Hike at Duke Forest along New Hope Creek

• Date Hiked: April 11, 2020
• Total miles Tracked: 5.9 miles
• Type of Trail: single track foot trails, gravel roads
• Conveniences: None.
• Best Features: The scenery!
• Worst Features:  Lack of parking at gate entrances
• Wildlife spotted: Nothing this trip, but deer aren't uncommon. 
• Vegetation: Pine and hardwood forests, innumerable wildflowers
• Associated Website: https://dukeforest.duke.edu/
• Primary Author: James

With most state parks and many local trails shut down, a great deal of our hiking this spring has been focused in Duke Forest. This outdoor laboratory is owned by Duke University and consists of several divisions in Durham and Orange counties. There are numerous gates leading into the various forest segments and they can be tricky to locate. You won't find the brown feature signs that normally point you toward federal, state, or local parks, and most of the trails don't show up on Google maps, though some do. Some of the trails are gravel roads okay for mountain biking, though most are fairly short and not particularly challenging. Also know that if you want to hike in Duke Forest, none have bathrooms or water, and none that I can think of have picnic tables or shelters. With few exceptions, the gates don't have parking lots, which means you're frequently having to park on the narrow shoulder next to the road, and the driver is opening their door into traffic and the passenger is stepping out into weeds.

Some of these weeds might have butterflies on them!

That seems like a big list of reasons not to hike Duke Forest, but these are offset by excellent reasons to do so. 1. As noted, they stayed open when some other trails were closed. 2. The lack of parking means that some of them are very lightly trafficked. Cheryl and I have made several after work hikes where we trek two or three miles without seeing anyone. 3. Some of these trails are spectacular! A lot of them are just long walks through woods, which isn't a bad thing, but the New Hope Creek Hike we're talk about today has scenery that rivals hikes you might make in the mountains. 

New Hope Creek winds through the middle of the Korstian Division of Duke Forest. It's possible to hike almost six miles along the creek, and well worth the journey. We met up with my sisters Joy Coggins and Gina Roberson at the Hollow Rock Nature Preserve, after leaving another car on the side of the road on Mt. Sinai Road near Concrete Bridge Road. (There is a lot here, but it's very small.) Hollow Rock Nature Preserve has hiking trails of its own and a pretty decent sized parking lot. As a bonus, there's a bathroom. There's a Duke Forest Gate just across the road, but signs warn you not to cross the road. Instead, you hike down to New Hope Creek, then follow it under the bridge into Duke Forest. When you enter the forest this way, the thing you'll immediately discover is a very large old dam. It's a cool feature to kick off the hike, and won't be the last thing you run across to remind you of the historical significance of the creek.

Dam!

As you start the hike, you'll be on the north side of the creek, and a good bit of the south side will be low cliff faces. The water on the day we walked was extremely clear. For the first mile or so of the hike you catch glimpses of houses across the creek, but soon you reach a turn that will take you far from most reminders of civilization for at least a few miles.

If it were warmer, this is very inviting water to wade around in. 

Most of the walk is flat, but a few miles in things start getting rocky. There's a creek you'll need to cross. There's no bridge, but it's not very deep or wide. After you pass the creek, you're heading for Piney Mountain. This is going to be the most challenging part of the hike. If you want, you can go up and over Piney Mountain, then back down to the creek. If you choose to stay at creek level, you'll be walking along some wonderful rock formations, but depending on the water level, the trail can provide some challenges. There are places where the cliff juts out and forces you to grope around blindly for footholds and handholds to edge around it. I imagine that, in dry spells, you could just rock hop out into the creek. On the other hand, if the creek had been six inches higher, I don't see how you'd make it on this trail without getting your feet wet.

You might get your feet wet even if it hasn't been raining. 

By the end of the day, we were thinking of this section as "the easy part." 

Once you're past Piney Mountain, things stay fairly rocky. It's level, but you need to watch where you're putting your feet. You'll hit a few more tight spots that require scrambling over and around large rocks, and pass by dozens of impressive cascades and rapids.

Great scenery, but you'll mainly be watching your feet. 

You'll know you're about to reach Concrete Bridge Road when the tallest cliff you've yet seen on the opposite side comes into view. After that, it's just a few hundred more feet to reach the eponymous bridge. It's not much to look at, but there is a swimming hole off of it. Since we were there in April, there was no way we were going into the icy water, but there were people braving the waters and it looked like a nice spot. From Concrete Bridge Road, you can either head up the road to exit the park, or press on down the creek. Maybe a half mile from the bridge you'll hit another crazy cliff. We couldn't make it around this one at creek level, but there's a path where people climb over the obstacle. It's pretty steep, but not a particularly long detour. After that, you can hike to Wooden Bridge Road along the creek, then follow that back to Concrete Bridge Road. Alas, due to poor trail markings, we accidentally wound up on the Big Bend Foot Trail, which also takes you back to Concrete Bridge Road. We missed maybe a remaining mile of the creek side trail. 

All in all, if you can leave a car at both gates, it's a good through hike of nearly six miles, a decent length for this area. It's rugged, but I wouldn't describe it as strenuous. A good hiking stick will help immensely. And, this is definitely a dry weather hike. Large sections of the rocky path next to the creek are plainly just part of the creek bed when the water is high, to you might want to steer clear if it's been raining. But, if the weather's good, bring your camera. There's wildflowers everywhere, and the scenery is amazing.