In the early 2000’s Jean and I did a considerable amount of exploring around the Cherahala Skyway as part of our quest to hike all the trails of the combined Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock and Citico Creek wilderness. Understandably, as we got more familiar with the area, we also became interested in some of the nearby trail systems. I included two bike rides in my 2003 biking guide (Backroads Bicycling Guide) to the Smokies and Blue Ridge area; an out and back trip on the Skyway, and the gravel Jakes Best-Doublecamp loop. We also begin an exploration of the Brushy Ridge Area, the series of six trails that lead southwest off the Skyway down to the Tellico River, with hikes on the McNabb Creek and Hemlock trails.
By
far the most interesting of these nearby areas is the Snowbird Backcountry
Area. Because it is not a wilderness area, Snowbird is far less known to hikers.
It is located in the Nantahala National Forest, west of Robbinsville, NC. This
roughly 8,000 acre area has 37 miles of trails in various states of repair.
Old car on Big Snowbird Trail.
I
had the chance for a brief visit to the area in 2003 when I joined a Smoky
Mountains Hiking Club trip for a ten mile roundtrip hike to Middle Falls. On
that trip we started at the Junction Trailhead on NNF Road 75 and hiked up the
Big Snowbird Trail (#64) to Middle Falls. We saw an old, abandoned car and
plenty of large, appealing campsites. At Big Falls we took a bypass trail to
Middle Falls and were stunned by the beauty of the falls, a 30’ high by 100’
long water wonder with a beautiful pool at its base. The drive home was a
serious, but tolerable 2.5 hours. I knew this would be an area Jean would love,
but it would be some time before we could return.
Middle Falls.
In
the meantime, I tried to gather up what information I could find on the area. I
found two online trip reports, both of which described the area as
“challenging”, mostly due to rough, and difficult to follow trails. We had
learned that in the nearby Cherokee NF trail maintenance was done on a long
term cycle with trails essentially being recleared periodically and left to
gradually grow over until it was their turn again for maintenance. The secret
to hiking in that environment was to find out what trails had been cleared in
the last few years and walk those while they were still open. My trip notes
don’t indicate that we knew the trail conditions in advance, but in general, we
found the Big Snowbird Trail in good shape, but the trail markings on Mitchell
Lick and Kings Meadow trails badly needed an update.
For
fall break in 2005 we planned a four day trip to the area. On our first day we
completed our Map of the Joyce Kilmer Slickrock and Citico Wildernesses with a
hike of the Flats Mountain Trail. (Link ) That afternoon we
headed further east on the Skyway. We planned on trailhead camping, but first
headed to Hooper Bald (best known as the site of the old private hunting reserve
where wild boar first escaped to infest the Smokies region). We planned to take
three days for a loop around the Big Snowbird and Kings Meadows trails. Water
along Big Snowbird would be easy to find, but the return on the Kings Meadow
Trail (#63) looked to be dry. So, we decided to cache three 2 liter bottles of water
just below Hooper Bald at the junction of the Mitchell Lick (#154) and Kings
Meadows trails.
We
liked the top of Hooper Bald well enough we decided to camp there instead. We
arrived at sunset, with the fog rolling in so didn’t get to enjoy the view. The
bald was growing over, with few grassy places and lots of blackberry, but much
better than camping at the trailhead with hunting vehicles driving in and out.
10-13-2005
Morning
brought another dense fog. Arriving at the Big Snowbird (aka Junction) TH there
were only two other cars. We checked out the end of our return route on the
Kings Meadow Trail just to confirm there was a bridge over Snowbird Creek. The
first three miles to the Trail 65 junction at the old car were easy, as was the
next mile to Big Falls. The trail follows the route of the 1928-1942 lumber
operations in the Snowbird Creek Watershed. The side trip to Big Falls is short
but tough; steep and slick with two ropes in place. Big Falls is more of a long
cascade than a true waterfall.
We
ate lunch at the start of the bypass trail (#64A) where we met our only other
hiker of the trip. Though the bypass skips the 11 creek crossings of the old RR
grade, it requires some steep climbing of its own. The west end of the bypass
had the only trail sign of the day. We looked for some campsites in the
complicated area around Middle Falls, and I made a rough sketch map of the
trails. It seemed that the blaze colors for the trails did not match the trail
names on our map. After a bit of waterfall watching we decided to head further upstream
and look for a better campsite. We passed the junction with the Sassafras
Trail, then a pile of cables that we thought might have been for a planned
bridge. The trail here was still a wide well cleared old railroad grade. We’d
gone about a half mile upstream when we found a modest campsite where we
decided to stay. We found the upper part of the stream similar to the Deep
Creek area of the Smokies, the streams are about the same size and are both lined
with rhodo and hemlock.
