Franklin Waterfalls

Leaving from Rosman, we got back on US-64 West and continued past Cashiers, Highlands, Cullasaja Gorge, and finally Franklin. About 12 miles past Franklin, we turned onto Wallace Gap Road and then onto Forest Service Road 67 towards Standing Indian Campground. We drove this forest road for several miles past the campground to the trailhead for Big Laurel Falls Trail (#29) and Timber Ridge Trail. After a fairly long drive, it was nice to get out of the cars and go for a little hike to stretch our legs. Following the trails, we crossed the bridge and turned right to stay on Big Laurel Falls Trail for about a half-mile to the waterfall.

Big Laurel Falls is not a large waterfall, maybe 20 feet, but very scenic. It has an upper drop followed by some nice cascades. It’s also pretty remote, requiring a fairly long drive on the gravel forest road, so we had the falls all to ourselves.

But we couldn’t linger long as we still had more driving and little more hiking to complete before the sun went down. We tried to find the nearby Mooney Falls, but didn’t have any luck finding the trailhead, so we continued on. Back at US-64, we went east for a short ways and got on Wayah Road. In about 6 miles, we turned left on Forest Service Road 388 (Boardtree Road). This road isn’t listed on the GPS and it thought we were driving off road. But there was in fact a road here and we followed it about 2 miles to the trailhead for Rufus Morgan Trail (#27). Another short trail, it took us about fifteen minutes to reach the nice 60-foot waterfall.

It is named for Rufus Morgan, a Episcopal priest and conservationist from the area who had a deep love for the Southern Appalachian mountains. He hiked up to Mount LeConte more than 100 times, up until his 90s and maintained a significant portion of the Appalachian Trail.

We got some pictures at the waterfall, then finished the loop out back to the car, for a total of about a mile. We then backtracked to Wayah Road and continued on this road, past Nantahala Lake and Nantahala River Gorge. We turned left on US-19 and then took US-129 into Robbinsville. Our home for the night was Simple Life Campground. After setting up our tents, we headed into town for dinner at El Pacifico Mexican Restaurant. The food was decent, but it just seems weird eating Mexican food without beer. Robbinsville is in Graham County, which is still dry. After dinner, we made a small campfire and took showers at the campground, our last opportunity to bathe on this trip, and then went to bed early.