Upper Creek - Raven Cliff Gorge (NC)

I finally got to explore Raven Cliff Gorge on Upper Creek, yesterday. This has been at the top of my swimming hole list for about a year, now. When I went to Hunt Fish Falls last summer, I got into a conversation with a guy there about swimming holes in the area. He said he had recently gone to Raven Cliff Gorge with his nephew and his nephew’s friend, and he said he would never do it again because there was a place where they had to hold onto a steel cable and scale the side of a cliff; he said you would die if you fell. I asked him where that was, and he said it was on Upper Creek. I was intrigued despite his description, being that Upper Creek Falls is one of my favorite places of all time, and the prospect of another accessible(ish) stretch of the creek with waterfalls and swimming holes was enough to pique my interest. I have always wondered what lay downstream of Upper Creek Falls, and I had scanned Google Earth once before and found what looked like a couple of substantial waterfalls ostensibly in the middle of nowhere, where the creek flows in the shape of a C around what looks like a large cliff jutting into its path. I figured that must be Raven Cliff Gorge. I tried looking it up, but I didn't have much luck. Most of what I found was for Raven Cliff Falls in South Carolina and Georgia (which I might actually have to visit now that I have seen pictures of them, but those were not the Raven Cliff I was looking for). Even after scouring the internet in the subsequent weeks, information on the Raven Cliff Gorge of Upper Creek was pretty scant, but I did manage to scrounge up enough information to get a reasonable idea of how to get to it and what to expect. Part of the problem is that Raven Cliff Gorge is apparently an unofficial and somewhat unknown name for the area (I think that name is mostly used by the whitewater community). The most thorough source I found was a blog by backpacker Tipi Walter, which included photo documentations of his various backpacking adventures in the area dating back to the 1980s. He never uses the name Raven Cliff Gorge (I believe he refers to it as Upper Creek Canyon). I also found a useful description (with photos) of the downstream approach to the gorge, including the cable crossing, on a fishing website. The only other tasty tidbit I found (and the only one that actually uses the name Raven Cliff Gorge) was this POV kayaking video that shows the creek at high flow. Kevin Adams gives the area a listing in the third edition of his North Carolina Waterfalls book, which just came out about a month ago, although the only information it contained that I had not already gleaned from the aforementioned sources was the GPS location where one leaves the official trail to approach the gorge through the creek from downstream (that information ended up being pretty useful). After finding these resources and studying Google Earth (which makes everything look so much less imposing than it really is) an admittedly ridiculous amount, I had all the information I was going to get.



All that was left to do now was wait for a dry day and round up a hiking buddy or two. After the long bout of thunderstorms we have had lately, this weekend was forecasted to be dry. I figured it was time for another mountain swimming hole excursion, and I was able to rope Mary and Orin into going with me. We left Raleigh around 9:15 AM to make the 3.5 hour drive to the Wilson Creek Area. They asked where I was planning on taking them, and I said I was thinking about either Steels Creek or Raven Cliff Gorge. Both involve treacherous creek walks that I would not do alone. I was about 85% sure we would end up going to Steels Creek, which I thought would probably be better given that Raven Cliff would probably take a full six hours, and we would have to drive back afterwards. However, Raven Cliff Gorge piqued their interest when I told them about it, and they seemed more intrigued than discouraged by the prospect of a cable crossing (especially Orin, who is basically Spider-Man when it comes to climbing on rocks). When we stopped for lunch in Morganton, I asked which place they would rather go. They both said they had no opinion at first, but then Orin asked which was more difficult. I said probably Raven Cliff Gorge, to which he responded, “Let’s do that one.”

( Click here for the full trip report with pictures and videos )

We weren’t sure where to eat on the way back, but then we saw a billboard advertising some kind of breakfast food, which inspired the obvious idea that we needed to go to iHop. I ate a bacon cheeseburger with a side of white chocolate chip raspberry pancakes, because who says you can’t have it all? We got back to Raleigh around midnight, and I had to get up and go to work the next morning. I thought 6 AM was going to come real’ fast, and believe me, it did.