Bankhead National Forest: Hurricane Creek Hike

Last updated: December 9, 2023

photos taken by me unless otherwise indicated

When Karen reached out asking who wanted to go hike Hurricane Creek at Bankhead National University Forest, I temporarily lost my mind and immediately agreed. The hike to Big Tree a few weeks ago had not been the best of times… we swore we wouldn’t go back until the weather cooled significantly.

The justification for going before the temps cooled was that it had been so rainy… there were bound to be some good waterfalls. The water had been low last time… there were lots of dry places that left us disappointed. We wanted to see waterfalls, dang it!

Karen had hiked Hurricane Creek before but didn’t get to finish it as it had been winter, and she’d gotten rained out. She knew of at least one waterfall and really wanted to finish what she’d set out to do the first time. I was happy to tag along!

We were on the road together by 7 am. I was much better prepared this time. I had a legit hiking backpack with a 3L bladder and wore a tank top. Given we planned to cross the river and water hike, I even had some hiking water sandals.

There were two entrances to hike Hurricane Creek: the service road or the shooting range. Since Karen was familiar with the service road entry, we stuck to that route.

Even along the service road, there were beautiful photos to be captured… an indication of what awaited along the hike!

We kept to Hurricane Creek and tried our best to stay on some old roadways that existed back when Bankhead was inhabited 50+ years ago. As you can imagine, they were heavily overgrown, however, we discovered some beautiful sights including an empty turtle shell, a shotgun shell, a couple of waterfalls, gorgeous greenery and of course; mushrooms! It was an action packed day with lots more lessons learned, but we’ll get to that. First things first, enjoy the journey through these photos.

After about five miles, we came to this small trickle of a waterfall and decided to stop for lunch. At this point, I was still feeling great even though the temps were in the 90’s. I attribute that to proper gear and clothing… it matters! After we finished our lunch, we trekked onward a few more miles to the spot where Karen stopped when she previously visited…. a waterfall! The scenery along the way was epic.

And here we got our first glimpse of the waterfall Karen remembered. We worked our way down and took a break while enjoying a snack while taking in it’s beauty.

After this was unchartered territory as Karen had not been past this. We water hiked for about two miles until we came to the end of our journey… the top of a very tall waterfall! This portion of our adventure was my favorite. The water was up past our knees in some places which I didn’t mind and actually preferred. Regardless of my preference, we really didn’t have a choice as there was not a way to hike along the creek due to the high banks. I felt like we were in a gorge for a lot of the remaining hike, similar to when I hiked The Narrows!

We hit a couple of more small waterfalls that we were able to climb down so we could continue our journey.

And then, we came to this point… the end of our journey. There was no chance of climbing down this waterfall or finding a way down due to how tall the banks were on either side of us. I can’t say I’ve ever stood at the top of such a tall waterfall… I really liked the different perspective. Waterfalls are magical anyway, so to stand at the top of one felt majestic.

Given we only had about four hours of daylight left, we took this as our sign to turnaround and make the journey back.

I enjoyed the water hike back. It just felt so good on my feet and was a good break from tromping through the leaves and getting hit in the face with spider webs. Plus, it was just gorgeous…

Once we were out of the creek and were about half way back, we decided to just make a beeline to the car through the forest which was a mistake given the heavy brush… I felt like I was getting swallowed by the forest. Vines and briars attacked me the whole way. When we finally made it to the car I was legit bleeding. Some lessons learned this time around:

• Open toed hiking water sandals were great for flat terrain and wading through the water. Not so great for inclined hiking and bush whacking. These are going back to REI and I’m exchanging them for some closed toe hiking water shoes.
• Don’t take a shortcut. Just don’t. It’s not worth it.
• Pants are always good. I was protected from so many scratches and bug bites. I will never hike Sipsey in anything but pants.
• Reapply bug/tick spray on long hikes. This is a major regret and a very large lesson learned that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon.
• Wear a hat or wide sweatband to protect your head from ticks dropping from trees. Miraculously, I didn’t find any in my hair (not yet anyways).
• Use airplane mode and take a power bank. My phone died and Karen’s only had 10% left when we made it out. Given this is our navigation to the vehicle, we would have been up a creek had hers died (no pun intended).
• Make sure your backpack is long enough. This Sula H2o is the bomb, but even though it’s advertised for someone with up to a 21″ torso, it was too short for me. I suspected it was too short when I tried it at home but really wanted it to work as it has all the features I love and really is a good pack, but I’ll be returning it to REI to exchange it for an Osprey. Gregory seems to cater to the short girls more than us long torso tall girls. I even tried their Juno 30 H2o as it was truly an awesome bag and it was too short (up to an 19′ torso). The Osprey one I’m getting has an adjustable torso and honestly fits great. I’ll do a review soon. 🙂

Given the bugs and ticks, both Karen and I are truly done until colder weather approaches. I know, I know… we said that last time, but this time we really mean it! In the meantime, I’ll be getting a blog post ready to talk about backpack reviews and my hiking essentials. I might throw in some adventures I took prior to my blog such as my trip to Virginia to hike Devils Bathtub and some state welcome signs.

Until then, I hope you’re staying cool in this Southern heat and loving life as it’s meant to be enjoyed. No one’s life is perfect and we all have things we wished were different, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still love every second of this gift we’ve been given to live. There’s a big beautiful world out there to explore, and even if you decide to stay in your living room, love it to pieces and do things that bring joy to your heart. We only get one life… there’s no time to do anything except be happy.