I
have wanted to see Natural Bridge in Hurricane Creek Wilderness for a long
time, but it’s not the easiest place to get to, although right next to Ozark
Highlands Trail. The nearest trailhead
to the arched rock is Fort Douglas Trailhead, six miles one way. Or Chancel Trailhead is seven miles one way, both these routes involve crossing Hurricane Creek. There is a shorter way, but it also requires
crossing Hurricane Creek plus trespasses on private property (see: 85 Hurricane and Rock Creek).
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Hurricane Creek
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After
doing some ‘map studying’ I’ve decided to try getting to Natural
Bridge by hiking down the mountain from Parker Ridge with no 'wet' crossings. It appears to be a pretty straight forward
proposition and with a few old roads part of the way, and beautiful
weather maybe today’s the day I’ll finally get to see The Natural Bridge of
Hurricane Creek Wilderness. I turn off
Parker Ridge Rd. onto FR 92730A expecting to park right here, but the forest
road evidently is drivable if the abundance of tire tracks is any
indication, so I keep going.
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trail begins as a road soon becomes ATV trail
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The
road is pretty muddy and a little rough in a couple places but nothing my
little 4X4 truck can’t handle. Just
under a mile is a road going east, I turn here and park. This road seems to be in fair shape and I’m
tempted to drive on, but less than a hundred yards is a dirt berm. An ATV could easily continue over the berm,
but my truck would get high centered so I’m glad I parked when I did.
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| see doe on trail ahead |
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near intersection at cairn
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From
the moment I left Parker Ridge Rd. it was quite clear this area has seen a lot
of logging activity pretty recently, and this continues for the first half mile
after parking. But soon, as I near the
unmarked wilderness boundary the scenery starts to improve. At a faint old road trace (fort), I see a
big bare area just to the south, this was probably a loading area for
timber. I head east on the trace road
which looks like a good ATV trail but with no evidence of recent use, no doubt
since this is where I cross into Hurricane Creek Wilderness.
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| low bluff high above Hurricane Creek |
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feeder stream crosses OHT south of Natural Bridge
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The
trail continues to be clear and obvious soon turns south, about 200 yards
later are two old downed trees across the trail maybe 100 feet apart. The map studying I did in preparation
for this hike has me turning east here and ‘gradually’ going down the mountain
on a wide ridge. The trail south is too
good, I stay the course south probably my first mistake. Less than a quarter mile further the trail
begins heading downhill.
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| steep access to top of Natural Bridge |
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wet weather fall next to Natural Bridge
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At
what might have once been a campsite is the next downed tree, and just over 100
yards more another old downed tree along with a blackberry bramble. Continuing downhill still on this
good trail about a quarter mile, where the trail turns southeast and heads
downhill above a small drainage. Another
quarter mile I arrive at yet another old downed tree, this one at an
intersection. Marked with a rock cairn,
the road trace I’m on appears to circle around the fallen tree and continue
down the mountain.
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| tall bluff just south of Natural Bridge |
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first glimpse of Natural Bridge
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This
is probably mistake #2, instead of sticking with the road downhill which
has been good so far, I turn north at the cairn onto another faint road trace. About the only good thing I can say
about this road is it stays pretty level, but this isn’t what I want since I
still need to descend close to 300 feet to the OHT. Besides that, this ‘road’ is pretty choked up
with brush and low-hanging limbs, I follow this route for almost half a mile
until it begins heading back uphill.
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views of Natural Bridge from about 80' below
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When
I leave the road, the plan is to just zig-zag back and forth all the way
down to the Ozark Highlands Trail. I
don’t get far before arriving along the base of a low bluff with some icicles
and a very low long muddy shelter with another even lower bluff below
that. I soon tire of zig-zags at
a steep little dry creek and follow that instead. The dry stone in the creek is almost all
flat, making a nice (steep) stairway down to the trail. This isn’t actually the OHT which comes up
from Hurricane Creek in about 700 feet.
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more views of Natural Bridge
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Part
of the old Hurricane Creek Rd. this trail is in great shape, I notice no change
after Highlands Trail merges in from the east.
