Ideal Weekend Hikes in the Southeast? (Preference for Carolinas)

[Dalton Cooper]

Hey all! I am in desparate need of some weekend jaunts to tide me over until I celebrate my birthday with the Foothills Trail in April. I live in Charlotte and have the general preferences of:

• Not wanting to drive more than a couple or three hours of driving to a trailhead.
• Prefer loop hikes to cut down on the logistics of two cars or a shuttle for point-to-point hikes like the Neusiok or Art Loeb Trail (although I would like to hit both of those sooner than later).
• 20-30 Miles

I feel like such hikes are unicorns but I would love to hear from folks in the community more knowledgeable on southern hiking than myself. Would love to hear from y’all!

The Uwharrie Trail/Dutchman’s Creek loop is my go-to simply because of its proximity. I have also done Standing Indian and thought it was some of the best hiking I’d ever done, as well as a few classics in the Smokies. The Linville Gorge loop is on my bucket list too when the weather gets warmer, as is Caesar’s Head in SC, and possibly the Virginia Triple Crown if I’m feeling especially sauce or get a 3-day weekend.

[Alex H]

Try South Mountains State Park, way more interesting than Uwharrie and close to Charlotte.

Here is a trip we did last year.  You may find some others on my site.  We do a lot of 30 mile plus 3 day trips.

[Brad Rogers]

There are a couple of really good loops out of Big Creek in GSMNP

Trip 1: from Big Creek take Baxter Creek Trail to the top of Mt Sterling then a nice ridgewalk on the Mt. Sterling Ridge Trail to the intersection with the Balsam Mountain Trail, which is another nice ridgewalk to the AT.  From the AT turn SoBo a tenth of a mile or so to Tricorner Knob Shelter for the night.  About 17.3 miles for the day.   The next day, head NoBo on the AT, past Low Gap and to the spur trail to Mt Cammerer.  Once you check out the stone fire tower, head back to the AT and continue NoBo until you get to the Chestnut Branch Trail, which will take you back to your car at Big Creek.  About 17.2 miles for the day.

 

Trip 2.  From Big Creek, take the Big Creek Trail to the Swallow Fork Trail which you will climp up to Mt Sterling Ridge then drop down the other side via the Pretty Hollow Gap Trail to CS#39 for the night.  About 13 miles for the day.   The next day, take the Little Cattaloochie Trail, taking in the history of the area (a couple old churches and homesteads) to the Long Bunk Trail that intersects the Mt. Sterling Trail that you will use to climb back up to the top of Mt Sterling near CS#38 and the fire tower.  From there you can take the Baxter Creek Trail back to your car at Big Creek.  About 16.5 miles for the day.

[Ben C]

Slickrock and Cohutta have several good loop options

[obx hiker]

Nice website Alex. Enjoyed a nice rainy cold and windy OBX Saturday afternoon reading about your hike through the Henry’s from The Burr trail. And you almost got Buffaloed!

I played around with google maps out of curiosity to see what terrain in NC falls within Dalton’s 3 hour limit Since I didn’t know exactly where you are in Charlotte I made a  guesstimate worst case? selection and started on the east side of town at the intersection of 485 and 27 which shows up on google as Mint Hill. Your 3 hour line ends up running from @ lake Toxaway over to Dillsboro and on to Cherokee. This means that  pretty much everything south  of the BRP from 215 to Newfound Gap rd. is too far. This includes the Nantahala National Forest (Standing Indian for ex.) The Bartram Trail, the AT along the Wayah-Wesser Crest and side trails, Fires Creek, the Andrews area, Snowbird, and Joyce Kilmer/Slickrock areas are out along with everything in the GSMNP south of Newfound Gap Rd. The Tennessee side of the main ridge on the East side of the park @ Cosby is probably out too though there aren’t that many trails in that quadrant.

Put another way pretty much every stretch of mountains in NC from the Blue Ridge Parkway south of Asheville over to Cherokee all the way to Virginia is within 3 hours; and all the rest of the NC mountains fall inside of or right on the edge of the 4 hour limit. Also that is Google’s estimated driving time. I can usually shave several minutes per hour off their estimates but there you go.

SO This leaves @ 1,524,693 options. Haha…

I was surprised to see the closest areas are The Wilson Creek/Linville Gorge/Grandfather Mt. areas, all of the Black Mt ridgeline, And the GSMNP N.E. quadrant including Cataloochee and Big Creek. I guess the latter is due to due to the fast access via I-26 and I-40. Everything else south of I-40  to the BRP is also doable in your specified time-frame, with Panthertown for ex. just possibly squeaking in.

