The Panther Creek Trail passes through hardwood forests of white pine and hemlock trees with rocky bluffs and steep uphill ascents. The footpath moves upstream towards the focal point of this trip up where the camera lens of Will Burden’s camera (the one he used to take his now famous pictures) can be seen protruding from the ground. Upon reaching the fork in the trail, the path winds through a hardwood forest one path leads you to the top of the mountain and the other along the valley’s edge. The path continues to a couple of switchbacks then steepens the rise into the Panther Creek drainage. The drainage begins with meadows of tall white pine trees and soon ascend to a low ridge covered in thick forest. At the top of the ridge is a visual feast of different colors where blue sky and greens and yellows combine to present the most ideally framed view of the Southern Appalachians from the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains. While the top of the mountain itself is covered by forest, the base of the mountain faces southwest where the creek makes a narrow bed.
The Panther Creek Trail makes a brief left turn to the path where through the white pine and hemlock forest a trailbed leads to a steep rocky spot that leads to a historic road. The worn concrete trail and narrow lanes make it an interesting ride although without any canopy the birdshade area is often highly visible in the summer. The trail has not seen a trail crew in many years. Given the steepness of the incline the trail can be covered in sections although with care it is possible to do so with no problem. The trail climbs slightly after making a left turn from the road to a ridge top. Upon reaching the top of the ridge the trail turns to the northwest and descends onto Panther Creek. The path is entirely overgrown with large trees and shrubbery that over time will take on the shape of the creek. Over time the creek will freeze and forming a barrier preventing the flow of water farther downstream.
We only saw one other group of three hiking the trail at the same time as ours,however the trail ahead would be different for different sections. Upon reaching the bottom of the incline we stopped and decided to file down the kinks in the trail so our path would be direct again. We walked off the steep part of the trail into the stream and rounded to our car,located just below the bridge near the parking lot. The temperature had been near 70 degrees the last two days which is why we had to stop here. The trail drops off into the stream a ways and then opens up into a wide pathway, which at this point seemed plenty wide enough to stand on. The path sticks to the left as it follows the stream to the drop-off, in other words you are hiking on the left side of the creek. You can also see the bridge from this vantage point which is on the right side of the creek if you don’t want to stop to get your breath back. We were able to see the bridge from this vantage point so it was not to break our stride as we went to cross. With the cold weather coming in we decided that we would be shortchanging ourselves rather than make the extra hike to far past the bridge. We were on the right path, but the path was even and there was not a good short-cuts as you might think. We were on the outskirts of the old homestead and construction site, in other words not too much further than when we had parked our car at the construction lot.
The path ahead kept dipping and climbing. We were on the fourth or fifthrylic Branch Road, so named for the along the branches that were similar to climbing up a tree. The skyline of the town was behind us and the mountain beyond was straight ahead of us. The angle of the sun was so bad that it was almost impossible to see. I know that I said the road was straight, but look for alternate routes. This was a pretty busy time of day as well. The day was evenly divided, with a mixture of sunshine and clouds. Along the way we saw horses grazing along the road, and running down the range. The trail itself was not too much of a path, but certainly not flat. I can only imagine how many times runners have toiled over this spot, weighed down with all that water.
We stopped a bit in a place called the Plateau Inn and saw some other hikers come out of the woods. The man saluted us with his only word of Spanish, “Sí, por favor.” which translated to English means: “It’s cold, but warm outside.” We were naked.
