At Swift Creek Bluffs Nature Preserve, massive beech trees dating back to the days of James Madison cling to the 100-foot bluffs rising abruptly from Swift Creek. The beech trees are all the more impressive squeezed as they are onto a three-quarter-mile-long preserve bound by Lochmere Golf Course to the west, a housing development to the south, and the busy Holly Springs Road to the east. Standing at the base of the Stairway to Heaven, a series of steps leading you up the ridge, you can take in the beech bowl rising before you. There, you are transported from the heart of Cary to the primitive forests of western North Carolina.