The Mountains to Sea Trail certainly passes through some outstanding scenery. The existing trail, which is mostly complete between the Smokies and Stone Mountain, visits some of the highest mountains in the state. However, it has an unfortunate tendency to follow the Parkway. During the warm half of the year, this means a lot of traffic noise to accompany the hike. For that reason, I've avoided several otherwise spectacular sections of the trail. However, a few weeks ago a rockslide closed a portion of the Parkway southwest of Asheville. I saw this as our opportunity to hike there without the traffic.
Christy, Saucony, and I drove up to the Mt. Pisgah campground Friday evening. Apparently the closed section of road hadn't discouraged many campers. I was concerned about getting a site, but we found a few empty ones near the back of the loop. Myron, Dorcas, and Izaak joined us later, and we enjoyed a cool, breezy evening around the campfire.
Saturday morning we planned out our hike. Although we saw the closed road as beneficial, it did make getting to the trailhead somewhat tricky. We all piled into Myron's truck and took the scenic route to Bent Creek Gap. We followed a series of bumpy forest roads, and arrived 10 miles from our starting point an hour later.
We started our hike off of Wash Creek Road, and followed the MST away from the Parkway and up to Ferrin Knob. This part of the MST is also the Shut-In trail, which Vanderbilt used over a hundred years ago to get from the Biltmore Estate to his hunting lodge near Mt. Pisgah. Some of the original stonework was still evident, and we really appreciated the gentle grades.
At the top of Ferrin Knob we came across a box turtle in the middle of the trail. Later we spooked some turkeys, one of which ended up in a tree directly above us. After Ferrin Knob, the hike followed a pattern. We'd descend to a Parkway overlook, climb around (or over) a peak, and descend again. The overlooks were certainly great though, as the views were excellent and we had them all to ourselves. We had lunch at the Stoney Bald overlook and hiked on. The best feature of the trail was the wildflowers. The Rhododendron, Azalea, and Laurel were mostly gone, but they were replaced with numerous summer flowers. Brown-eyed Susans and sunflowers were there, but the Spiderwort, Firepink, Sundrop, and Wild Columbine were overwhelming.
We reached another gap at highway 115 and the barricade. Beyond, the traffic roared. Fortunately the trail rapidly left the road on the steepest climb of the day. It was a grueling trudge up a side ridge of Mt. Pisgah. Finally we reached the crest and a fine view to the south. Clouds were rolling in quickly, so we kept moving. We descended to a couple of parking lots, and soon found ourselves on the nature trail outside of the Pisgah Inn. After not seeing anyone all day, it was quite a shock to be surrounded by people. We reached the lodge, and stopped at the store (gas is $1.47) and got ice cream. We walked the short distance back to our campsite, where it was nice to regroup after a long hike.
Christy and I didn't much want to make the 2 hour drive back to get the car. Myron and Dorcas offered to run the shuttle with Christy's car, in exchange for unspecified favors to be named later. This was very nice of them and much appreciated on our part. They returned later that evening, and we all relaxed around the campfire again. Luckily, the rain held off until that evening.
We woke to the sound of rain on the tent fly Sunday morning. It was hard to get up, but cooking breakfast was much more pleasant thanks to Myron's tarp. After eating, we decided that the day called for an easy valley hike. We drove through thick fog to get to highway 276 and headed down to the Pink Beds.
We hiked the 5 mile loop counter-clockwise. The trail led through beautiful pine forests full of ferns. It followed the meandering South Mills River. The lush area reminded me of Panthertown Valley. After an hour or so, we arrived at a campsite we had stayed at in April. Back then Spring had only begun. Now the whole area was a lush carpet of ferns.
We continued downstream past several beaver ponds. We stopped for lunch on a bridge over one of them. The rain had stopped, and it was a nice quiet spot to relax. From there we continued around the loop to the less-interesting northern side. We passed through a number of wildlife clearings, and past several groups of dayhikers. We returned to the parking area by mid-afternoon, ready for the drive home. It had been a nice walk, despite the rain.
Back to The Pisgah Ranger District
Back to North Carolina
Back to Hiking and Backpacking Trip Reports
Please remember to Leave No Trace!