One More Waterfall!

At this point, everybody was ready to quit. But Sandy and I are true waterfall heroes and we weren't done yet - there's always time for one more waterfall. So just the two of us, continued heading east on the highway and got off I-40 in Morganton and headed to South Mountains State Park. Fall color was peaking at these lower elevations, so it wasn’t surprising that the park was very crowded. After finding a parking spot at the Jacob Fork parking area, we hiked the High Shoals Falls Loop Trail to the waterfall.

The trail starts out following an old road and becomes more of a trail as it follows Jacob Fork upstream. As we approached the falls, the trail crossed the creek and headed up via stairs and rocks. This last section was a bit strenuous after all the climbing and elevation gain we had done for the week. After one last climb, we made it to the wooden platform at the base of the falls and got a couple of pictures of this scenic 50-foot waterfall.

We didn't linger too long as it was very crowded and we were both getting quite hungry. Back at the car, we headed into Morganton for a delicious meal of fajitas at our favorite Mexican restaurant - Las Salsas. A fitting end to a heroic week of hiking and waterfalls.