We accessed the creek from the Big East Fork parking area on Hwy 276 north of the Parkway. Shining Creek Trail #363 begins here and follows the creek up for over 3 miles to the Art Loeb Trail near Shining Rock. We followed the trail up for a ways, the descended to creek level once we thought we might be missing some good stuff. We didn't find any big waterfalls, but passed several nice cascades.