Then the trail curves around and crosses a steep rocky feeder stream
with noisy little falls and cascades both above and below the OHT crossing. About 250 feet or so after crossing the creek
there is supposedly a route up through the bluff and enormous boulders
eventually to the top of Natural Bridge, but evidently this is strictly a bushwhack
affair, I stay on the OHT.
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Natural Bridge as seen from OHT
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Scanning
the impressively tall bluff I keep an eye out for Natural Bridge while heading
north, I do see a large stone overhang at the top sticking out far, south of
the overhang is a wide moss-covered wet weather waterfall, and then I see it,
between waterfall and overhang is Natural Bridge (way up there). The impressive overhang is actually part of
Natural Bridge, too bad it’s so far up I would have liked to get a closer look.
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OHT mile marker 110
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Back
on the OHT I continue north, soon passing mile marker 110, just beyond a big
tree has fallen across the trail…twice.
After climbing through the tree there's a hairpin curve up above Cedar Limb
Hollow after which the same tree requires a second detour to continue now south on
the trail. But first, a stop to admire
Cedar Limb Hollow which may be the most ruggedly beautiful creek I have ever
seen, reminding me of places along Clark Creek in Lost Valley (see: 169 Lost Valley) or what I imagine
Indian Creek must look like up near the Eye of the Needle.
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big tree across trail...twice
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Now
past the tree on the trail I don’t get far, at the next turn I leave Highlands
staying southbound down a well-worn path to a beautiful campsite above the bank
of Hurricane Creek. The ‘path’ continues
south where I find an easy rock scramble down to the edge of the creek, with a
powerful cascade just upstream and a serene turquoise pool downstream this is
truly a gorgeous spot. The path I’m
following occasionally looks to be an old road, so curiosity get the best of
me, I continue south between OHT and Hurricane Creek.
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seriously rugged Cedar Limb Hollow
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Soon
the trail goes through a smaller nice campsite situated amongst giant
boulders but up away from the creek.
Then the trail which is getting quite faint appears to head up the
hillside on what might be the old road but has gotten severely wash-out over
the years, along the way passing close to the biggest of the ‘giant boulders’
yet. Continuing uphill the rocky
washed-out road soon lands on the OHT.
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nice large campsite above Hurricane Creek
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From
here it’s about 500 feet to the ‘steep rocky feeder stream’ with the noisy
little falls and cascades, right after crossing is another steep rocky climb on
what might have been a road once.
Knowing I must climb back up the mountain somewhere, this seems to be as
good a place to start as any (probably mistake #3). After around 100 feet of elevation gain, I
level out some and head south angling uphill at an easier grade.
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scenic cascade on Hurricane Creek
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At
some point on this nearly ¾ mile bushwhack, I cross the steep little dry creek
with the flat stone ‘stairs’ and continue uphill eventually landing back on
that very faint old road with the brush and low limbs. Now it’s just a matter of re-tracing the
route used to come down. Although the trail is now good the remaining 1.8 miles, it’s also mostly uphill which really drains what little energy I have left,
finally back at the truck I feel totally spent.
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more of Hurricane Creek
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Well,
I accomplished my goal of seeing Natural Bridge without crossing Hurricane
Creek, and I also made it down to a lovely spot on Hurricane Creek which
together accounts for some incredible scenery well worth the trip. But there has got to be a better way of
getting there, probably one or more of the mistakes I made would have
made for an easier trip. That said,
today’s difficult hike of 6.1 miles with 953 feet of elevation gain came with a
great payoff at the bottom, please let me know if you’ve found a better way down.
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left of feeder stream, begin my climb back to the top
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Natural Bridge: Statistics Chart 192 The easy way to get to the parking spot is to
first get to Deer, between the school bus parking and Deer Schools is Parker
Ridge Road signed ‘NC 7410’ turn here, you’ll be headed east for a short time
before swinging around to the south and eventually west, just stay on NC 7410
for about 9.3 miles to FR 92730A (unmarked) there’s plenty of room for maybe 3
cars here at the intersection. Or if you’d
like and have good ground clearance you can drive 0.9 miles on FR 92730A to an
intersection with meager parking (I parked up on the grassy bank off the road).
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