Fort Fisher to Bald Head Island? (Sunset Beach: beach, area, driving)

[BlueLily7]

Question: to those familiar with Fort Fisher and the 4 mile long stretch of beach that you can drive out on with a 4WD truck....when you drive as far as you can all the way to the sign where it says something about Bald Head Island preserve....you can get out and walk further down the beach a good way...if you keep going on foot, can you actually walk to Bald Head Island now??? Or will you just get to a marshy area thats close but can't quite actually get onto the island by foot? My understanding is you can actually walk to Bald Head now from Fort Fisher because hurricanes caused the inlet to fill in, sort of like what happened with Sunset Beach and Bird Island?

If you keep walking from the end of Fort Fisher's 4WD area-- where will you end up?? What is as far out there as you can go?

[CBLiving]

Hi BlueLily7, you are correct. The inlet is completely filled in and you can walk to Bald Head Island. It is a beautiful and pristine stretch of beach. If you decide to make the hike, make sure you bring your camera.

[mattbward]

Yes indeed, just need to make sure the tide is out or you will end up walking through some wetness to get to or fro.

[BlueLily7]

Yeah, when we went, we parked at the end of the driving strip, but noticed that along the way some of the driveable beach was kind of narrow and the tide was getting pretty high- signs were warning it may become impassible at high tide (like we needed a sign to notice that!) so we didn't want to take a chance on getting stranded, it was late in the day- or I would have hiked just to check it out. Thanks for the replies! I know what I'm doing on my next beautiful weekend day.

It is amazing that Bald Head is no longer a distinct island. Bird Island and Sunset Beach was more believable than that happening to Bald Head, IMO...I'm not a true local though so not too familiar with all these beach islands yet.

[PaulieM]

Looks like one long stretch of beach from Ft. Fischer to Bald Head Isl. on Googles satellite shot.Google Maps