Middle falls, 2005.
Upper
Snowbird Creek CS, 6.6 miles
10-14-2005
While
the previous day’s hike had been in the more used, better known, part of
Snowbird, the rest of the trip would venture into unknown terrain that was
notoriously tough to navigate. We awoke to fine, cool morning. There was just a
tint of color to the leaves, a hopeful sign that fall was finally on its way.
The trail started mostly easy, except for in places where it climbed the banks
to avoid places where the old RR grade had crossed the creek. We saw an old lumber
camp and modern campsite at the mouth of Meadow Branch. There were some old RR
artifacts, but unfortunately also plenty of modern trash. We missed Upper Falls, which was reputed to
be tough to find in the rhodo.
Our
first pair of creek crossings were just beyond, but we were able to get across
with dry feet. The next campsite we saw was near the head of the creek across
from the mouth of Bearpen Branch. This campsite too was fouled with trash.
After a snack we pushed up the head of Snowbird Creek, then started thrashing
through the rhodo along the creek bed. Luckily, we realized something was wrong
and backtracked to an obvious, but unsigned junction with the Mitchell Lick
Trail. We turned east onto it, but Mitchell Lick was not blazed, and required
several false starts before we got going along it. We next stopped at what we
thought was the junction with the spur trail to Hooper Bald and I dropped my
pack with Jean to hike up to our water cache. After about 5 minutes of walking,
I came to the sign for the spur at the actual junction. I ended up walking up
to the cache, retrieving our water, toting it down to the sign, then walking
back to Jean and the packs, before hiking back to sign to reunite us with our
water.
The
spur junction was at nearly 5,000’, the high point of our trip, so we
celebrated with a nice long lunch before heading down the Kings Meadow Trail.
The Kings Meadow area on the northeast side of the Backcountry Area is private
land, and a maze of ATV roads connect to Hooper Bald and the trail, which was
steep and often eroded. We did our best to follow the ridge line down, with
only a few yellow blazes to guide us. Despite all the ATV roads, we did not see
any vehicles and found a large ridgeline campsite where we made dinner using
the water from our recovered cache.
Kings
Meadow CS, 10.2 mi, plus 1.6 mi RT to recover water cache
10-15-2005
Luckily,
the night passed without any visits from nocturnal ATV’s. We had a short walk
to Deep Gap where the ATVs mercifully exited the trail. But as soon as we
entered the woods the trail grew obscure. No footway, no signs, no blazes, and
heavily overgrown. This trail obviously had earned its reputation for
difficulty. We walked warily until the trail joined Firescald Ridge and became
a little clearer. The end of the trail wound through an area of an old logging
railroad with the characteristic pattern of alternating steep and nearly level
sections. Finally, we reached the new bridge over Snowbird Creek and the
Junction Trailhead. While we thought the lower part of the Kings Meadow Trail
was pretty, overall it was not worth the hassle of hiking the ATV marred
section.
Snowbird
had fulfilled our goal of finding a new and challenging backpacking area
similar to the Smokies and Joyce Kilmer. Just following the trails beyond Big
Snowbird required skill and patience. The Snowbird Mountain and Sassafras
trails were reputed to be even less obvious than the Mitchell Lick and Kings
Meadow trail that we had used. The ATV marred area on Kings Meadow was a
downer, but we had known of that before we left and the land there is partly
privately owned. The major waterfalls are spectacular and within moderate day
hiking range for someone who might be visiting in Robbinsville. However, much
of our reason for not returning to Snowbird was a pivot to the west in our
interest in new hiking areas as we began to explore the new land acquisitions
in the Cumberland Mountains by the state of Tennessee.
We
returned home via the Skyway with a stop for me to hike the 2.5 mile trail to
Huckleberry Bald. 7.5 miles
Huckleberry Bald.
Our 2005 Snowbird Route.
The
best map to the Snowbird Area remains the 1990 NNF Map available here.
