After living in Atlanta for eight smoggy years, I wanted to get out of the big city. I had planned on moving out West — perhaps in Oregon, Northern California or even Colorado. Western North Carolina was a distant fourth on my list — an afterthought, really.

I went through the motions of a visit to Asheville — touring Biltmore Estate, walking the Urban Trail, driving the Blue Ridge Parkway. But I was still convinced that this young man needed to go West. I was already scratching Asheville off my list – when I decided to stop by Bent Creek on my way out of town. I thought I’d get in a short jog before driving back to the Big Peach.

My leisurely, leg-loosening jog turned into an epic 12-mile adventure on rolling Bent Creek mountain trails. I splashed across streams, meandered along muddy single-track, crunched down gravel roads, and climbed smooth, soft trails in shaded forests. I got lost, found my way back to a familiar trail, then got lost again. I ran through quiet coves and grassy, sun-lit meadows filled with birdsong. It was the best trail run of my life.

Still reeling from the run, I arrived back at the parking lot and immediately began searching for a place to live nearby. Who needed the Rockies when I could have the rocky mountain trails of Bent Creek in my backyard? I impulsively decided to rent a small house about a half-mile from Bent Creek.

Today, I know the trails of Bent Creek better than the streets of downtown Asheville. I put more miles on my running shoes and bike than my car. And in the evenings, I can sit on my back porch and watch shadows stretch across Bent Creek’s folded landscape.

Bent Creek drains a bowl-shaped valley rimmed by the Blue Ridge Parkway and the knotted Stradley Mountain ridgeline. Its headwaters gather below Ferrin Knob near BRP mile marker 401. From there, it tumbles for 10 miles through pine and hardwood forests. The creek’s name comes from the horseshoe-shaped bend in the French Broad River where it empties.

Bent Creek is part of Pisgah National Forest, created in 1914 when George Vanderbilt’s heirs sold his hunting land to the U.S. Forest Service for $5 an acre. Later, the Forest Service carved out the 6,500-acre Bent Creek Experimental Forest to conduct forestry and timber research. The research continues today, evidenced by the acorn collection nets beneath a thick stand of oaks along Rice Pinnacle, regenerating clear-cuts along the Shut-In Trail, and selectively thinned poplar groves tucked back along Laurel Branch.

But most visitors to Bent Creek hardly notice the research areas scattered throughout the forest. They stick to the trails — over 50 miles of single track and well-worn gravel roads that have become a mecca for outdoor enthusiasts. On weekends, hordes of hikers and mountain bikers swarm Bent Creek — often called the “Central Park” of Asheville (even though it’s actually 10 miles southwest of the downtown area). Equestrians saddle up for long trail rides there, and parking lots fill up quickly around Lake Powhatan — a popular swimming and fishing hole along Bent Creek. Naturalists stroll along wood-chip trails lined with wildflowers in the North Carolina Arboretum — a 425-acre garden surrounded by Bent Creek. Hunters also flock to Bent Creek between November and March to track squirrel, grouse, deer — but not bear, since Bent Creek is a federally designated bear sanctuary.

Then there are runners like me, dodging bullets and bikes on my daily 8-mile loop through the forest. Along the way, I step in horse poop, dog shit, and bear scat. These days, I wear an orange reflective vest, and so does my occasional canine companion, since several dogs have accidentally been shot in Bent Creek during hunting season.

There are other things about Bent Creek that scare me — like drug busts along Bent Creek Gap Road and the haunting story of Karen Styles, a jogger who was raped and murdered in Bent Creek seven years ago. But I’m not going to let the bad guys chase me away. I’ll keep running my Bent Creek loop.

It begins along Rice Pinnacle — a wide gravel road climbing through dense forest. In the summer, overhanging oaks and maples shade most of the road; in the winter, mountain vistas open through bare skeletons of trees. A few miles later, I veer onto Ingles Field Gap Trail — two miles of hard-packed singletrack twisting up to Five Points, where five trails intersect atop a 3,030-foot ridge. Bikers with tongues dragging in their spokes often pause here to catch their breath and admire the view.

From Five Points, I plunge down the narrow, tire-worn Little Hickory Top Trail, which eventually spits me out onto Laurel Branch gravel. This long downhill is my favorite part of the run. I open up my stride and glide through the shadowy forest, listening to the branch gurgling beside me. I try to flow as smoothly as the water.

On sultry summer afternoons, I’ll stop by the water fountain at Lake Powhatan; otherwise, I’ll cruise down the dirt path skirting Bent Creek. If I’m feeling peppy, I might add on a 3-mile Arboretum loop, but usually I hang a left at Hard Times trail and head back along Warm-up Trail — a roller-coaster bike path with lots of standing puddles and washouts. My mud-splattered shorts look like a Jackson Pollack painting by the time I scamper back to Rice Pinnacle.

When I get bored of my loop, I can always mix it up — perhaps a hill workout on the three-mile climb along North Boundary Trail, or a five-mile jaunt around Lake Powhatan’s Explorer and Deerfield Loops. I usually do long training runs on the South Ridge Trail — a wide gravel footpath that hugs the ridgeline below Shut-In and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Occasionally I’ll hear the click of Shimano derailleurs and the low rumble of knobby tires over gravel. Now and then, I’ll pass by a camouflaged hunter or a middle-aged couple walking their dog. But most of my runs are completely solitary and silent. There are plenty of trails here to go around.

And I know every single one of them. I know their contours and curves as intimately as my wife’s. I know which rocks to step across when fording South Ridge creeks. I know when to duck beneath a drooping birch and when to leap over a hickory log. I know individual trees: the magnolia beside Laurel Branch with initials RT + LT carved into its smooth bark, the white pine slanting sideways across Sidehill, the intertwined trunks of a red maple and sourwood near Yellow Gap, the black locust near Lake Powhatan that marks the halfway point of my loop. I know Bent Creek’s peaks and pitfalls better than I know my own.

Bent Creek is not the wildest, most primitive spot in Western North Carolina — I’ve hiked through bigger forests with taller trees, more wildlife, and fewer people. Nor is Bent Creek the most extensive trail network in the area — North Mills River, Davidson River, and Tsali all have larger trail systems. And there are certainly older, more scenic forests in these hills. Bent Creek was heavily logged in the late 19th century, and many pockets of forest have been thinned or clear-cut by the Forest Service as part of their research.

But Bent Creek is still my favorite place to be. It’s a place where water flows clean and bears still wander freely. It’s a place that breezes in through my bedroom window. It’s a place I’ve come to call home.

There’s no place like it.

The Karen Styles Memorial 5K will be held in Asheville on February 3.

(Will Harlan writes about the outdoors for The Smoky Mountain News. Readers can contact him at wharlan@hotmail.com)

 

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