Two ‘Other Worlds’ Not Far from Home

Ginger Travis 

Above: Kayakers launch from an easy shore access at Robertson Millpond Preserve in Wake County. Canoeists use a low dock. Robertson is one of two exciting day trips highlighted in “Other Worlds.” PHOTO BY GINGER TRAVIS

Roy-the-dog and I walk the same woodland trails six days a week. Roy never gets tired of his woods. I do, even though there are days of glory in spring and fall. It’s just that sometimes I really need to see something new and strange, a little relief from the ordinary.

My relief is to paddle black water in a cypress swamp. Or see a Carolina bay filled with acres and acres of yellow pitcher plants. Or hike up a bare-backed mountain. Or marvel at the box-shaped scars on living longleaf pines that were last tapped to make turpentine decades ago.

“Other worlds” I call these places so far removed from my daily life. Some are too distant for day trips. A few, though, are just 60 or 70 minutes from Chapel Hill. I explored two of them recently—one by kayak, one on foot. I recommend them.

Robertson Millpond Preserve, a pocket cypress swamp

6333 Robertson Pond Rd., Wendell, 919-604-9326.
Hours: 8:30 to 5:30 Sat/Sun. only. Entrance is free. Bring your own boat; there are no rentals. No bathrooms.
See wakegov.com/parks/robertsonmillpond   Also see Robertson Millpond on Facebook.

I heard about this old millpond in eastern Wake County years and years ago, but I figured it was private. Then, late in 2015, I happened to read about the “Wake Wonders,” a designation encompassing six natural areas of great significance in Wake County. (Good marketing, right?) Robertson Millpond was named as a Wake Wonder—an honest-to-goodness bald cypress swamp just east of Raleigh, and way farther west in North Carolina than I thought a bald cypress swamp had any business to be. The 85-acre swamp had been bought by the county; lightly improved with a marked paddle trail, canoe dock, and picnic tables; and opened to the public on weekends only.

I couldn’t get over there fast enough!

Anyone who also has been to Merchants Millpond State Park in Gates County will be struck by the similarities between the two blackwater swamps 125 miles apart. Both mill­ponds were formed when significant creeks were impounded for a water supply to turn millstones—in the case of Robertson, it was Buffalo Creek.

The Wake County gristmill operated from the 1820s up into the 1940s; likewise, the Merchants gristmill in Gates County operated from about 1811 till shortly before World War II. At some point bald cypress trees colonized both millponds. And because their mill dams remained in place after the mills ceased operating, both ponds have suvived as swamp forests. There are differences, though: Merchants has alligators and Robertson doesn’t (yet!); and 700-acre Merchants is eight times larger than Robertson. Robertson is a pocket swamp—but no less remarkable. It is just so unexpected right outside of Raleigh.

So I recruited my paddling pals, Camille and Deb, and off we went to try the pocket swamp on a warm early-December day. The first thing every single one of us did, traveling separately, was get lost. (Deb’s GPS device wanted her to drive overland through farm fields to get there. It shouldn’t be so difficult: the preserve is just north of Hwy 64.)

But when we all finally did arrive we found a perfectly simple preserve set up for paddlers. No motorboats allowed. No hiking trails, no playground, no swim beach, no volleyball, no bathrooms. Just a couple of picnic tables and a small, neat parking area. All we needed.

A small dock is in place for launching canoes (and it looks handicapped accessible to me). In addition we found the easy kayak put-in nearby. This consisted of three sheets of heavy rubber mat, like the kind you put in a truck bed, laid end to end on a slope at the water’s edge. Set your kayak on it, get in, and scoot yourself into the water. I was delighted with the ingenuity of it.

We picked up the numbered buoys of the paddling trail just above the old mill dam and wound our way through the cypress trees— leafless in December because cypresses are deciduous conifers; they drop their needles, then green up again in spring. I spotted what looked exactly like a bluebird nest box on a metal pole in the water. Close.

The box was placed there for use by Prothonotary Warblers, intensely golden-yellow birds that breed in southeastern swamps and nest in cavities situated low over the water. As I write in late April, I’m guessing that this spring-migrating warbler species has arrived at Robertson Millpond, and a pair has already claimed the box. (We saw other artificial cavities nailed to trees.)

Deb and Camille and I soon reached the end of the numbered buoys, but we just kept going wherever we could find an opening in the trees. We encountered an old rowboat beached on higher ground in the woods at the western edge of the swamp. Looked as if there was an old farm nearby. Then we threaded our way over to the east edge where we saw high ground with pastures and McMan­sions, perhaps a horse farm development.

But most often in the swamp there were no landmarks. We read the way forward partly by the surface of the water—scum-covered meant a dead end and clear meant good to proceed. We got ourselves stuck on submerged logs a time or two. We somehow avoided getting clotheslined on our long kayak paddles among close-spaced trees. All the while I studied the plants growing in cracks and accumulated soil just above the waterline at the base of living cypresses: swamp rose, Virginia sweet­spire, a deciduous holly and ti-ti among others—gardens on trees, a beautiful thing to see.

Heading back to the takeout we navigated by the position of the sun and by distant traffic noise from Hwy 64, just south of the preserve, until we picked up the marked trail again. And made it out with no problem.

I would love to go back now that the swamp is green and shaded. Like the coastal NC river swamps, Robertson Millpond surely is at its best in spring and fall. Summer I would avoid.

Small as it is, Robertson Millpond is definitely another world. It’s a place to separate yourself from traffic, deadlines, social media, mindless chatter and the same old sights and sounds of home. It’s bigtime relief from the ordinary. And, yes, it is a Wake Wonder.

