Harper Creek walk
Jun. 18th, 2023 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flyminion
Today, I hiked to Harper Creek Falls, but instead of taking the trail, I hiked (almost) all the way there through the creek. The forecast for today was dry, but it was unclear if it would be cloudy. I had planned to do this hike if it was clear, but I had another one in mind if it were cloudy. It was overcast in Lenoir this morning, but the hourly forecast was sunny from noon to 2 PM, and then partly cloudy after that. I decided to go ahead and do Harper, since that meant it would be sunny for most of the hike, and late afternoon clouds might dissuade me from staying at the falls too long, since I had to drive back to Raleigh afterwards. This trek seemed ideal for a day where I was either arriving or leaving, because it’s less than a four-hour drive back to Raleigh, and I wasn’t expecting it to be too strenuous since the creek only drops about 100 feet over more than a mile.I planned to enter the creek at its confluence with Wilson Creek and creek-walk upstream to the primitive campground near the confluence with Raider Camp Creek, where the Harper Creek Trail joins with the North Carolina Mountains-to-Sea Trail (MST). On previous visits, I had caught glimpses of several sliding cascades over bedrock slabs on the quarter-mile section of creek just downstream of the falls, which I have never checked out, so I planned to re-enter the creek there and creek-walk the rest of the way to the falls.
I got to Brown Mountain Beach Road through Wilson Creek Gorge shortly before noon. I was hoping it wouldn’t be too crowded since the churchgoers likely weren’t out yet, but no such luck. Heathens! As usual, all possible parking spots through the gorge were full, and the air was thick with dust from the heavy traffic on the dirt roads. I got stuck behind a police SUV that was patrolling the road and intermittently stopping to talk to people who were about to park illegally. The traffic thinned out upstream of the gorge. I planned to park at the bridge over Harper Creek, where it flows into Wilson Creek, which is a half mile south of the Harper Creek Trailhead. However, all potential parking spots and pull-offs near the bridge were taken, so I had to drive a short distance up the road. I found a pull-off with room for one more car... mine!
I got started shortly after 12 PM. There were two trails going upstream from the bridge. I started off on the higher one, but it looked like it might veer too far above the creek, so I went down to the lower one. It came out at a sandy beach just upstream of the bridge.
Past this was a spot at a bend where a couple were fishing. The water may or may not have been over my head here, but it looked too small to be a good swimming hole.
Past this was another pocket of potentially deep water at a small, sandy beach.
I saw what appeared to be a steep, defined path coming down from the woods, so I wondered if this was where the upper trail came out, or if it was just a scramble path between fishing spots. It didn’t appear to lead anywhere when I got closer. From here, the creek was mostly a shallow cobblestone stream and was fairly easy to walk.
After this, I stopped to get into a potentially deep bedrock pool, but it was only up to my neck.
The only point of interest I had marked in Google Earth was a sharp bend in the creek with some obvious bedrock slabs. As I approached it, it didn’t appear to have a swimming hole.
However, as I skirted across the slab on the river-right, I could see that there were some potentially deep pockets.
I could also see that someone had set down their backpacking gear at the edge of the woods at the top of the slab and was possibly setting up camp here.
There was almost certainly a legit swimming hole were the creek turned the corner, but it didn’t have deep-looking areas next to any vertical elements, so I didn’t get in.
Beyond the rocky bend were some small bedrock cascades and mostly shallow pools, but nothing remarkable.
One of the broad pools appeared shallow, but I could tell that it was pretty deep in the middle as I skirted around the side of it.
When I got to the upstream end of it, I decided to snorkel it. It was up to 10 feet deep in some places. The water was chillier than I thought it would be. I didn’t take the temperature here, but I figured it was probably in the low 60’s, because it made my hands hurt to swim in it. The sky was also starting to cloud up at this point.
Past this was not really a swimming hole, but a potentially deep underwater crevice that I had to climb around on a mossy slab.
There was one more slabby area before I reached what I had labelled the “exit point”: an area where the creek makes a 90-degree turn and becomes uneventful as it meanders behind the Raider Camp area.
I climbed a steep scramble path up to the main trail, and then I wandered through the campground on a network of paths that mostly stayed beside the creek. However, these paths gave out, so I went back to the main trail where it intersected the MST and continued upstream. My next objective was to re-enter the creek at the beginning of the bedrock slabs about a quarter mile downstream of Harper Creek Falls. I took a steep scramble path to where I thought they started, but it reached the creek at an uneventful area (I later noticed there were a bunch of easier side-paths shortly upstream that led to some primitive campsites near the slabs).
Some people had set up camp next to this small cascade, which was where the slabs started.
I couldn’t tell if this was deep enough to be a legit swimming hole, but it looked deep enough to immerse oneself.
The next cascade was a slide about 6-8 feet high.
The pool was about 5 feet at its deepest point. This looked like it could be a good slide. After feeling it with my foot, I went from midway down a few times before sliding from the top. The rock was very mossy and not slick, but the current was enough to push me down. It was bumpy, but the moss offered sufficient padding. Overall it was kind of slow and gave major wedgies, so not my favorite slide in the Wilson Creek Area.
I could see a fairly large cliff beyond this and assumed it was Harper Creek Falls. I climbed back up to the trail and then did the rope descent down to the swimming hole below the upper drop. I’ve blogged Harper Creek Falls twice before (in 2014 and 2019, plus a mention in 2021), so I didn’t take many new pictures, but here’s a video from today:
There was a small group of people here fishing and swimming. I tried to swim in whichever pool they weren’t fishing in, as the lower sliding drop also has a swimming hole. I slid down the lower drop and snorkeled the lower pool for a potential jumping opportunity on the river-left, where the sliding rock becomes more vertical. The area where one could land safely here was pretty small, so I didn’t try it. I climbed back up and lay out on the warm rocks for a while. The water temperature was 66 °F, according to my thermometer. The big pool where I swam earlier today felt colder, though. I wasn’t going to slide again, but I changed my mind when everyone else started doing it. I also checked out the pothole in the middle of the slide, but it was only about four feet deep. The rope up to the jump on the river-right side of the upper falls was broken, so that wasn’t going to be an option today. A man who was there with his daughter had climbed up onto the sloping rock to the left of the pothole next to the falls and dove off from about six feet and insisted I try it. I did (feet first), but I had to get a running start down the rock to leap into the deep water. I alternated between sunning myself on the rocks and getting back into the water. I had planned to head out by 3:45 PM, but that didn’t happen. Despite the forecast, the sky was now spotless, and Harper Creek Falls on a sunny summer day is hard to tear oneself away from.
I snorkeled the upper pool one last time and somehow found myself enticed to climb the river-left side of the falls via a rope someone had placed there. That was easily the dumbest thing I did all day. The rope was secure at the top, but who knows how long it had been there? It felt a little stiff and brittle. There was a 10-foot waterfall into a large rock tub just above the main drop, but I didn’t get in to check the depth due to the potential current. I used the rope to climb back down the waterfall and asked the people there if they would take a video of me sliding before I headed out.
After I changed back into my shoes, I hiked back to the trailhead in about 45 minutes, plus an extra 5 minutes to where I had parked my car. It was almost completely coated in dust. I headed out and stopped to eat at Sheetz in Statesville. I then drove the rest of the way back to Raleigh with no cruise control.
In summary, there are a couple of legit swimming holes (and several pockets of deep water) on the lower section of Harper Creek, but they are all forgettable in comparison to the pair of primo swimming holes at Harper Creek Falls. I'd say the new pools I found today would probably only appeal to fishermen looking for solitude upstream from the commotion of Wilson Creek Gorge.
