Soco and Catawba Falls

Sunday was our last day of adventure. We woke up early and broke camp for the last time and left Smokemont. We were heading east, but to avoid traffic in Cherokee, we got on the Blue Ridge Parkway to bypass tourist traffic. The early morning views along the parkway were very pretty. We got off the parkway at US-19 near Soco Gap and backtracked about a mile and a half to the pulloff for Soco Falls. Sandy and I had visited this waterfall several years ago in the snow and it was quite pretty, but we weren’t able to get down to the base, so this was our goal today with the nicer weather. We stopped briefly at the wooden overlook, but the views here are partially obscured by foliage and we could only see the larger of the two falls on Soco Creek.

A scramble path leads down to the base and there was rope tied to trees for assistance. At the base, we could see both of the beautiful waterfalls after a steep climb down.

After a couple minutes, we headed back up and continued driving east. From I-40 near Old Fort, we took exit 73 and made a sharp right onto Catawba Falls Road, following it to the end. The bridge to the Forest Service parking area is still under construction so we had to park on the side of the road here. And we weren’t the only ones visiting Catawba Falls today - there were more than a dozen other cars here. We got our stuff together and started hiking across the bridge and the parking lot that will hopefully soon be open. Almost immediately, we had to cross Catawba River. A few in the group were concerned about getting wet on this crossing so Shung stood in the middle of the river and moved some rocks around to make the crossing easier.

We continued up the trail as it followed Catawba River upstream, with another crossing over Clover Patch Branch just before a small waterfall at the ruins of an old dam and power station. Then there was another crossing over Chestnut Branch before reaching Catawba Falls.

Even before the falls, there were some very pretty cascades and small falls on the river. Catawba Falls is a big cascading waterfall, probably over 100 feet tall.

It’s not possible to see the entire thing and the fall foliage, while beautiful in color, made seeing the falls more difficult. After a couple of pictures, we then climbed the very steep trail alongside the falls that eventually reaches Upper Catawba Falls. Personally, I think this is the more beautiful of the two, though both are quite impressive.

Also, the difficult climb up to reach it reduces the number of other people and we had the falls to ourselves. We played around at the base of the falls, getting pictures and goofing off, then started making our way back to the cars.