White Pines Preserve: the last ice age says hello!

548 South Rocky River Rd., Sanford 27330
GPS coordinates:  35.614491 -79.159132
Entrance is free. No amenities other than hiking trails; no bathrooms.
Triangleland.org, also on Facebook

Note: The official street address for the pre­serve (above) does not coincide with the actual road names on signs leading to the preserve. In my directions, below, I give the road names that I observed on signs.

Directions: From the courthouse circle in Pittsboro, go south on Hwy 15-501 about 8 miles. Take note when you cross the Rocky River (identified by a sign). Across the river, go up the hill and at the top turn left on River Forks Road (first paved left after the river). Then take an immediate right on South River Forks Road. Follow this road till the pavement ends and keep going on a well-maintained gravel road. When you reach a stop sign, turn right. This dirt road will take you into the White Pines Preserve. If you have crossed the Deep River on 15-501, you’ve gone too far and missed the turnoff.

In a nutshell, there are two reasons to visit this 275-acre Triangle Land Conservancy pre­serve. First, it’s unusually beautiful: high, rocky forested land between two rivers that flow together at a picturesque spot. With rock outcrops and mountain laurel in some spots, you might easily imagine you are in the mountains just off the Blue Ridge Parkway up in Ashe and Alleghany counties.

Second, the cool microclimate here has preserved mammoth old white pines left over from a population that grew when North Car­o­lina was chilled by glaciers covering the northern U.S. and Canada 10,000 years ago. Today white pines naturally grow much farther west, and higher, in the foothills and mid-level slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains. White pine is a left-behind plant here in central NC, just like the mountain laurels and the catawba rhododendron stands on shaded north-facing bluffs.

So go to White Pines Preserve for hiking in solitude in a place that feels like the mountains. Or go for botanical treasures. Or go for both! We did.

My friend Margaret and I met in the Har­dee’s parking lot in Pittsboro. (I saw a Broad-winged Hawk there, probably migrating north, while I waited for her). We dropped one car and continued on down to White Pines. It was a Monday in mid-April, with perfect weather. The preserve, by the time we traveled the last mile on unpaved roads, had a wonderful air of remoteness, of deep country. In the tiny parking area at the traihead, we saw only two other cars. Yet in hours exploring the trails, we never saw another human soul.

I had been in touch beforehand with Bo Howes and Matt Rutledge at TLC. Matt told me a surprising thing: that all five major pine species occurring in North Carolina are found in the preserve, including long­leaf represented by a grand total of two trees (how’d THEY get there?). The others are loblolly, shortleaf, Virginia and white pine. Matt thought this might be the only place in North Carolina that boasted all five. And Bo added a little tease, saying that there is one point on the Gilbert Yager Trail where all five species can be seen at the same time.

You think that wasn’t a challenge?! So of course we took the Gilbert Yager Trail first.

I would recommend a different choice to a first-time visitor. To view the magnificent white pines first and then the two rivers, take the White Pines Trail connecting to the River Trail. Then catch Gilbert Yager on the way back up to your car, if time and energy allow.

Look sharp, though. You could march downhill on the White Pines Trail saying to yourself, well where are they? And walk right by the grand old trees. If you are used to seeing white pines in our mountains, you’ve seen them in solid stands, where their blue-green needles and branches coming off the trunk in whorls (like spokes off a hub) are quite distinctive.

Here the very old white pines are widely scattered throughout a hardwood forest that has grown up beneath them. Their crowns start 50 to 60 feet overhead and are only visible if you stand right next to a pine trunk and look straight up. But a great clue is the presence of their cones on the trail— long, narrow cones a bit like squirrels’ tails —that are very different from those of all other pines on the preserve. And once you have found your first white pine, you’ll recognize the rest by their bark—which is also quite different from that of the other pine species.

The white pines along the trail are up to two feet in diameter and close to two centuries in age. They are a great thing to see —and to revere.

When the White Pines Trail reaches the River Trail, take the latter and walk to the point where the two rivers meet. There are tons of wildflowers along the way. (We saw blooming jack-in-the-pulpits on our visit.) At the point you can take a seat on a fine cedar bench and inhale the tranquility of this spot. There are dozens of turtles out on the river rocks. And you might see an im­mature bald eagle perched in a dead tree across the Deep River.

If you pick up the Gilbert Yager Trail on the way back, it will lead you out on a dry rocky upland where the shortleaf pines and one of the longleafs can be found. The dominant pine, though, as you approach the parking area is loblolly, originally a coastal plain species but planted in the piedmont for commercial use because it grows so fast. Now it is naturalized everywhere. Chapel Hill is loblolly city!

TLC has clear cut small patches among the loblollies and has planted these with white pine seedlings. You’ll see the babies inside wire cages to protect them from browsing deer. Pines will not grow in shade. So the only future for white pines at the preserve one hundred or two hundred years hence starts with clear spots now where seedlings can grow and get ahead of the hardwoods that will follow.

Interestingly, TLC also has planted seed­lings of this particular white pine population at other local preserves including Johnston Mill and Brumley, as well as at DuPont State Forest in Transylvania County. The idea is to preserve the genes of this unique white pine population to guard against a possible total loss at one location.

White Pines was the first project, 30 years ago, of Triangle Lan Conservancy. It was a place deemed so special then that it had to be protected. It was extraordinarily special then, and is now, and all the more so with Pittsboro and northern Chatham County poised to be­come the new Cary. We should thank our stars for the foresight and energy of those who banded together to protect the white pines. I do.