Wilmington to Brevard Road Trip
Driving from Wilmington to Brevard, NC | Waterfall Hike | Pisgah National Forest | January 2024
After our week in Wilmington, we had a week and a half of time to ourselves before Curtis’ next assignment. He had been given a sort of last minute change to a plant in Georgia, so it made sense to stay in the GA/NC/SC tri-state area during this week to reduce the amount of driving we had to do. Thankfully the weather was looking much warmer and drier during this time than our time driving around the Gulf Coast, so it was an easy decision to spend this time in the Appalachians.
We left Wilmington on Saturday afternoon, entered South Carolina, and drove about 4 hours to a campsite for the night. It rained pretty heavily on the drive, so we didn’t stop anywhere. The campsite was small and not too far off I-26 in Union National Forest. While it was wet outside, it was warm, dry, and cozy in the van, and we had a nice quiet night here, and were thankful to break up the drive and take it easy. However, all the rain led us to getting stuck in the mud at the campground, and after many attempts to rescue ourselves we ended up needing to call for help. Thankfully it only took a half hour to wait for the tow, and we were back on the road in the late morning. We had thought about stopping at another historic site, but after this delay we were just ready to get to the mountains.
We returned to I-26 and drove back into North Carolina. We reminisced the last time we were driving this road, crossing from South to North Carolina the day Curtis graduated from power school and we officially moved away from Charleston back in August of 2016. It was such an exciting day for us, and we had no idea at the time how much our lives would improve from that move. We agreed today that some states are best enjoyed when you can visit if and when you want, stay however long you want, and leave whenever you want. The Navy had us in a few too many states that we didn’t exactly want to be in for way too long.
After crossing into North Carolina, we exited the interstate for a little hike to break up the drive. We drove to the trailhead for both the Little and Big Bradley waterfall trails. Being a beautiful Sunday afternoon, there were lots of other cars here and others out hiking. Charlotte got lots of love from 3 different hiking groups before even leaving the trailhead! We first thought we’d hike to Little Bradley Falls, but as we were starting out we realized the trail was very eroded and there were giant fallen trees that were difficult to get around. Another couple starting on the trail stopped to pet Charlotte, and we asked if they knew if the entire trail was like this, and they were very kind and helpful in telling us that it was, and that the trail to Big Bradley falls would be much easier for Charlotte. We took their advice and returned to the trailhead, crossed the street and made our way to the other trail.
The other trail was indeed much easier, though it had some confusing signs saying parts of the trail were closed unless you had permission, and had many warning signs of dangerous drop offs. We knew we couldn’t hike the whole thing, but just hoped that we could have a nice overlook of the waterfall. After following the flat trail into the woods, we gained a little elevation and started following a very full creek. It wasn’t too long before we arrived at a waterfall — a very small one, which we figured out wasn’t Big Bradley falls. However, in order to continue on the trail, you have to cross the very full stream here with no easy way to do so. It was clear that this wasn’t going to happen for us today, so instead we just stayed and enjoyed the little waterfall before returning to our van. Both of these waterfalls are on the 100 waterfall hiking challenge in NC, so maybe we’ll return someday to attempt them both again, but for now we were just happy to get out and stretch our legs.
We had a light lunch, then returned to I-26 and took the interstate to Hendersonville. As today went on, it was giving us more and more happy memories from one year ago. Last year, we spent almost the entire month of January in the Appalachians between GA-NC-TN, hiking every single day and learning how much freedom we actually had in Curtis’ new job and in becoming nomads. We particularly enjoyed using Asheville as a home base for the week and taking day trips to the mountains in all directions around the city; however, it felt like we had to drive at least 30 minutes in order to reach the places where we wanted to hike. We decided that if we were to be in a similar situation again, we should try basing ourselves out of one of the smaller mountain towns such as Hendersonville or Brevard in order to be closer to the trails. Now here we were today, with a whole week to spend in the mountains, and we knew exactly where we wanted to go. Except instead of looking for cheap AirBnbs like last year, we were returning in our van!
Thankfully there are plenty of dispersed campsites in Pisgah National Forest near Brevard that are open year round. (Though I should mention that there were signs everywhere saying they were considering closing this area to dispersed camping because of all the trash that people leave behind, so if you do go, please be considerate and clean up after yourself so this doesn’t happen!!) For the first half of our week in the mountains, we stayed in different sites off the same forest road. There were a handful of others doing the same thing, but the sites are pretty spread out so we felt like we were alone out here. We set up at our spot for the night, then Curtis went and hiked up the nearest peak while Charlotte and I relaxed and read at the campsite. (Curtis: the peak was not worth doing. It wasn’t on any lists, didn’t have any trails, and didn’t have any views. Just a steep walk through the woods. But I did it anyway.)
