Backcountry high vistas are one of our greatest natural resources here in Western North Carolina. These high-elevation vantage points allow us to rise above our everyday humdrum existence and - for awhile at least - see the world anew with fresh eyes.

Many of the finest vistas along the Blue Ridge Parkway, in the Great Smokies, and elsewhere can, of course, be reached directly via motor vehicles. This instant access is just fine when we don’t have a lot of time to devote to backcountry hikes. But, as we all know, it always adds a touch of adventure and resonance to the experience if we have to walk a ways along a trail before reaching our destination.

It doesn’t really have to be a long walk, and many of the most satisfying overlooks require relatively little time or effort to reach. The Sunset Rock Trail, for instance, that leads to a rock outcrop affording a surprising view of downtown Highlands is a 1.4-mile easy roundtrip. And the Pickens Nose Trail on the other side of Macon County — a much less frequented facility — is of the same roundtrip distance and difficulty. The rock precipices it leads to are among the most splendid in the region

Pickens Nose is located at the southern end of the Nantahala Mountains within the Nantahala National Forest. Most users of the trail get there by turning south from U.S. 64 (.4 miles east of the Nantahala River bridge at Rainbow Springs) onto old U.S. 64 for 1.8 miles and then turning right at Wallace Gap onto Forest Service Road 6712, which leads a mile to the Standing Indian Campground. From the backcountry information center at the campground, continue on FR-6712 along the headwaters of the Nantahala and then up the mountain. Eight miles from the information center this maintained road passes through Mooney Gap where the Appalachian Trail (marked with white blazes) makes a crossing in its swing through the Nantahala Mountain Range. Continue another .7 miles along FR-6712 to the trailhead for Pickens Nose, which is marked Forest Service Trail number 13 and leads off to the right.

The trailhead is situated in a gap at 4,680-feet, and the trail leads south along the crest of a ridge through a rhododendron tunnel. At about a half-mile there is a side-trail leading a few yards to the east (left) to a small outcrop providing a view out over the Coweeta Creek watershed and the Little Tennessee River Valley (up which U.S. 441 passes between Dillard and Franklin) to the Balsam Mountain Range in the distance. You can spot Highlands in the distance. Raven are active on this side of the ridge and probably nest in the vicinity.

At .7 miles one comes at approximately 4,900 feet to Pickens Nose, a sloping, multi-level granite outcrop on the southwest end of the ridge. It’s maybe 45-feet long and 20-feet wide. The vertical drop of the rockface - a favorite of area rock climbers - is 50 or so feet, while the almost sheer descent into the Betty Creek valley below is 2,230-feet. And it looks it.

The view west and north is into the high Nantahalas with Standing Indian looming at 5,499 feet due west. Its four miles away but seems as if you could reach out and touch it. To the east the Balsams swing back in their giant arc toward the Smokies. To the south one looks out over an endless blue expanse of mountains into Georgia and the upper headwaters of the Savannah. Here one is on an edge of the contorted Appalachian drainage systems that lead on the one hand to the Atlantic and on the other through the vast heartland of the nation to the Gulf of Mexico.

Turkey vultures roost on rocks near Pickens Nose and when disturbed flap away to circle in communal circles or “kettles”over the Betty Creek void. They are joined by a pair of resident redtailed hawks whose swift glides and plunges are accompanied by their piercing “keeerr” calls.

It’s a wild place — the sort of highland eyrie where one might even expect to see peregrine falcons. Don’t be surprised if you do. North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission biologists hacked peregrines here in the 1990s.

Why Pickens Nose? That’s a strange name even for a mountain region noted for odd place names. In profile, it’s easy to discern that the upper level of granite forms a half-dome resembling a man’s forehead, and that the next level has a triangular rock jutting out that does indeed appear to be a humdinger of a nose.

Now, we’re talking big-time noses here, the sort of 8-foot snout that would have put Jimmy Durante to shame. The term “rugged countenance” takes on new meaning when applied to Pickens Nose. But who in real life had a nose capable of inspiring the original naming? All the evidence indicates that it was General Andrew Pickens of South Carolina, a soldier in the Revolutionary War who subsequently initiated prohibited sales of Cherokee lands during the 1780s and helped lay out Indian boundary lines during the 1790s. A reproduction of a painting of Pickens that can be found on the Internet at indicates that the general was indeed particularly well endowed in this regard.

Pickens apparently knew the lay of the mountain lands well, for in the campaign conducted against the Cherokee here in Western North Carolina in the fall of 1776 he served as a guide for Col. Andrew Williamson’s forces in the Nantahalas. It’s not known from which vantage point Pickens and his men first viewed the outcrop that became his namesake, but the men thought it resembled their leader’s proboscis, and the name stuck.

It’s not a pretty name, but it’s interesting and it does beat “Lover’s Leap” by a long shot, just as the view from this backcountry outcrop beats most other vistas by an even longer shot.

(Note: A description for Pickens Trail is in Allen de Hart’s “North Carolina Hiking Trails.” A “Standing Indian Trail Map” is available from the U.S. Forest Service, or consult the “Prentiss Quadrangle” map issued by the U.S. Geological Survey. The large “Nantahala National Forest and Pisgah National Forest” map issued by the U.S. Forest Service is useful when exploring forest service lands and locating features from overlooks.)

(George Ellison is a writer who lives in Bryson City. He wrote the biographical introductions for the reissues of two Appalachian classics: Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders and James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. Readers can contact him at P.O. Box 1262, Bryson City, N.C., 287713, or at ellisongeorge@cs.com.)

 

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