Uwharrie Birkhead Mountain Backpacking Trip
The Boy Scouts with Troop 173 continue their preparation for the big New Mexico backpacking trip in 2022. We wanted to get miles under our belt, so we went to the Uwharrie National Forest. The Birkhead Mountain area is on the northeast side of the park, close to Asheboro. It is national forest wilderness, so there are no facilities, no water, and no campsites that you can reserve. Just a trail and a nondescript "sus" map. Our plan was to hike in a mile in on Friday April 30, five miles on Saturday, and one on Sunday. For the Hiking merit badge, we needed a 5 mile hike, so we didn't want to go too far on Friday. The park was about an hour from the Harrisburg Presbyterian Church, so with nine scouts and three adults in tow, we set out Friday evening. We went clockwise on the Robbins Branch, Birkhead Mountain and Hannah's Creek Trail loop. found an okay camp site on Friday. The pollen was extremely high given it hadn't raine...