This weekend, I headed to the Birkhead Mountains Wilderness
area in Uwharrie National Forest for a nice autumn hike and opportunity to see some
of the last of the fall color for the season.
The hike was organized by Joe Miller through the GetHiking group and
nearly 50 people were attending. Despite
being a federally-designated wilderness area, the Birkhead Mountains are a little
more developed than other wilderness areas and fortunately there is no group
size limit. There are also signs at
trailheads and intersections and the trails themselves are well blazed. We carpooled from Durham to the trailhead on
Tot Hill Farm Road, just outside of Asheboro.
Arriving at the parking, it was completely full and we had to park on
the street. Turns out, we weren’t the
only ones taking advantage of a nice Saturday to enjoy the outdoors. There were quite a few Boy Scouts hiking in
the area and it was the first day of rifle-hunting season. As the wilderness is also state game lands,
there were many hunters out and about.
After Joe made a few announcements regarding the hike, we took off on
the Birkhead Mountain Trail leading south into the wilderness. The trail is initially pretty flat, but then
becomes rather steep as it climbs up Coolers Knob Mountain, the steepest part
of our hike today. Reaching the top of
the mountain, the trail follows an old road bed along the ridgeline of the mountain. When we reach the top, some people initially
went right on the old road bed, but this was not the trail. We got everyone back together and all went left,
following the white blazes to stay on the Birkhead Mountain Trail. Up higher, we were starting to see what’s
left of the fall color. Most of the
leaves were down by now and the majority of those that remained were more of a
dull brown. But there were still some
very nice patches of red, yellow, and orange.
And without much of the foliage to obscure views, I could see the rolling
hills of the Birkhead Mountains through the trees. Mountains is a bit of stretch, considering
the highest peaks are less than 1000 feet above sea level. But still, the elevation gains made this hike
a bit more strenuous than the usual Piedmont hike and the views were quite
nice. We continued on the trail for a
little bit over a mile to the intersection with Robbins Branch Trail, where we
would finish up the loop later on, and then continued on Birkhead Mountain
Trail for about two more miles to the intersection with Hannahs Creek
Trail. By this time, our group had
really broken up and I was hiking with the faster group. We didn’t really have any idea how far behind
everyone else was and since the intersections are well signed, we turned on to
Hannahs Creek Trail. Shortly after the
turn is the remains of an old chimney, a sign of the human influence of the
wilderness’s past. I was here last year
and the chimney was standing, signaling that there used to be a homestead
here. Some time in the past year,
however, the chimney had collapsed and all that remained was a pile of stones. We continued along this trail, which follows
Hannahs Creek for a ways and then crosses Robbins Branch, ending near the
Robbins Branch Trailhead. Like all the
trails in the wilderness, there are many large rocks along the trail that indicate
that these were once mighty mountains that have been eroded away by hundreds of
millions of years of the elements. We
stopped for a break at the intersection of Robbins Branch and Hannahs Creek
Trail, had a snack and took a “biology” break.
By this point, we had already gone over six miles and Joe had indicated
the total hike was 7.2 miles. Clearly,
this was wrong, as we still had more than four miles to get back to the
cars. A few people were not so happy about
the extra mileage, but I was kind of happy.
With about 3 hours of round-trip driving for the hike, I wanted to get
as much hiking time in as possible, at least more than driving time, and the
extra miles would ensure that. 7.2 miles
is the correct distance for the loop, but the extra section of Birkhead Mountain
Trail adds more than 4 miles to and from the trailhead. A few more stragglers met at the intersection
and then we continued on, hiking the Robbins Branch Trail back to Birkhead
Mountain Trail. From here, it was another 2.2 miles back to the parking area, but at least it was mostly downhill on the way back. Back at the parking lot, we saw more hunters with their rifles heading into the woods. I had gotten back to the trailhead with a few others about 20 minutes or so before the others got back. We waited around at the parking area for a while and when Grace and Isabel got back, we took off. On the way home, we stopped at Pisgah Covered Bridge, one of only two covered bridges remaining in North Carolina. It’s a pretty bridge and a nice reminder of the state’s history. Unfortunately, some idiots thought it would be cool to carve and paint graffiti on the bridge. After a few pictures, we took off and made our way back to Durham. |
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