Nice views of the parkway from here and there were some beautiful Carolina lilies blooming up here.
The open areas near the parkway had lots of blooming wildflowers.
The coreopsis and goldenrod made waves of yellow along the ridge.
There was some wild carrot blooming here as well.
It started raining lightly, but nothing too bad. After some pictures, I started back down. It was just as grueling going down as it had been coming up.
When I got back down to the bottom, I started hiking up Basin Creek Trail.
The trail crosses the creek several times and the water was up, but I was wearing water shoes. There were some eastern tiger swallowtail butterflies puddling underneath a rock.
At the fourth crossing, was a nice cascade on Basin Creek.
At this point, I got off the trail and creek-walked up a short ways to the Lower Basin Creek Falls.
A giant boulder blocked a good view, so I had to climb around it on a crack to get a nice view.
Although it had been rainy and overcast most of the day, the sun did come out to ruin my waterfall pictures. There's another waterfall upstream, but I was pretty tired, so started heading back.
I began the drive back, but in Elkin, drove to the trailhead for Carter Falls. A short trail leads to waterfall that was a lot bigger than I expected.
It has been on private property for a long time, but recently was purchased by Wilkes County. The lighting was very poor, so I didn't stay too long.
It was another 2 hours to get home.
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