall color along this area as we hiked along creeks and through powerline clearings.

Much of the best fall color to be seen was along these clearings with bright orange and red leaves lining the edges of the clearings.

Betsy was planning to do a “scavenger hunt” hike to find mushrooms in the forest. However, with the cold weather, there weren't a lot of fungi growing, though we did see some pretty turkey trail right in the middle of the trail.

Over half-way through the Watershed Extension Loop, there was a stream crossing over Mike's Creek and I saw a guy that looked an awful lot like Bill hiking up the other way. Turns out it was Bill! He decided to join us and caught up by hiking the trail in the opposite direction. When we finished out the loop and got back on the Demonstration Trail, we made a stop for lunch and snacks, then finished up the loop back at the parking area. After our hike, about half of us were a little thirsty so we headed to Deep River Brewing Company in Clayton for some after-hike drinks!

Two Seasons in One Day

The weather forecast was calling for a winter storm in the mountains on Saturday, so I wanted to head out and see the first snow of the season! I met up with Chris early in Chapel Hill and we started heading west. It was raining most of the way out, but started getting crispy as we headed up in elevation. As we approached Boone on US-421, it became undeniably snow. The snowplows were out and the relatively warm ground kept much snow from sticking to the roads at least. We continued on, getting on US-19E in Elk Park and made a quick stop at Elk Falls near the Tennessee state line. Surprisingly, Elk River Road leading to the falls was pretty clear of snow, even the last stretch of gravel forest road. We parked at the end and made the short hike along Big Falls Trail (#172). Even most of the trail was clear of snow, though the trees and plants around the were pretty well covered and it made for a lovely scene.

We hiked down to the base of the falls and carefully crept out onto the big rock to get some pictures of this beautiful waterfall in the snow.

It was a really beautiful sight and despite the snow, wasn't too terribly cold.

Then we headed back to the car and got back on the highway to Tennessee. In Roan Mountain, we turned on TN-143 and drove past Roan Mountain State Park up to Carver’s Gap. As we rose in elevation, the snow became heavier, the visibility decreased, and the road conditions deteriorated. But even at the high elevations, the road conditions were good enough and we didn’t have any trouble getting up the mountain by driving slowly and cautiously. As we reached Carver’s Gap, the weather seemed to get worse and it was almost whiteout conditions.

A Forest Service sign here had a thermometer attached, indicating the temperature was a chilly 18°F. With strong wind gusts, it felt even colder. There was also a sign notifying AT through-hikers of the storm and suggesting that they take shelter. Rangers were patrolling the area looking for people in distress as this storm had come about rather quickly and those on the trail might be completely unaware of the danger. Fortunately, Chris and I were prepared with very warm clothing, so once we got our stuff together, we set out on the Appalachian Trail heading northbound towards Round Bald. The wind was brutal but we were able to get a bit of shelter hiking through a section of spruce forest, where the trees absorbed most of the wind.

We went a little further past the forested area and got a couple pictures of the snowy scenes but the wind gusts were strong and so after a few pictures, we quickly made our way back to the car.

From here, we headed back into North Carolina. By the time we got to Bakersville, the snow was mostly gone and by Spruce Pine, there was no snow on the ground or in the trees. We continued to NC-181 and took that highway south towards Morganton. By this point, it was looking like fall again, not winter.

We made a quick stop at the Brown Mountain Overlook, which had fantastic views of fall color looking towards the Wilson Creek area.

Past the overlook, we took Brown Mountain Beach Road into the Wilson Creek area. I’ve been to this area countless times hunting for waterfalls, but I’ve never taken the time to stop and enjoy Wilson Creek itself.

We stopped at two spots along the road and scrambled down to the creek to get some pictures of the beautiful fall foliage on the creek.  Ten Foot Falls is a small waterfall on the creek.

It was truly amazing to me what a difference there was between this area and the Roan Mountain area. We saw two distinct seasons within the period of a couple hours!

One More Waterfall!

At this point, everybody was ready to quit. But Sandy and I are true waterfall heroes and we weren't done yet - there's always time for one more waterfall. So just the two of us, continued heading east on the highway and got off I-40 in Morganton and headed to South Mountains State Park. Fall color was peaking at these lower elevations, so it wasn’t surprising that the park was very crowded. After finding a parking spot at the Jacob Fork parking area, we hiked the High Shoals Falls Loop Trail to the waterfall.

The trail starts out following an old road and becomes more of a trail as it follows Jacob Fork upstream. As we approached the falls, the trail crossed the creek and headed up via stairs and rocks. This last section was a bit strenuous after all the climbing and elevation gain we had done for the week. After one last climb, we made it to the wooden platform at the base of the falls and got a couple of pictures of this scenic 50-foot waterfall.

We didn't linger too long as it was very crowded and we were both getting quite hungry. Back at the car, we headed into Morganton for a delicious meal of fajitas at our favorite Mexican restaurant - Las Salsas. A fitting end to a heroic week of hiking and waterfalls.

Soco and Catawba Falls

Sunday was our last day of adventure. We woke up early and broke camp for the last time and left Smokemont. We were heading east, but to avoid traffic in Cherokee, we got on the Blue Ridge Parkway to bypass tourist traffic. The early morning views along the parkway were very pretty. We got off the parkway at US-19 near Soco Gap and backtracked about a mile and a half to the pulloff for Soco Falls. Sandy and I had visited this waterfall several years ago in the snow and it was quite pretty, but we weren’t able to get down to the base, so this was our goal today with the nicer weather. We stopped briefly at the wooden overlook, but the views here are partially obscured by foliage and we could only see the larger of the two falls on Soco Creek.

A scramble path leads down to the base and there was rope tied to trees for assistance. At the base, we could see both of the beautiful waterfalls after a steep climb down.

After a couple minutes, we headed back up and continued driving east. From I-40 near Old Fort, we took exit 73 and made a sharp right onto Catawba Falls Road, following it to the end. The bridge to the Forest Service parking area is still under construction so we had to park on the side of the road here. And we weren’t the only ones visiting Catawba Falls today - there were more than a dozen other cars here. We got our stuff together and started hiking across the bridge and the parking lot that will hopefully soon be open. Almost immediately, we had to cross Catawba River. A few in the group were concerned about getting wet on this crossing so Shung stood in the middle of the river and moved some rocks around to make the crossing easier.

We continued up the trail as it followed Catawba River upstream, with another crossing over Clover Patch Branch just before a small waterfall at the ruins of an old dam and power station. Then there was another crossing over Chestnut Branch before reaching Catawba Falls.

Even before the falls, there were some very pretty cascades and small falls on the river. Catawba Falls is a big cascading waterfall, probably over 100 feet tall.

It’s not possible to see the entire thing and the fall foliage, while beautiful in color, made seeing the falls more difficult. After a couple of pictures, we then climbed the very steep trail alongside the falls that eventually reaches Upper Catawba Falls. Personally, I think this is the more beautiful of the two, though both are quite impressive.

Also, the difficult climb up to reach it reduces the number of other people and we had the falls to ourselves. We played around at the base of the falls, getting pictures and goofing off, then started making our way back to the cars.