Last week we visited Hurricane Creek Wilderness (see: 84 Chancel to Sexton) and
enjoyed the beautiful scenery so much that today we’ve decided to
come in from the other side and hike up to the Natural Bridge, which is one of the highlights of this scenic wilderness. We exit Highway 123 just east of the old one-lane bridge over Big
Piney Creek and head north on Big Piney Road (JC5881). It's about 1.5 miles to a small parking
area with a little campsite, passing an OHT trailhead and a couple pull-out parking spots along the way.
 |
looking down on Hurricane Creek from parking
|
Parking is on the high bank overlooking Hurricane Creek with an
old road heading upstream out the back of the parking spot, on this old
road almost immediately two 4-wheelers come up behind us. I try to get some information about this
‘trail’ from the young couple, but they haven’t been here before, so off they go
up the road with us following behind.
 |
Holy Rock
|
The road makes an easy trail, we soon pass a nice campsite up a
short ‘driveway’ then around a bend to the right another larger campsite right
on the road. From the campsites the road
enters some thick forest without any views of Hurricane Creek, here come the
two young ATV riders back, and tell us there are ‘No Trespassing’ signs up ahead.
 |
along Big Piney Road
|
We soon come to Hurricane
Creek at the old road crossing, it’s about 30 feet across and the water is
moving fast but it doesn’t look too deep.
On the other side of the river, we can clearly see two red and white No
Trespassing signs, we don’t cross. Bummer, we won’t be visiting the Natural
Bridge today after all, it can be accessed via the OHT from Cancel Spur Trailhead
(over 14 miles round-trip), or Fort Douglas Trailhead (over 12 miles round-trip),
both routes involve crossing Hurricane Creek.
 |
Holy Rock
|
Back in the truck we head up Big Piney Road to see what Hurricane Creek ford looks like today, which is less than a quarter mile
away. On the right before the ford is a
nice big roadside parking area, campsite and swimming hole with rope swing. Then we cross Hurricane
Creek which is a good 50 feet wide over round river rock only about a
foot deep, we slowly drive across the bumpy river bottom. About a mile from Hurricane Creek, we pass
under Carwash Falls, without much water flow today we don’t get a very good
carwash, we keep going.
 |
Rock Creek Bluff Falls
|
Along Big Piney
Creek is very pretty with a few nice newer cabins along with some
old homesteads. Two more miles
brings us to Parker Ridge Road to the right, we continue straight less than a
quarter mile to City Road 311 (NC 7470) and head up the hill still going north. City Road 311 is a sorry excuse of a road, in other words a 4-wheelers playground, but today
seems to be much improved since the last time we drove it a year ago. We have no problems getting to and crossing
Rock Creek, about 100 yards past the creek is a pull-out on the left where the road has been re-routed around a big
mud hole, we park here avoiding the mud.
 |
behind the falls
|
We hike up the hill on an ATV trail to Holy Rock, a gigantic boulder
which has split in half and has some big holes through it. From Holy Rock the ATV trail gets pretty
steep but we soon arrive at an intersection with an old road. We turn right on the road which is pretty
level with just minor ‘ups and downs’ in many places the ‘road’ is more of a
trail, at one spot where the road has been washed out an ATV couldn’t get
through.
 |
chalk (handholds) on the rock
|
We pass a couple faint trails
off to the left uphill towards the bluffline, now the trail starts gradually
uphill toward the head of the canyon. As
we get closer to the bluffs, we can hear falling water, at the north end of a
big shelter cave is a nice waterfall.
Rock Creek Bluff Falls is pretty tall at just under 50 feet (that’s me
near the bottom of the falls in the picture above) and with the backdrop of the
big shelter cave is pretty impressive.
 |
lots of rock-climbing opportunities
|
At the falls we turn back to the southwest along the bluffline, first
through the shelter cave with lots of rock-climbing bolts. We follow a faint trail that hugs the
base of the bluff, under a quarter mile is another shelter cave, this one
slightly smaller than the last. Another 100 yards is yet another shelter with more rock-climbing
evidence, and 100 yards farther one last shelter. This big shelter appears to be the end of the
trail, with no trail it looks like we’ll have to bushwhack down
the steep hillside to the old road below.
 |
at shelter 2
|
But wait, off in the back of the shelter at the south end I spot a dusty path through the otherwise clean rocks and find a
zig-zagging route out, where the trail continues on around the base of the
bluffs. Just 100 feet further, right before the bluffline circles around a point
we spot a narrow bluffline break and head down here. This break is steep at the top, but the descent gets a little easier as we pass some huge, boulders. We soon arrive back on the old road at
the same intersection with the ATV trail where we first encountered this road
earlier.
 |
hidden passage in shelter 1
|
We turn right, downhill to City
Road 311. Walking down the road south
back to the truck we notice a faint trail on the right down to Big Piney Creek, and what looks like a great swimming hole nestled among some giant boulders in the river.
 |
a good spot for a break
|
At the truck and the end of today’s hike we vow to return to Rock
Creek soon, with so much more here to see, we have barely ‘scratched the
surface’ but we did have a great time
today. Our hikes today, first up
Hurricane Creek was only 1 mile and 63 feet of altitude gain, then in the Rock
Creek area 1.3 miles and 186 feet altitude gain.
 |
along the bluff
|
Hurricane Creek Wilderness: Statistics Chart 85 Access is possible from all sides but it's not always easy. Parker Ridge Road (see: 42 Parker Ridge) borders the north and provides many access points including: (90 Hurricane Knob). Highway 123 on the east has fewer access options, Chancel Spur also on the east side (see: 84 Chancel to Sexton) has access near the southeast corner of the wilderness. Our point of entry today is one of the few from the west side, and I can't really recommend it because of the private property here. Access options for Rock Creek are discussed in more detail at: (88 A Drive in the Country) and (95 Rock Creek and Ava Jane). |
base map before fair use alterations is property of ArcGIS-licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 U.S. License
|
Comments