From the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina, you can look down into the valley of the East Branch of the Pigeon River. The West Branch flows from the other side of the Shining Rock Wilderness before the branches join and continue flowing north into Tennessee until they join the French Broad River which then flows to the Tennessee River. Before the 20th Century, the Passenger Pigeon would migrate through this valley giving it its name. The migration is unimaginable today. The sky would blacken for hours, and the sound was so loud you couldn’t have a conversation. By the turn of the century, what had been the most populous bird species in the world, was nearly extinct with a lone female who would die in a Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.
Sunset, valley of the East Fork of the Pigeon River
For two summers, I worked at a boys camp near here, and led hikes in Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests. My favorite hikes would begin near this spot—some going up to the Shining Rock Wilderness, others into Graveyard Fields which I wrote about on another visit three years ago. Another hike would start on the Yellow Prong on the Pigeon which would then become the East Fork. The East Fork trail offers plenty of swimming holes and places to camp near the river, and is generally a fairly easy hike down the valley, so it’d be a great easy hike for young boys learning to backpack but still enjoy a wilderness experience.
Big East Fork trail
My hike this month would not be an overnight backpack, but a day hike along part of the river. I started at the downstream end. We got up before dawn since rain was forecast for the afternoon, and drove through fog on the mountain ridges. We got below the fog for the parking area by the trailhead where the camp bus would load us up at the end of the hike, and where my friend John picked me up once. It was still dark and misty to start the hike down to the river.
At this elevation, even in early April, only a few trees are leafing out, but this allows a view of the mountains at many spots with the evergreen leaves of the rhododendrons providing color.
The trail mostly strays not far from the sounds and sights of the whitewater flowing down the river.
Or you can sit and rest a bit and let your imagination run in in the patterns in the wood on an old log.
I met John our first week in college and I learned he lived just a couple miles from the camp I worked at. We were roommates our senior year and the year after. Later during my second year in law school, John was going home for a long weekend and invited me to join him. I thought it would be good to take a break from class, and spend some time in the woods. John dropped me off in the morning along the Blue Ridge and would pick me up the next afternoon at the other end of the East Fork trail. After hiking a bit, I found a place to set up the tent close to the river across from another stream that ran down from the Shining Rock wilderness and had a little waterfall tumbling into the East Fork.
Soon after making dinner, it started raining, so I headed into the tent. I remember reading Sidhartha by flashlight as the rain beat down. And it rained all night. Eventually, it started getting wet on one side of the tent, then the other side as I scrunched my sleeping bag into the middle. And it kept raining. As it got time when on normal days it would start getting light, it still rained, and my bladder could hold out no longer, and there were strange sounds along with the rain. I crawled out of the tent and discovered the river was now next to my tent, and some of it was flowing in a stream on the other side. I’ve never broken camp so fast, and got all my wet gear into my backpack. Many places where the trail ran along the river were now underwater. Bushwhacking on soggy ground through rhododendron thickets was none too easy. The trail runs on the edge of the Shining Rock Wilderness. A wilderness designation means there can’t be any human signs like roads or power lines—or trail signs or even blazes painted on trees. Fortunately, I’d hiked the trail many times, and knew I just needed to head downstream until I’d find the trail up to road where John would meet me. And he found the rain-soaked me to bring back to his parents’ home.
So it was fitting that as Chance and I turned around to head back to the car, parked where John had picked me up 39 years earlier, it started to rain.
