Enloe Creek Falls Attempt

For our annual fall foliage trip this year, we stayed at the Cataloochee group campsites at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Sandy and I left after work Friday night and arrived at the camp at around 10. We set up our tent and went to bed shortly afterwards. In the morning, we ate breakfast and drove through Cherokee towards the Oconaluftee visitor center, then took Big Cove Road into the park, where it becomes Straight Fork Road. We parked at the trailhead to Hyatt Ridge Trail and began our hike. The Hyatt Ridge Trail runs for about 1.9 miles before meeting up with the Enloe Creek Trail. And it is uphill the entire way, for more than 1000 feet of elevation gain.

But with cooler weather and beautiful fall color, it wasn't too bad. There was even a big log about three fourths of the way for a nice break. At the junction, we turned left to head down the Enloe Creek Trail. The steady downhill was a nice relief after heading up for a ways, but of course that means more uphill on the way back. After heading down a bit, we came to a bridge over a river crossing and stopped for a bit.

Just downstream of the bridge were several nice cascades and Raven Fork Falls, a small 8-foot cascade.

Getting downstream was a bit of a challenge, however, and it took some rock climbing and tree hugging to get downstream. After a short bit, it was clear that further travel was impossible, so we headed back to the bridge. There is a campsite immediately across the bridge and the Enloe Creek Trail continues past the intersection of Raven Fork and Enloe Creek and heads upstream along its namesake creek.

Casey told us that there might be some marking tape to get down to Enloe Creek Falls, but we never saw any. After a while, we could see Upper Enloe Creek Falls through the brush and made a very challenging descent down to get a good view of the falls.

And the climb up was even more challenging. We ate lunch near the river and tried to find the actual Enloe Creek Falls, but to no avail.

We will have to come back another time and this time, make sure to have a GPS waypoint. As it was getting late, we turned around and made our way back to the cars. On the way back to camp, we stopped at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center to see the elk and stopped in Maggie Valley for dinner before heading back to camp.