Content from Beatific Bartram

Did we mention that the weather was perfect, the color sublime? If not, the photos should speak for themselves.

Enjoy!

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Content from Perfect Panthertown

Today, we share shots from Sunday’s trek through Panthertown Valley, a 10-mile (8 for some) loop that included several falls, including Schoolhouse; brushed the base of the Great Wall; caught some rays on the exposed slickrock of Little Green Mountain; explored the fertile Panthertown Valley; and enjoyed the best views of the valley from atop Blackrock Mountain.

Tomorrow, we’ll trot out the slide projector and share our pics from the Bartram Trail. It’s a slideshow we’re pretty sure you won’t invent an excuse to miss.

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Today’s 90-Second Escape: Harper Creek/North Harper Creek WSA

Content from Harper Creek / North Harper Creek

Even folks who have only heard of the Harper Creek and Lost Cove areas of the Wilson Creek drainage generally think the areas are official wilderness areas. They aren’t: they’re actually Wilderness Study Areas, which means they are under consideration for official Wilderness designation.

But they may not even be under consideration, if development interests have their say in the current review of the Pisgah National Forest/Nantahala National Forest Land Management Plan. The good news: public comment is being accepted through Jan. 5, a week from today.

You can read more about the Land Management Plan and the controversy surrounding the possible elimination of WSA status for the 13,000-acre Harper Creek/Lost Cove area here. In the meantime, let us inspire you to act with scenes from a GetHiking! journey this summer down North Harper Creek and Harper Creek, in the area in question.

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Fifteen years ago I took my first trip to Panthertown Valley, a 6,700-acre playground that some call the Yosemite of the East because of its abundance of waterfalls (19), towering (if not old-growth) trees and exposed granite domes. It was also to be my first try at backpacking solo.

Car trouble got me to the trailhead late, about a half hour before dark. The campsite, I understood, was a little more than a mile in, easily reachable by dark. But two things gave me hesitation: First, an abundance of signs noting this was a “Bear Sanctuary,” and second and more significantly, I didn’t have a good map. Didn’t have one because one didn’t exist: The area had only recently (1989) been added to the Nantahala National Forest, with help from The Nature Conservancy. Not only wasn’t there a map, the trails weren’t marked or blazed. I retreated to a nearby motel for the evening.

For years, these two obstacles — lack of a sufficient map, no trail markings — kept me from giving Panthertown as wholehearted an endorsement as I’d liked. Though it is included in my hiking guide, “100 Classic Hikes in North Carolina,” and my soon-to-be-released “Backpacking North Carolina,” I’ve mentioned it sparingly otherwise. Hikers and backpackers savvy with a map and compass would have little problem; those challenged by basic orienteering stood the risk of becoming misplaced. Too bad, too, because while Panthertown does have its challenging moments, by-and-large it’s novice-friendly environment.

About three years ago I started hearing rumblings of a new map, one being put together by guide extraordinaire Burt Kornegay, who’s been guiding trips since the early 1970s, guiding in these parts since the 1980s through his Slickrock Expeditions. Those rumblings turned to reality — for me at least — on Wednesday when I saw the welcome site of “A Guide’s Guide to Panthertown” at the Great Outdoor Provision Co. in Cameron Village.

Get this map. Kornegay hasn’t put everything he knows about Panthertown on the map, but just about. Trails are clearly marked as “Forest Service” or simply “Footpaths,” the three main trailheads are identified as well as nine more discrete roadside accesses. Waterfalls are marked, as are other key features. He provides some history, tips on what to look for, recommended hikes. Map scale is 1:24,000, contour interval is 40 feet. It’s as good a map as you’ll find, both in the field and, just as important, when you’re stuck at home and only have time for a visceral trip.

To assist with the latter, here’s a slideshow from my last Panthertown trip, in fall 2009.

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Yet in the case of London Bald, there’s no guarantee that even my most meticulous directions, derived from wandering 20 miles in less than 24 hours with GPS and maps in hand, will spare you from a similar bushwhacking fate in the rugged Nantahala National Forest. For London Bald, like the 26-mile Appletree Camp trail network it’s a part of, is in a National Forest, and when you step foot on a National Forest trail, anything can happen.

I was scouting London Bald for my upcoming book “Backpacking North Carolina,” due out from UNC Press the first day of spring 2011. At 8:30 Monday evening, the sun having departed a good hour earlier, I stood in the middle of what was supposed to be the London Bald Trail. Even by the cash-strapped Forest Service’s standards, this trail was a mess. For the past half mile or so I’d plunged through thickets of downed rhododendrons, crawled under downed hickoires, scrambled over the trunks of mammoth hemlocks. I hadn’t seen a blaze since departing the Bartram Trail as the sun was paying its last respects to the final day of summer. I plunged/crawled/scrambled on, in search of anything that would pass for a campsite.

Then I came across a ReMax sign announcing “Mountain Property for Sale.” Shortly, I stumbled upon a dark log cabin and a gravel road. I got out my maps yet again, adjusted my headlamp downward and tried to figure out just where I was. My Trails Illustrated map showed roads, but none that could have been close. My “Appletree Group Camp Trails” map showed no roads even close. On the opposite side of the road I found a nice clearing – which I discovered the next morning is likely to soon be the site of a summer home for vacationing Atlantans.

A fit sleep and coffee did nothing to make sense of the maps. Must have gotten off course last night, I figured. I decided to backtrack, sgpendin the next two hours exploring a variety of false-lead footpaths and old roadbeds until I finally wound up at where London Bald split from the Bartram Trail. I decided to take it east (I’d come in from the north the evening before) down to the Laurel Creek Trail, another Forest Service trail that showed a similar respect for hikers as London Bald. Up it went, straight up, for 1.3 miles to the the Appletree Trail, which went even straighter up for another mile to London Bald, where the campsites I had been promised by one guidebook were well-hidden by dense undergrowth. Also well hidden: the London Bald Trail south, which is where I needed to go to find the water source said guidebook promised. That, too, proved non-existent (save for during a 100-year deluge perhaps). I was down to my last 10 ounces of water and – did I mention that during my ascent up Laurel Creek Trail I’d passed through a field of wildflowers and gotten swarm-stung on my calfs by bees? And have I mentioned previously that I’m allergic to bee stings? With no water and my legs swelling to Dumbo proportions, I had no choice but to bail.

That presented another intriguing challenge: Figuring out just where the London Bald Trail came in to the Bartram from the south, the route I thought I was on the night before. I followed the well-spaced pale (with time) blue blazes through more overgrowth. After three miles, the trail entered a gap – from which three trails sprouted. I took a long look: No blazes to be seen.

I’ve been here before, I realized. Like three times that morning as I searched for the London Bald Trail. I’d taken all three of the options, I remembered, but being low on water I couldn’t recall which one panned out. I got out my maps, got out the GPS, which showed a scribbling of routes from the morning, got out my compass and –

Ah ha!

I took the least likely of the options and within 10 minutes was at the Bartram Trail intersection, within another hour and a half was at my car, within another hour was at a motel in Murphy, my swelling ankles resting mercifully on two Nalgene bottles filled with ice.

Again, I get lost so you don’t have to.

Usually.

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