It's not always pretty...but it's still pretty
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Background:
The Pisgah National Forest is absolutely huge and I always have a great time wherever I am in it. I have been spending a good amount of time in the Ranger District near Brevard and Hendersonville. On this day I decided to check out Harper's Creek Falls, in the Grandfather District just north of Morganton out of the Mortimer Campground and Wilson Creek.
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| The Wilson Creek gorge represented on my USGS raised relief map |
The route I chose makes a loop of the North and South Harper's Creek Falls in about 8.5 miles. We ended up doing it a bit differently, but more on that later. When I read the profile for this hike, it was described as "very rough" and "most difficult." I can vouch for this description wholeheartedly, due the conditions of some of the trail, the sheer number of creek crossings, and the fact that it was mid-July in southern Appalachia.
There was a shorter route to see the southern falls, but a hike into the gorge was necessary to see the northern. From what I understand in the summer when there are thunderstorms, flash flooding can make it very difficult to return to the trailhead. Luckily on this day we had no such problems.
Hike Report:
Driving to the trailhead itself was rough. The last 10 miles or so on our navigation was gravel and forest roads. The trailhead was in the Mortimer Campground off of Wilson Creek, and there is a very nice visitor center nearby. I guess the kids whitewater kayak down there (or maybe upstream somewhere in high country) but I saw nothing but fishermen and the occasional tuber.
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| A very nice raised relief map of Wilson and Harper's Creek in the Visitor Center |
The directions I had was to trail #260. This was something I found different about hiking here, they numbered off trails (even if they had names), like what I saw in the Tonto National Forest outside of Phoenix. Make no mistake, this can get very confusing in the bush and most of the hike felt like a wilderness area.
The beginning of the hike set the tone pretty well, as we climbed a few hundred feet before beginning to descend into the gorge. We realized a couple miles in that we had gone the wrong direction, so we turned around and headed back uphill. The trail that my route had us take was an old, very washed out, fire road with sparse red blazes. This trail had a huge climb (probably 600-800 feet) that tested our calves, quads, and wills.
Upon submitting the mountain, we came to the realization that we did not bring enough water. I had brought around 8 12 oz bottles and a few miles in we had already gone through 4. Also, we were not anywhere close to water at this point so Clif was also sharing our water supply.
A lot of the time when you climb a mountain you should learn something from it. In this case, we realized that we did not bring enough water. Now, it all panned out in the end as Clif was able to drink out of the flowing creek water, but on a hot summer day in the hills of Appalachia you are going to be losing a lot of fluids.
We descended the red-blazed trail until our first intersection. We had nothing to work with except "Trail #270." My route description did not have anything about this. Luckily I had LTE! I got a map of the area, figured the best way to go, and we went. Where we went wrong was instead of turning left, we turned right. Turning left would have taken us on the loop that kept us on our route, turning right took us deeper into the gorge up North Harper's Creek. This ended up making our 8.5 mile loop into around 15 at the end of the day. Whoops!
We descended into the gorge and, despite the flies and wildlife, it was beautiful and lush. The creek cascades over countless small waterfalls an the trail crosses many, many times. We probably hiked 20-30 creek crossings that day, and we both slipped in and got our socks and shoes absolutely drenched. Luckily, it was towards the end of the hike, but still this is the last thing you want after you've already hiked a very long time.
So we made our way up North Harper's Creek and came to the north falls. We had a good time of swimming and relaxing in the sun as we recharged our batteries for the hike back.
Regardless of the challenges of the terrain and orienteering of ourselves, this place was just absolutely beautiful. Definitely one of the most beautiful creeks I've ever hiked into and luckily I was able to see most of it in a day. I might be back just because I didn't get a chance to swim in the big waterfall (South Harper's Creek), but at the same time I gotta keep moving onto the next mountains to climb and sights to see.
The beginning of the hike set the tone pretty well, as we climbed a few hundred feet before beginning to descend into the gorge. We realized a couple miles in that we had gone the wrong direction, so we turned around and headed back uphill. The trail that my route had us take was an old, very washed out, fire road with sparse red blazes. This trail had a huge climb (probably 600-800 feet) that tested our calves, quads, and wills.
Upon submitting the mountain, we came to the realization that we did not bring enough water. I had brought around 8 12 oz bottles and a few miles in we had already gone through 4. Also, we were not anywhere close to water at this point so Clif was also sharing our water supply.
A lot of the time when you climb a mountain you should learn something from it. In this case, we realized that we did not bring enough water. Now, it all panned out in the end as Clif was able to drink out of the flowing creek water, but on a hot summer day in the hills of Appalachia you are going to be losing a lot of fluids.
We descended the red-blazed trail until our first intersection. We had nothing to work with except "Trail #270." My route description did not have anything about this. Luckily I had LTE! I got a map of the area, figured the best way to go, and we went. Where we went wrong was instead of turning left, we turned right. Turning left would have taken us on the loop that kept us on our route, turning right took us deeper into the gorge up North Harper's Creek. This ended up making our 8.5 mile loop into around 15 at the end of the day. Whoops!
We descended into the gorge and, despite the flies and wildlife, it was beautiful and lush. The creek cascades over countless small waterfalls an the trail crosses many, many times. We probably hiked 20-30 creek crossings that day, and we both slipped in and got our socks and shoes absolutely drenched. Luckily, it was towards the end of the hike, but still this is the last thing you want after you've already hiked a very long time.
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| Clif doesn't understand why humans go so slow on creek crossings |
During the hike back, we reached a split in the trail. Take a right and keep heading downstream (the unknown but promising) or take a left and climb that mountain again (the option that surely gets us back). We were gonna take the left, but in the end I really had a good feeling about sticking with the trail, and I'm glad we did because eventually we got back. That's the good of intuition.
Regardless of the challenges of the terrain and orienteering of ourselves, this place was just absolutely beautiful. Definitely one of the most beautiful creeks I've ever hiked into and luckily I was able to see most of it in a day. I might be back just because I didn't get a chance to swim in the big waterfall (South Harper's Creek), but at the same time I gotta keep moving onto the next mountains to climb and sights to see.
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