Bracken Mountain Trail, Bracken Preserve, Brevard, NC

[dropcap style="font-size: 60px; color: #9b9b9b;"] B [/dropcap]racken Mountain Preserve and Recreation Area is 395 acres of forested land owned by the town of Brevard in Transylvania County, NC. This municipal preserve is due west of downtown and adjacent to Pisgah National Forest and the Brevard Music Center. The town secured approval from the National Forest Service to build a connection with the established trail system, and to link with Forest Service Road 475C. A grand opening was held on July 27, 2012 for 7.1 miles of hiking and mountain biking trails within the Preserve. Future planned amenities include a group camping area, benches, and observation platforms. We thought it would be fun to tell you about the most recent addition to the Western North Carolina trail family. This hike occurred on Wednesday, August 1, 2012 from 8:45am to 12:30pm. Our plan was to take the Bracken Mountain Trail up and over Bracken Mountain to its meeting with FR 475C in Pisgah National Forest, then return.

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Hike Length: 9.3 miles Hike Duration: 3.75 hours Blaze: Blue

Hike Rating: Moderate Hike Configuration: Up and back

Elevation Gain: 1,386 feet Elevation Change: 972 feet

Trail Condition: Brand new. Skinned clay. Waiting to mature.

Starting Point: Bracken Mountain Preserve parking area on Pinnacle Rd.

Trail Traffic: We encountered two hikers and four bicyclers.

How to Get There: From Brevard, NC take Probart St. to Music Camp Rd. and turn right. When you reach the entrance to the Brevard Music Center, instead take the gravel Pinnacle Rd. to the left. There is parking at the top of the hill. The trailhead is in the northwest corner behind the signboard.[/box]

I’ve been trying to recall if I’ve ever hiked a brand new trail before within days of its opening. Don’t think so. As luck would have it, my companion and I ran into a newness problem before we even got started. When we reached the top of Pinnacle Road in Brevard to access the Bracken Preserve, there was a chain across the road. Huh?

We had read about this new trail in the local newspaper, and it was supposed to open on July 27th. Hmmm. So we headed back down into town wondering what time City Hall opened, and for that matter, where is City Hall? We never found City Hall, but we did find a closed Visitors Center. That’s what we get for being early risers. On the outside wall of the closed Visitors Center was a Brevard brochure that had a phone number for City Hall. Now we’re getting somewhere.

The nice lady who answered the phone transferred me to the Planning Department. She said they had been handling the work on the new Bracken Mountain Preserve. Another very nice lady told me because of the significant rain storm the day before, they had closed the immature trails in order to prevent rutting in the mud from mountain bikes. But, she said, they would have someone up there within five minutes to open the road. Apparently they didn’t mind hiking boot prints.

Sure enough, by the time we got back up to Pinnacle Road, there was a city vehicle just leaving, and the chain was down. Talk about quality service. There is parking for about 8-10 vehicles at the traihead. There we found a brand spanking new signboard with two maps, one of the new trail system within the Bracken Mountain Preserve, and another larger multi-county topographic map that put the Preserve in perspective. The marker for the beginning of the Bracken Mountain Trail is behind the signboard.

Make sure you’re warmed up and stretched out because this hike starts climbing immediately, and continues that way for three miles until it reaches the summit of Bracken Mountain. It’s only moderately steep, ascending almost a thousand feet, but will give you a good workout. This isn’t a simple municipal recreation trail. You will get your exercise.

The trail itself is quite easy to navigate. Being brand new as it is, the surface is totally clear of debris and has been skinned of rocks and roots. As it begins to mature with a layer of leaves this fall, and the eventual mosses and lichens, it will be more intriguing to look at. Right now it has the appearance of a long clay scar on the mountainside.

There are a number of large switchbacks deployed to ease the climb. It certainly lengthens the total distance, but makes the ascent more accessible to all ages, shapes and sizes. The planners did a good job, building an outward camber into the surface of the trail to assist with drainage. The result? Despite the heavy rain the day before, we didn’t encounter any puddling. They also placed barriers on some of the steeper switchbacks in order to protect the mountain bikers who may approach the hairpin turns with too much speed.

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