In most all of these locations you can devise a route going up a drainage or side ridge to a main crest then hike along the crest to the next side trail and back down. Most of these have connections of some sort.

The Grandfather section of the Pisgah National Forest including the Wilson Creek,, Grandfather Mt. and Linville Gorge areas is a maze of connected trails. Lots of really nice waterfalls. My avatar photo is a shot of my brother and oldest daughter in a beautiful carved granite pool below (and above) a stretch of cascades/ slides and waterfalls in Gragg Prong in the Wilson Creek drainage.

The Black Mt Crest and Mt. Mitchell will prepare you for pretty much any really hard trail climb almost anywhere ( except for the change in atmosphere) with several trails climbing over 4000″ in @ 6 miles.

Brad mentioned a couple of really nice routes coming out of Big Creek. You could make loops throughout the entire NC side of the northeast corner of the GSMNP including Big Creek and Cataloochee.

You also mentioned the Art Loeb Trail which follows one of the north/south oriented crests of the Great Balsam Mts. There are several side trails leading up to that crest and the Art Loeb Trail from both highway 276 to the east and highway 215 to the west.

All of these areas offer really great hiking, often with nice streams and waterfalls, stretches of large or even old growth forest (Boogerman!), and even some fairly long stretches of “bald” ridgeline with great views. Many cross some of the 54 named peaks in NC that top 6000″ out of the 56 west of the Black Hills of S. Dakota (2 of those 6,000 footers escaped NC; Le Conte when the border was drawn incorrectly ;) and Mt. Washington which is wayyyy up there in New Hampshire.

I might also recommend that if you start really getting into these trips you look up the Carolina Mt. Club’s challenge:South beyond 6000  https://www.carolinamountainclub.org/index.cfm/do/pages.view/id/23/page/South-Beyond-6000  

By the time you finish this challenge you will very well acquainted with the mountains of North Carolina. You will also by necessity get the experience of doing a little off-trail hiking to reach some of these high points and really improve your hiking/navigation competence while visiting some spots not that far from the beaten path that don’t get too many visitors (Mark’s Knob, Potato Knob, Reinhart Knob,, oh boy lots of fun!)  Bring a few strips of Surveyors tape to follow back to the trail and don’t be a donkey’s butt and leave them hanging!

BTW if you’re trying to hike and are concerned about snow; check out the weblog “High on LeConte”  http://www.highonleconte.com/daily-posts.  If the trails are clear up there they’re pretty much clear everywhere and it’s usually fun to read anyway. There are also some other webcams like Purchase Knob. You could do a search and find at least one in almost every area.

Anyway you’ve got the potential for some serious fun ahead. Happy Trails!

[Alex H]

Thanks Cola, that was an interesting experience in the Henry’s.  I need to PM you about the Winds BTW.

Your analysis of Dalton’s options is spot on.  He has a lot of good places to explore especially for weekend trips.  The 3 day loops become less easy to find.

[Dalton Cooper]

Thank you so much! I will investigate South Mountain State Park as soon as I can, weather and work permitting….

Regarding the other options, I am super-excited about all of the hiking NC has to offer and its proximity to Charlotte (no small part of the reason I want to stay here) but agree that finding/making the good loop hikes are the biggest challenge. For now, the final stretch of Linville Gorge b/n the trail and Wolf Den is about as bushwhack-y as I feel comfortable doing for safety and LNT purposes but oddly never thought to use the BRP for hikes, especially in the parts of the season when it closes. Unrelated, but excited at how many “shorter” thru hikes there are (read: that I could finish over a summer break once I sort out a few  things with my career and personal life) like the BMT, and sections of the MST, Bartram Trail, Palmetto Trail, and AT, but that sounds like a whole new thread.  In any case, I will revisit my map collection and perhaps add a few more.

Also, secondary quick question: Is anyone familiar with upstate South Carolina? Love day hiking around there but have yet to do any backpacking. In addition to the Foothills Trail and Caesar’s Head, I’ve been interested in looking into Sumter National Forest but there’s like zero literature on it beyond the Foothills Trail section that passes through it.

[obx hiker]

Dalton this is a link to Carol “Brawny” Wellman’s posts re: the foothills trail: http://www.trailquest.net/BRfoothills.html

And risking thread drift but Alex I’m really curious about the “tips” your friend Bob? got on your trip from Spivey’s Gap back to Big Butt?  When the thru-hikers explained to him the correct use of Red Bull while thru-hiking? They were actually packing cans of Red Bull? That’s got to be a good story.!

[Alex H]

You would have to ask him, I was not privy to the conversations but I think the Red Bull was coming out of town stops.  Wish I had more.  Suffice it to say that Bob has a way with “extending” a story.

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