One of the park roads lead to the top of Morrow Mountain, which was where I went first. The road ends in a circular loop, shown here.

Outside the parking lot, a series of steps lead up to a picnic area.

According to the park brochure, the Uwharrie mountains are the remains of one of the oldest mountain ranges in the eastern United States and over millions of years have been worn down to elevations of less than 1000 feet. The views were nevertheless spectacular. This photo was taken from the parking lot at the top of Morrow Mountain.

Here is another photo taken from the top of Morrow Mountain.

A 0.80 mile trail circles the top of Morrow Mountain. The leaf-covered trails are surrounded by a forst of oak, maple, and pine trees

Here is another photo taken along the trail

This photo was taken looking down the side of the mountain.

While the views from Morrow Mountain and the mountain loop trail were certainly spectacular, this is not all the park has to offer. Here is a view of the mighty Pee Dee river. which runs through the park.

Here is another shot of the river, taken from the vicinity of the boathouse. The corner of the boathouse roof of visible in the lower left corner of the photo. My visit to the park followed nearly a week of rains, and you can probably tell from this photo that the river level was very high.

Here is the beginning of the fall mountain trail, which runs alongside this portion of the river. Here the trail was wide and level, with a canopy of hardwood trees overhead. Further ahead, sections of the trail were flooded out, forcing hikers (incluing myself) to find alternate routes around these areas.

Here is another view of the river from further down the trail.

Here is another view of the river, taken still further downstream. If you look closely Falls Dam is visible in this photo. This was as close as I could get to the dam due to the level of the river and the canopy of vegetation.

I traversed the hill visible to the left of the previous photo (taking a spill in the process) and discovered these large boulders at the top. I was hoping to get a better view of the dam but the vegetation was too thick. This was probably not officially part of the trail, but interesting nevertheless.

Returning back down to the river bank, I discovered vines of flowers going through the trees overhead.

Eventually the trail turns away from the river, working its way up Fall Mountain. The clumb is quite steep. Here the forest was composed primarily of pine trees, and the path was covered with pine straw.

The trail crosses a gravel road that runs up to a campground at the top of Fall Mountain. By this time I was exhausted and content to take this road back to the boathouse parking lot.

There was a rapidly flowing creek alonside the road, shown here.

Finally, the boathouse parking lot.

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For questions or comments contact me at mark.mcclure@uncp.edu
This page was last updated April 18, 2003