This is a new area to me. It's between I-40 and the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Pisgah National Forest. It's a mixture of access roads and very remote trails. The Curtis Creek area is about in the middle, so there are places East and West of this to explore.

It was a picture perfect day (and I had no camera) with blue skies and great temperatures. The first part of the trail is a forest service road that is currently closed to cars. Then there was a long ridge line hike on the "Lead Mine Gap" trail with gorgeous views East and West. This trails ends at an intersection with the "Hickory Branch" trail. Lead Mine Gap does continue and we walked down it a bit. According to the National Geographic topo map 779 it goes a little bit and ends just before it would drop steeply to Mackey Creek.

On the ridge trail there were lots of red and yellow leaves; both on the trail and on the trees. Gentians were in flower all along the trail. There was also the remnants of lots of Turkey Beard and many small American Chestnuts.