Craig Branch Trail

Distance: 2.4 miles
Difficulty Rating: Moderate

Craig Branch Trail, an administrative access road, starts from Kaymoor Top and descends the Gorge until it dumps you onto Kaymoor Trail. It is short, wide, and graveled, so it's not very technical. Recently, it has become the backbone of the Arrowhead Trail System, which will not be covered in this post. By itself, Craig Branch Trail offers little unless you want a fast, easy hill to run down (and a bear to run back up, in some parts). It is useful to use as an add-on to your route for a couple extra miles with some steep hill work, or it could be used as an out-and-back.

Quick disclaimer: the evening I brought the camera to take pictures of this trail, there was a pretty sick thunderstorm. The low lighting and very wet camera lens made for some pretty blurry pictures.

There's not too much to write about concerning this trail. I run it often enough as part of some of my routine runs, but I usually add it on for the sole purpose of extra mileage and keeping myself sharp on hills. It's a gravel road that starts at the Kaymoor Top Trailhead and travels halfway down the Gorge until it hits right about the middle of Kaymoor Trail. However, the NPS recently partnered with the Boy Scouts [link- http://www.summitblog.org/ribbon-cutting-marks-opening-of-summitcorps-trail/] (September of 2011) to institute the Arrowhead Trail System, designed by the International Mountain Bicycling Association. Craig Branch Trail is basically the backbone of this new system (which trails this blog will focus on at some other time), with the Arrowhead parking area just a little ways down Craig Branch Trail from Kaymoor Top and the mostly single-track bike trails crisscrossing and connecting to/from this wider, gravel road.

Nowhere have I seen an actual sign for Craig Branch Trail. I only know its name thanks to my maps. From Kaymoor Top, the gravel road that the signs for the Arrowhead parking point toward--that's Craig Branch Trail.

Like I said, there's not too much to this trail. It's a gravel road that begins heading south, but soon it takes a turn and continues mainly east and northeast until it stops. Beginning from the top, you'll soon pass the Arrowhead parking lot.

Again, please excuse the wet and blurry photos. It was an awesome storm!

Keep on the main stretch of gravel past this gate for Craig Branch Trail and more connections to the Arrowhead trails.

If you're interested in taking some detours on any of the Arrowhead trails, check out the trail map over there; you'll be glad you did. I took what I thought would be a quick detour one night that turned into a longer night of running than I was planning. Otherwise, most of the run will pretty much look like this:

On this particular run, I came across a box turtle in the middle of the road. Thanks to the summer showers, it was all shiny, bright, and clean looking. At this point, I was somewhat frustrated with my camera's wetness that made the pictures look so blurry. I love animals, and I wished that I could have gotten clearer pictures of the turtle (as well as the rest of the trail).

The trail so far has had a few small hills--not too much to write home about. Soon, enough, though, you will come to a significant downhill that is nasty to run back up. Right before it drops, the trail will look like this:

Get ready.

Be ready for a sharp curve in the steepest part of the trail.

From here, there's not much else to say. If you run all the way until you have to turn either right or left, you'll be standing on Kaymoor Trail. If you go left (west), you'll be heading toward the Wolf Creek side of Kaymoor Trail, and you'll pass Kaymoor Miners Trail before you get to Wolf Creek. If you want, you can take Kaymoor Miners back up to Kaymoor Top (which is extremely more difficult--near impossible for me--to run up than Craig Branch Trail). If you go right (east), you'll be heading toward Cunard.

Looking at Kaymoor Trail. A left here takes you toward Kaymoor Miners Trail sooner and the Wolf Creek Trailhead later. A right will take you to a unique view of the Gorge (a clearing enveloped in kudzu) sooner and Cunard later.

Whatever you do, I'd suggest running just a couple more minutes west to see the trees completely open up to a large patch of kudzu that's overtaking that part of the forest. It's terrible knowing that kudzu is a terribly damaging invasive species, but it is also one of the coolest views in the Gorge.

Kudzu on Kaymoor Trail, not far from the end of Craig Branch Trail.

Since the invasive plant has killed most of the trees here, there's a great view of Beauty Mountain on the other side of the Gorge.

Alone, Craig Branch Trail isn't very exciting. However, like I mentioned it is an important part of one of my favorite routines. I'll make a loop by running down Kaymoor Miners Trail, take a right on Kaymoor Trail, run out to the kudzu patch, turn around, and come back up Craig Branch Trail. I like to run up Craig Branch Trail to keep my mind and body used to working steep hills after having run for a while. I'll often begin at Long Point Trail, actually, run out to the overlook and then back to take Fayetteville Trail to Kaymoor Top for this loop. After the Kaymoor Miners/Craig Branch loop, I'll take Butcher Branch Trail back to Long Point Trail and run back to the parking lot there. It's a good run, and this loop makes it a little more physically challenging. I guess you could also run this trail as an out-and-back, but that doesn't really sound like too much fun to me. In my opinion, the real strength of the trail now is the Arrowhead biking trails. I haven't yet explored those extensively, but the portions I've run have been delightful.