Middle Falls on Snowbird Creek

Friday morning, we broke camp, and headed towards the Snowbird Backcountry Area in the Cheoah Ranger District of Nantahala National Forest. From US-129, we turned onto NC-143 passing Santeetlah Lake and turning on Snowbird Road and then Big Snowbird Road. Eventually, this road becomes gravel Forest Service Road 75 and ends at the trailhead. Along the way, we passed an extremely large hunting party - around 15 or so trucks and probably 30 to 50 hunters. They had to move a couple of their trucks so we could get by and while passing, I noticed that the person moving the truck looked to be about 8 years old. Shouldn't he be in school? I guess hunting takes priority in this area. He wasn’t old enough to drive, but he sure did know how to maneuver that truck on a narrow gravel road. Shortly after passing the hunters, we arrived at the trailhead and started hiking along Big Snowbird Trail (#64). The trail follows Snowbird Creek upstream for a ways and was very scenic. In about 2.5 miles from the trailhead, we came across an old car just off the trail that was peppered with bullet holes.

I don’t know if this car was used in illegal activities or if it got shot up for target practice after it had broken down back here. But either way, we had some fun getting pictures and pretending to be gangsters in the bullet-ridden car. Right past here, we had to cross the creek where Sassafras Creek flows into Snowbird Creek and turned right once across to stay on Big Snowbird Trail, where left becomes Sassafras Trail. We continued following the trail for about another mile and stopped for a brief detour down to the lower section of Big Falls on Snowbird Creek.

Despite the name, Big Falls is not particularly big. The upper part is a series of small cascades and the lower section is a larger cascade, maybe 15 feet. From the lower section, we couldn’t get to the base for a decent shot, so we didn’t spend a lot of time here.

After a few minutes, we made the very steep climb back up to the main trail and continued on to the next creek crossing over Snowbird Creek. There is a nice footbridge here to make the crossing easier.

Across the bridge, Big Snowbird and Middle Falls Trail (#64A) split. Both trails lead to Middle Falls, but Big Snowbird Trail has a number of creek crossings. So we opted to take the dry route and follow Middle Falls Trail. Initially, the trail is a very steep ascent up to a ridgeline above the creek, then levels off. It was about another mile to Middle Falls on Snowbird Creek.

Although its not a tall waterfall, maybe 15 to 20 feet high, it’s as wide as the creek and quite powerful. The setting of the falls is absolutely beautiful and the waterfall is extremely photogenic.

The long hike (about five miles one way) and remote location keep most visitors away so we had the falls to ourselves. We sat along the big rocks at the base of the waterfall and ate lunch here and got some pictures of this beautiful waterfall.

When we were finished, we made the hike back to the cars.

Once back at the cars, we split up. Justine and the others were heading straight back to Smokemont Campground to meet the rest of our group who were coming out for the weekend. Sandy and I wanted to get some more waterfalls along the way. Leaving the Snowbird area, we made a quick stop at the boat ramp next to the Cheoah Ranger Station for some nice views of fall foliage on Lake Santeetlah. Then we returned to Robbinsville and started heading back east, stopping near Bryson City.