FARMHOUSE
Myron, Dorcas, Bob, and
Laura talked me into hiking on Sunday.
Originally I had planned on backpacking Monday through Wednesday, but
with Monday’s weather forecast looking nasty, I decided to rethink things. I pushed the backpack back to Tuesday. Since I wasn’t doing anything on Monday, I
decided to get out of the house on Sunday.
Sunday’s forecast wasn’t
exactly ideal, either, so we decided to keep it simple. We all met in Denton and headed over to the
Uwharries. Our destination was the Birkhead
Mountain Wilderness Area, which is a place that I hadn’t been to in several
years. The Birkhead’s may be the best
part of the Uwharries because it is an official wilderness area. Most of the Uwharries are heavily logged,
but the Birkhead’s are protected.
We normally avoid the
Uwharries in the fall, since they are the deer hunting capital of North
Carolina. However, hunting is still
illegal on Sunday’s in North Carolina, so we felt relatively safe.
We started the hike at a new
trailhead. The Thornburg Trail starts
off of NC route 1107 a few miles north of the Hannah Creek trailhead. The Thornburg property consists of an old
farmhouse, as well as farm buildings and fields. Apparently the forest service purchased the property, or at least
has some sort of easement. We began our
hike there at 10:30, and walked past the farmhouse under heavy gray skies.
We wandered through a field
before entering the forest. An ordinary
walk in the woods ensued, and we reached the junction with the Robbins Branch
trail less than an hour later. From
there, we’d complete a loop of about 6 miles before returning on the Thornburg
Trail to the trailhead.
We did the loop
counter-clockwise, and before long reached an unmarked junction with the Hannah
Creek Trail. We followed this path to a
small campsite near the creek, where we stopped for lunch. Afterwards, we continued over some minor
climbs and descents and arrived at another campsite at an old home site. A stone chimney still stands, though no
other signs of the home were apparent.
Not far from the home site
we headed north on the Birkhead Trail.
This path leads along a ridge, passing a couple of additional campsites
along the way. We reached the side trail
to Camp 3, but decided against adding another 2 ½ miles to the hike. Instead we continued ahead to a junction
with the other end of the Robbins Branch Trail. We followed this path back along the stream, which was almost dry
due to the recent drought. We made it
back to the Thornburg Trail, and returned to the cars by 3:40, well ahead of
the rain to come.
It had been a pleasant hike
through a forest largely consisting of hardwoods. Surprisingly, there was still some fall color to be seen,
although most of the leaves were already on the ground. This would’ve been a colorful hike a week or
two earlier. The hike provided some
decent exercise, between the 10 miles of walking and the obstacles presented by
many fallen trees. Best of all, we saw
only 5 other people during the hike.
The solitude gave us the chance to catch up with each other, since we
hadn’t all hiked together since June.
Hopefully we’ll all get together for a hike again before next April!
Back to North Carolina's Foothills and Piedmont
Back to North Carolina
Back to Hiking and Backpacking Trip Reports
Please remember to Leave No Trace!