Don't Die Wondering

Two years ago during the Horrible race I flatted on the backside of Farlow and as I struggled to get it changed Jonathon caught me. He stopped and fed me milk and cookies as I got it changed and then we rode the rest of the stage together. During that wild ride he told me of a rumor that there is a trail that goes from the top of Summey all the way up to the Devil's Courthouse. I filed that info away and vowed to check it out one day.

One day came yesterday and I met Yuri and Luther at the end of 140 with plans to go all the way up Courthouse Creek. Friday night I camped out at Chestnut Falls to do a little backpacking gear check and instead of hiking out down the road I crossed Chestnut Creek and bushwhacked my way to the gate on 140 as a little warm up. I'd done a little research and knew that at one time there was an official Pisgah trail that went all the way up Courthouse Creek but I didn't know how long it had been since it had been maintained and didn't know what kind of conditions we'd find. I expected to be able to roughly follow the trail with periods of all out bushwhacking. The important thing would be to make sure we followed Courthouse
Creek all the way up. If we accidentally followed another branch we would lose the trail and would bushwhack our way into a dead end and frustration.

Things started out just as expected. There was an old rail grade with a faintly used trail. We came to a branch on the creek with trails going up both branches and had to decide which was Courthouse Creek. It took a group effort but I was confident we had stayed on Courthouse Creek. It was slow going as we picked our way through the Dog Hobble and fallen branches but it was beautiful we passed dozens of cascades and waterfalls as well as relics from the logging days. After passing a substantial waterfall and making another decision as to what branch was ours the trail got even fainter and navigation became more important. There was a trail and an old rail cut but staying on it proved to be difficult as it zig zagged over the creek. As we worked our way higher we could spot a large rock high on the mountain top over our left shoulders. Questions began to arise to whether it was the Devil's Courthouse. It was a big rock, that's for sure, and you don't usually view the Courthouse from the creek bed below. If it was Devil's Courthouse that meant we were off course and headed the wrong way. Luther seemed to think we had somehow gotten over to Chestnut Creek and were headed for Fetterbush. Eventually I could see a little bit of the Parkway just below the rock and after consulting my map deduced that the rock had to be on Mount Hardy and we were still headed the right way.

The higher we got the fainter the trail and the fainter the creek. Eventually both just faded away but yet we were still roughly following an old rail grade and even kept encountering old trestles. The area reminded me very much of the Middle Prong Wilderness except it was wilder. We repeatedly kept losing and then finding the trail again. It was slow going but we were making forward progress and having a good time as well. We made our way to the base of a rock and tried to get up close to it to poke around and see if there was a cave when we heard voices. I slowly backtracked out and then we popped right up into the Devil's Courthouse Overlook on the parkway. Perfect!

I'd never been to the top of Devil's Courthouse before so we went up and looked around for a minute before heading down to the Mountains to Sea. From there we picked up the Art Loeb and headed down Shuck Ridge. After several Double Dares it felt weird not carrying a bicycle on that stretch of trail! From there it was just down and more down. A very successful trip!

Our route looked like this:



Pictures:



















That was one of the best things I'd done in the woods in awhile and sort of gave me the Pisgah bug so today I slept in and then went out for a nice little afternoon Pisgah loop. Starting from the very bottom of 477 my route was:

477 > 276 > 475B > Case Camp (HIKE) > BRP > Black Balsam Rd. > Flat Laurel Creek > 215 > 140 > 140A > Farlow Gap > Daniel Ridge > 475 > Davidson River > 475 > 276

45 miles and 11,000' climbing. If my calculations are correct there were only two climbs, a long one and then a painful one. It was a no stop signs sort of solo ride and I didn't stop until Shuck Ridge Creek when I had to get water. Farlow was as sweet as ever but I paid for it on the long walk up 140A!

Mandatory Hike up Case Camp:



Parkway:



This guy was hanging out on 140A:



I leaned in for a closer shot and he jumped into a coil. That was enough to get me to back off!