105 Fisher Point Road

    The Low Gap Cafe is next to a stone-faced church, and next to the church a dirt road winds around a couple curves then heads north, this is Fisher Point Road (on some maps it's NC 2620 or NC 140).  But you can’t drive all the way to Fisher Point anymore thanks to the wilderness designation, this is good, we’ll hike there instead!  We were here a couple weeks ago for our hike to Slatey Place, and we park at the same spot today, see: (103 Low Gap Trail).

    We head north around the locked gate up Fisher Point Road, which is a graded dirt road that any type of car could easily drive.  For a mile the road crosses back and forth across the Buffalo National River boundary, we don’t actually enter the Ponca Wilderness until after the first mile.  This goes pretty fast since the road is in great condition, about a quarter mile in is a thong tree just off the road on our right.

on the ridge of Fisher Point

    Another quarter mile brings us to a large beech tree with a lot of initials carved on it, then about 100 yards further are yellow blazes on two trees marking the start of Beech Creek Trail off to the east and down to Beech Creek.  When heading out this morning to go hiking, the ‘goal’ was to do a little scouting along the way and locating Beech Creek Trail was the first part of our ‘re-con mission’.

    Another hundred yards north on Fisher Point Road is an intersection with an old road to the left and a ‘private property’ sign, we keep going 100 more yards is another old road off to the left.  The ‘well kept’ Fisher Point Road continues for just a quarter mile more where all road up-keep ends at the Ponca Wilderness boundary, this is also the location of a nice newer home with a fabulous view of a little piece of Steele Creek valley far below.

    Now in the wilderness, we’re still technically on the road but it’s more of a ‘trail’ and after climbing a hill for about a quarter mile we notice a fence along the trail to our left.  A little farther we come to a little pond at the side of the road and notice a lot of vegetation nearby that doesn’t look to be any native species.  This includes yucca scattered all around, we easily come to the conclusion that there must have been a home here once.

    Onward we go along the fence line now fallen and crushed on the ground.  As we start up the next hill, another pond is off the road and down the hill a little.  We go to check it out and surprise three ducks swimming on the pond, who quickly float over to the far bank and wattle off into the high grass.

fall foliage

     Back on the trail past the pond another old road trace heads back to the southwest, we stay on the trail heading uphill to the north.  The road soon levels out close to the top of the mountain we see lots of big rocks everywhere covered in yellow/grey/green lichen.  Not yet to Fisher Point, this little ‘summit’ isn’t the highest point on the mountain, which is just a little farther west of us.

    I climb up the gentle but rocky slope to the top to see what I can in the distance, at the very top are a group of larger rocks that are just the right size for sitting on, but not much of a view as the slope is just as gentle off the north side of this ‘Fisher Knob’.  Returning down to the old road where Kat has been waiting on a rock at the side of the trail, we continue north down off this knob and into a little valley the ‘saddle’ between the two hills.

    This is a very pretty spot with a little flat land, I proclaim ‘this is where I would have built my home back in pioneer times’.  We stay on the old road about 100 yards further but now it is getting harder to follow because of a lot of undergrowth, mostly briars.  Then right as we’re contemplating ‘turning around’ a trail appears heading slightly uphill to the left.

a little green in a brown landscape

    We take the trail which starts out good but soon fades away, we’re left bushwhacking through the woods heading north soon spotting another small pond off to the west a little.  Continuing north to Fisher Point at a small rocky outcrop we scan the scene below.  Immediately three young deer scamper off down the steep slope northeast, and that’s where we notice the old road (I’m sure the same one we have been on all day) circling around to the west just 50 feet below us.

    The other part of our re-con/scouting mission today was to see if we could find a ‘good’ way down from Fisher Point to the BRT which is only about 100 yards away.  It looks to me that this old road (Fisher Point Rd.) probably leads right to the BRT, hmm...there may be a way.

at Beech Creek Trail

    But that will do it for today, we head back from Fisher Point the way we came.  Just as we’re getting close to the trailhead, we notice a faint road trace that looks like a shortcut back to the truck, we go to check it out. Not an actual ‘road’ but probably a driveway, it circles around and back out to Fisher Point Road in only about 100 yards.  We had a great time today getting out for a nice easy hike, enjoying the fall colors and the fine weather, the length of this hike was 4.1 miles with an elevation gain of 498 feet.

Fisher Point Road: Statistics Chart 105     NC 2620 (on old maps NC 140) heads north off Highway 74 next to a church just east of the Low Gap Cafe, follow this gravel road 1.45 miles to a locked gate.  Park here but don't block the road, try to avoid the private property all around.

base map before fair use alterations is property of USGS Topo-licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 U.S. License