North Harper Creek

So the plan for last Sunday was to explore North Harper Creek for swimming holes, which has been on my back burner since 2016. What actually happened was that I got to call 9-1-1 for the first time (more on that later). As a result, I ended up having to bail halfway through the hike last weekend, and I returned to finish it up today.

North Harper Creek was the last major creek accessible by trail that I had not explored in the Wilson Creek Area. I had scanned it on Google Earth way back in 2015 or 2016 and marked several points of interest (POIs) that could be potential swimming holes. North Harper Creek features three named waterfalls (North Harper Creek Falls, Chestnut Cove Branch Falls, and Bard Falls), but I couldn’t find any info on whether or not there were any significant swimming holes, which is why this hike has never been a top priority for me. But, the weather was nice the past two weekends, and the larger rivers in the area were too high for swimming due to recent hurricanes, so I finally ended up doing North Harper for lack of anything better to do.

I had two options for this hike. Since the most promising-looking points of interest were all upstream of Bard Falls, I could do an out-and-back hike from the North Harper Creek Trail head to Bard Falls, or I could start at the Harper Creek Trail head and do a through hike up Harper Creek to the confluence with North Harper Creek, and then hike the entire North Harper Creek trail. I was more interested in the latter option, as it would allow me to also check out Harper Creek between Harper Creek Falls and the confluence, and the area of North Harper Creek downstream of Bard Falls. Plus, it would include Harper Creek Falls, which would be a fine swimming hole consolation prize should I not find anything interesting on North Harper Creek. I had marked three POIs on regular Harper Creek between the falls and the confluence, as well as seven POIs on North Harper Creek for a total of 10 POIs along the route I had planned to hike. The POIs are numbered from upstream to downstream, with POI 1 being the farthest upstream on North Harper Creek, and POI 10 being the farthest downstream on regular Harper Creek. The only obstacle for the through-hike option was that I needed a second vehicle and someone who was willing to do an 8-9 mile hike, so I had to wait for a weekend when Brian (my brother) was free, which ended up being last weekend.

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

In summary, I guess I don’t have any strong feelings about North Harper Creek. There were a couple of legit swimming holes, and although they weren’t anything remarkable, they are more secluded and pristine than most trail-accessible places you would find in the Wilson Creek Area. North Harper Creek does have some significant named waterfalls as well as some nice unnamed cascades. The most noteworthy sections of the creek were from Bard Falls to POI 3 (above which the creek flattens out for a while), and from POI 1 to North Harper Creek Falls. POI 4 ended up being a legit swimming hole, as did the uppermost pool of POI 3 (which was smaller than POI 4, but also less shaded). A good out-and-back waterfall + swimming hole hike would be hiking to Bard Falls from the North Harper Creek Shortcut Trail and stopping by POI 3 or 4 for a dip. The section of creek from Bard Falls downstream to the confluence with Harper Creek was pretty forgettable, as was the section of regular Harper Creek from Harper Creek Falls up to the confluence with North Harper Creek.

With about 9 miles of creek and 10 POIs to explore, this definitely ended up being more of an undertaking than I had anticipated. I probably would have ended up having to break it up into two trips regardless of last weekend’s 9-1-1 incident. I wish I hadn’t wasted an hour and a half today exploring the section downstream of Bard Falls, because my explorations of the good stuff ended up being rushed. That said, this excursion did leave some lingering curiosities. If I were to come back here in the future, I would want to explore a little downstream of POI 4, and creek walk the area between POI 1 and Chestnut Cove Branch Falls, as it sounded like there were probably more cascades there than what I saw. The creek seemed like it was probably too tight and boulder-strewn in this area for there to be any significant swimming holes, but you never know. It also sounded like the area upstream of North Harper Creek Falls could have some potential as well, but most of it was not visible from the trail (plus it was basically dark out by the time I reached that point).
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Update: I returned to North Harper Creek in 2022 and thoroughly explored the area upstream of POI 1. Click here for the trip report.