Wilson Creek Trail

After checking out most of what the Wilson Creek area has to offer by the end of 2016, I thought I was going to have to start looking elsewhere for new swimming holes less than a four hour drive from Raleigh. This past winter, I was looking at my National Geographic map of the Linville Gorge area and saw that there was a Wilson Creek Trail. I had heard of this before but always assumed that it ran through Wilson Creek Gorge, which I am already familiar with. However, the map showed the trail running through a different section of the creek further upstream from the gorge. I couldn’t find much information online about the trail aside from a stray picture or two that showed a typical cobblestone creek. I did find a fishing video or two that showed crystal clear pools along upper Wilson Creek, which gave me hope that there could be some nice swimming holes here, despite the scenery not being as dramatic as in the Wilson Creek Gorge. Over the winter, I had scanned the upper section of Wilson Creek on Google Earth and marked thirteen points of interest (POIs) that looked like possible swimming holes. As I mentioned in my entry on Little Wilson Creek, I found out via Kevin Adams’ North Carolina Waterfalls book about a guide book called The Linville Gorge and Wilson Creek Hikers Guide: An Introduction by Allen T. Hyde. Hyde’s book didn’t make much mention of swimming holes along the trail, but it contained quite a bit of useful info about his experience on the trail and how to navigate it (including GPS waypoints).

This was one of those excursions that I didn’t want to do alone because it sounded pretty secluded, plus it was too long for an out-and-back hike (for me), so I would either need a shuttle or a hiking partner with a vehicle so that we could leave cars at both ends of the trail. I also needed someone who enjoys hiking for the sake of hiking, because most people I know would probably want to beat my ass for dragging them on a seven-mile hike that may or may not include anything worth seeing.

Brian slept on the floor of my motel room after yesterday’s excursion and was up for another hike today. Since he was still around and had expressed interest in the Wilson Creek Trail when I had brought it up yesterday, I thought this would be a good chance to knock it out. There was a 60 percent chance of rain today, but unlike yesterday, the Wilson Creek Trail didn’t sound terribly treacherous from what I knew of it (just long), so it wouldn’t really matter if the ground got wet.

After we ate breakfast, we drove out to where the gravel Edgemont Road meets 221 and proceeded down Edgemont Road. This is the road I had taken to get to Little Wilson Creek this past spring. There had been some flooding since I was here last, so I was unsure how far I would be able to get in my Camry. We decided I would park my car at the northern terminus of the Wilson Creek Trail (closer to the paved road), and then we would take Brian’s car, which had high clearance and four wheel drive, to the southern terminus to see if it looked like my car would be able to make it (since I would have to drive Brian back to his car after the hike). There were a few ruts and one area with some rocks sticking up, but it looked manageable. However, just beyond the southern trailhead was a rut in the road that I would not be able to cross (which was also the case at the northern trailhead), so it was a good thing the trail started where it did. We got started around 11:30 AM.

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

In summary, the Wilson Creek Trail is a nice, secluded hike along a mostly uneventful section of the creek. The crystal clear pools here are pretty and offer frequent opportunities to cool off during a long hike, but they don’t really compare to the swimming holes and scenery that can be found downstream in the Wilson Creek Gorge. The only drawback to Wilson Creek Gorge is that it’s right off the road, so it’s inevitably crowded. While the Wilson Creek Trail didn’t exactly have any “destination swimming holes”, the pools here offer a more secluded alternative to popular places like Wilson Creek Gorge, Upper Creek Falls, Harper Creek Falls, and Gragg Prong, and without the treachery of other secluded places like Steels Creek. Overall, the best pools were concentrated on the downstream half of the trail. I would say POI 1 was the best swimming hole, followed by POI 3. Neither of these offered any bonus features (like a jump or a slide), but both had trees that could be conducive to putting up a rope swing. POI 8 had a serviceable low jumping opportunity for confident shallow water jumpers, but I wasn’t confident enough to try it. POI 8 also had a campsite next to it, and if I were into camping, I would say this was the best campsite location on the entire trail. POIs 6,7, and 10 were about 5-6 feet deep, but I wouldn't really consider them to be legit swimming holes. I didn't get into the water at POIs 2, 4, 5, and 9, so I can't say whether or not those were legit swimming holes (9 almost certainly wasn't). Despite the downstream end of the creek having bigger pools, I thought the upstream end of the creek (upstream of the Stack Rock Creek confluence) was more intriguing. The downstream area was mainly a flat-ish cobblestone creek with an occasional pool, but the upstream end was starting to turn into cascades over large rock slabs that could produce crystal clear rock tub type swimming holes (it was starting to look like what I had hoped Little Wilson would be). It definitely had some Devil’s Fork-esque appeal. I do intend to pick up where I left off at some point, as we only got to 10 of the 13 POIs that I had marked. Unfortunately, the trail left the creek between POIs 10 and 11, so exploration of POIs 11-13 would require a creek walk, which we did not have time for today. We saw some pretty nice small pools in the upstream cascade area that weren’t even visible on Google Earth, so I’m intrigued to get back down there and check out the ones that are actually big enough to show up on the satellite imagery. I'm going to go ahead and say "To Be Continued" for upper Wilson Creek.
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Update: We returned in 2019 and checked out the remaining POIs. Click here for the trip report.