It took about three hours to go all the way up to Max Patch, but I went pretty slow. It was just about the right level of difficulty for a brand new Jeep, since I didn't want to scratch it up too soon. I did bottom out in some of the muddy and rutted areas, but not too bad. My Jeep is 100% stock, but it did about as well as my 2008 JKU with 3.5" lift and 35's did. Of course, I never took the 2008 up Hurricane Creek Road, but that's just how it felt to me. My wife and I both had a great time and met some nice folks on the way up.

 

Since this thread was so helpful as we planned our first trip to Hurricane Creek Trail, I thought I would add a few comments. When we went yesterday the trail is getting a bit rutted. Could do most of it in two wheel drive, but had to use four once in a while. We went up to Max Patch (highly recommended) and then followed some other roads that eventually lead to 63. Here is a detailed map of where we went. We did do a turn around when we realized that we had taken a different route than where we wanted to go at the fork at mile 5. Hope this helps someone else out.

gmap-pedometer.com

 

I'm taking a few days next week to go to the Smoky Mountains with three of my kids. It sounds like this is a nice, scenic trail. Does it get much use these days?

 

Just went up this trail last weekend with a group after 3 days of rain. It was awesome and more rough than previous trips. Couple places where people got stuck due to really deep mud on hills. Had a blast!

 

I'll bet it was a blast with all the rain. I'll be heading back there, first chance I get. We saw bear poachers when we were there. They were nice, but I'm 99% sure they were poaching on the land they were hunting.

That's a fun trail!

 

Does anyone have any other good trails in this area? Really love running this one I was just hoping some other local people have cool places to check out in the WNC area!

 

Thank you im going to Hirricane creek in march 2020. I live in S.C., cant wait for some off road 4x4 fun !!!

 

Hmmm, interesting that this would pop up. There's a jeep club out of that area that's doing a cleanup run this weekend so it should be nice in March. It's inon my to do list but Windrock is close.

 

I've been reading that Hurricane Creek Rd. is now closed. It was eroding pretty rapidly and supposedly lots of trash was another reason. I was there in October and while the trash didn't seem so bad, there were spots that were much more challenging with big ruts than were there a couple years ago.

 

I was just up there today and it wasn't bad. A couple rutted out spots but it wasn't terrible. We went with a group with permission to be there and did a trash clean-up. They were saying that the area will soon be gated by the Park service with a select few having keys for clean-up events like today's event.

Really, there wasn't much trash out there and we had 30 vehicles cleaning up. The most trash was right at the exit and on the forest roads laleading up to the area that will be gated off.