Noland Creek Hike 1/26/22

 

Snowy road conditions in the park kept us from our January 19th hike, which brought us to Noland Creek on the 26th. Driving up through the main drag (Everett St) of Bryson City and on past Swain County High School, the road becomes Fontana Rd (Lake View Drive on the NSMP map), otherwise famous/infamous for its local title as the Road to Nowhere. 

This time of year, the end of the Road to Nowhere is blocked to the parking lot by the tunnel. A half-mile before that and a sweeping curving bridge is a parking lot on the left, from which a trail leads down and under the bridge. In sunny 30 to 40 degree weather, we hiked upstream climbing some 300 feet of elevation over 4.2 miles, to the planned lunch-site at the 3 picnic tables of campsite 64. "Trail/hike" implies something much less, but this is a wide, easy-walking flat dirt road. From the clear imprint of the tire tracks, this is a road well traveled by park rangers as well.

Rare that a winter plant climbs, that a fern climbs, that it is seen in the park, that it is the only species of its genus in North America, called the American climbing fern (or Hartford fern, lygodium palmatum) yet here it is just 100 feet down the trail. Note the palm-shaped look of the leaf. 

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both" (R Frost)

And so, on a beautiful day, we chose the longer path to the right, and upstream, rich with many feeding brooks.

Some examples of the winter greenery and scenery follow:

cutleaf coneflower

Bridge 1

Lettuceleaf Saxifrage

bridge 2

This is one of a series of several enormous, flat "picnic" rocks alongside the creek that call for a return visit with a hamper of food when the weather gets much warmer.

Intermediate Wood Fern

bridge 3

How well do you know your shoes? Does this boot-print belong to you?

Robin's-Plantain

bridge 4

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Marginal wood fern

This un-baited pig trap just down from the picnic tables will not be catching anything this week near campsite 64.

Above our lunch spot, and across a log footbridge,

 is a cemetery with burial dates going back to the early 1900's and some very newly refurbished headstones.

One of so many beautiful stream cascades with a fine place to sit and ruminate.

Boxwood, with cement foundations nearby, a sure sign of the prior human habitation of Noland Creek area prior to the selling of this acreage to the park around 1946. What remains a sad fact is the absence in park trails of reminders of the presence of the Cherokee nation, that has an archaeological record that extends back at least to 1000 A.D.

Running cedar. You'll remember this one from the last hike. These plants were not far from the trail entry/exit point that lies on the edge of the parking lot.