easy backpack Pisgah NF or Shining Rock?

You might consider the Pink Beds area on Hwy 276 just a few miles south of the BRP. Very little elevation change with wide maintained trails. You can connect several trails and make a “loop” from a couple of miles to 10 or more pretty easily. Lots of nice flat camping areas as well.

One of many links about the Pink Beds:
http://www.hikewnc.info/trailheads/pisgah/pisgah/guidedhikes/pinkbeds.html

Hi Bryan, We did that loop this past weekend. It was perfect for a short hike to a good backpacking site. We went on the north side of the loop past some clearings and camped in one of those. Then some of us continued on to explore the rest of the loop. We got seriously turned around, though. We knew that the bridge over hte South Fork of the Mills River was out, but we saw some logs lying across a stream nearby. One was broken, so we thought THAT was the out bridge. Wrong! We ended up on a “trail” that sort of petered out somewhere in the pink beds, and we had to retrace our steps. Fortunately we got back to camp before dark. Was that the gauging station trail?

Sounds like you had a good trip. It really is a nice trail for beginners or folks that don’t want/need to be physically challenged too much. Yes, that trail that leads to the gauging station is not marked clearly – I forgot about that completely until you mentioned it. If I recall correctly, it led to an area of the creek where the beavers had been very busy. I’m glad to hear that particular area worked out for you.