Elk Falls and Blue Ridge Parkway

This year, my birthday was perfectly timed on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. So I decided to take the day off of work and make the weekend a little longer. Sandy and I left very early in the morning from Raleigh and made our way west to visit some waterfalls in the northwest portion of North Carolina. Our first stop was Elk Falls, also called Elk River Falls or Big Falls, located just north of the small town of Elk Park. We took I-85S/I-40W to Winston-Salem and then US-421N towards Boone. In Boone, we took NC-105S to NC-184N to NC-194S to US-19E to Elk Park. From US-19, we turned Little Elk Road, immediately turned left on Old Mill Road and then an immediate right Elk River Road. This road followed the river about four miles to the parking area in the Appalachian Ranger District of Pisgah National Forest. Although this is a popular area, we arrived early enough that no other people were here. A brief thunderstorm on the way may have helped in keeping the crowds away. From the parking area, we followed the short Big Falls Trail (172) less than half a mile down past the top of the waterfall to the base of the falls.

Elk Falls is a very scenic 65-foot waterfall with a huge pool at the base - a perfect swim hole. It was a little too cold for swimming, in my opinion anyway. I understand that this is also a popular place for cliff jumping. 65 feet is a long drop, even if landing in water and any miscalculations or slips would almost certainly be fatal. The Forest Service strongly discourages such behavior.

Without jumping or anything dangerous, we were able to climb out on the rocks and get some nice pictures and videos of the falls. Elk Falls is certainly a very beautiful waterfall, especially given the ease of access. After a few minutes, we headed back up the trail and stopped at the top for a nice view over the waterfall to the pool below. It certainly looked to me like a mighty long drop from up here. Shortly, we made it back to the car and headed towards our next stop.  We drove east through Newland and Linville and then took US-221 north. Not sure why the GPS directed us to take this route instead of the Blue Ridge Parkway, but it was quite scenic nonetheless. We could see the Blue Ridge Parkway above at several points, including a brief view of the Linn Cove Viaduct from below. We also stopped for a couple of roadside waterfalls along the way.

One, right at the county line between Caldwell and Watauga counties was actually a pretty decent waterfall on Green Mountain Creek, I believe.

We parked right at the county line and walked down to a tunnel under the highway for a good view of this waterfall.

It appeared the waterfall continued below the road, but there was no way to get down for a view. We then got on the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped at Julian Price Memorial Park for our next real waterfall - Hebron Colony Falls. Although we had visited this waterfall before, I had forgotten my camera so this would be a good opportunity to go back and get some pictures. Previously, the waterfall could be accessed from a short trail off Old Turnpike Road, which was the way we had come in the last time. However, this was a small road with no good spot to park and so parking anywhere on this road is now prohibited (and strictly enforced by state troopers and sheriff’s deputies I understand, although not from experience). So we parked at the picnic area at Price Park and hiked to the falls along Boone Fork Trail. The entire trail makes a five-mile loop, but we were just hiking the first 1.5 miles to the falls and back. Initially, the trail goes through an open meadow where flowers were blooming and numerous butterflies fluttered about.

After this open area, the trail follows Boone Fork downstream, reaching the falls is about another mile. Approaching the falls, there were several nice cascades on the creek.

A short spur trail leads from the trail to the rock colony. The recent rain had made some of the rocks slick, but we slowly made our way our to the boulder field just below the main drop.

Hebron Colony Falls is an interesting waterfall - there’s no huge drop, but rather a countless number of small cascades over, under, and around massive boulders in the creek.

The opportunities for rock scrambling and photography are endless.

We climbed out onto some big boulders at the base of the main drop and had lunch and then spent some time climbing around on various boulders.

Although difficult to see or photograph, the small cascades that form under giant rocks were really cool and probably my favorite part of this waterfall.

After having some fun scrambling around on the rocks, we started hiking back. By the time we made it back to the parking lot, it was getting into the afternoon and we wanted to get checked in to our campsite for the weekend.