Torrential Rain at Graveyard Fields

This past weekend, I headed to the mountains of NC to see some early fall colors along the highest parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I left Friday evening after work and stayed at the Ramada in Maggie Valley. Saturday morning, I woke up early, had breakfast at the hotel and took US-276 up towards the Blue Ridge Parkway. The sun rose right about when I hit the parkway, but cloudy skies prevented viewing it. I drove southbound on the parkway to the Graveyard Fields Overlook at milepost 418.8.

Surprisingly, there were only a couple other cars here; usually this parking lot is packed. But I had never gotten here so early, and the dreary weather may have kept people away. The fall color from the overlook looking into Graveyard Fields was absolutely beautiful.

Some clouds were lingering among the peaks, but the visibility was still good.

After enjoying the beautiful colors and getting some pictures, I started hiking down the Graveyard Fields Loop Trail (#358) to the bridge over Yellowstone Prong.

From here, I turned right and followed the stairs down to the base of Second Falls.

This waterfall is usually very crowded, but for once, I had it to myself.

After a couple pictures, I headed back up the trail and continued on the loop trail in the counter clockwise direction. In half-mile or so, I got on the Upper Falls Trail (#358A) and made the three-quarter mile hike to the waterfall. Except for a group of people who were packing up their campsite, I didn’t see anyone else along this trail either. By the time I got to the waterfall, it had started raining, though not too hard. I climbed over slippery rocks to get to the base of the falls for some pictures.

Then I decided to cross the creek and get some pictures from a little closer.

The creek crossing wasn’t too bad, even in the higher water, but the slippery rocks on the other side of the creek were quite treacherous. I scrambled up a bit to get some pictures of the water from close-up, then had to get back down to the creek and get across. I decided the safest thing would be to butt-slide back down the rocks; I managed to stop myself just before hitting the creek and only got my butt wet. I crossed back over the creek and then started hiking back. When I got back to Graveyard Fields Loop Trail, I turned right to finish up the loop. There was one tree along this section that had the most beautiful red leaves.

And crossing back over Yellowstone Prong on the footbridge, I could see more beautiful colors looking upstream.

Soon, I was back at the car as the rain picked up more and more. I made the short drive up the parkway to the Looking Glass Overlook at milepost 417. I waited in the car for a bit, hoping the rain was stop, but it became clear that wasn’t going to happen. There were no views of Looking Glass Rock through the dense fog, so I hiked across the road to the Mountains-to-Sea Trail and headed towards Skinny Dip Falls.

It was a short walk to the waterfall, which was flowing much more than the last time I had visited. Despite the rain, I got a couple quick pictures, then crossed the bridge over the roaring Yellowstone Prong.

I climbed up a bit to get some pictures from close up. It was raining pretty hard, so I wasn’t sure what to do. The clouds were thick, so there was no point in driving along the parkway, so I decided to just keep hiking along the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, hoping that the rain would finally quit. There were a couple points where it seemed it was going to break and then it would start raining harder. By the time I got back to near Second Falls, it was pretty much a downpour. So I just started heading back. It was still raining heavily by the time I got back to the car. I drove a little further up the parkway and parked at Devil’s Courthouse. Since eating outside wasn’t too appealing, I ate my lunch in the car. The clouds had thinned enough that I could see Devil’s Courthouse, though it was a very misty view.

After lunch, I got on NC-215 going north and planned to get a couple more waterfalls. I first stopped at the roadside camping area that is the trailhead for Wildcat Falls. However, Bubbling Spring Branch was a raging torrent and there was no way I could get across safely. I headed a little further down the road and stopped at Bubbling Spring Cascades.

The water level was way up, and along with the beautiful fall foliage, made for a spectacular scene. I climbed down from the road to get a shot from closer up, but the whole area down here was flooded and there was no way to get across. I was really striking out on getting these waterfalls. I did find a small waterfall on a tributary of West Fork Pigeon River, just about a quarter-mile south of the pull-off for Bubbling Spring Branch Cascades.

The tributary is not marked on the topo map and I suspect that it doesn't exit in lower water levels.

But it was worth a stop today and the foliage along NC-215 was just beautiful.

I had planned to get Upper and Lower Waterfalls on Bubbling Spring Branch, but with the water level so high, I knew I would never be able to make it. So I gave up and went back to the Blue Ridge Parkway, heading southbound. For 15 miles or so, the road was extremely foggy with very poor visibility. Finally, as the road headed down in elevation, visibility improved. I stopped at the Mt. Lynn Lowry to view Woodfin Cascades.

Even in the high water, the waterfall was barely visible behind the leaves. I think that the only way to see Woodfin Cascades is in the winter or early spring when the leaves are down. It's too bad as it would have been scenic with the fall color. I also made a couple more quick stops at some overlooks. First, Thunder Struck Ridge overlook.

Then I stopped at Fed Cove Overlook, which is the general area of the headwaters of Soco Creek.

From here, I got off the parkway at US-19 and headed to Soco Falls. This was the first place I visited that actually had a lot of other people.

I went first to the overlook, then climbed down to the base for a couple of pictures before heading back.

I took US-19 back to Maggie Valley, stopping at one point for a view of the pretty fall color.

After dinner, I soaked in the hot tub before heading to bed.

The Cascades

Sunday morning, we had breakfast at the hotel with Chris, Mel, Heather, and Danny and then checked out. There was a plan to go to Cascades Falls on Sunday, but Casey and LeAnna were busy with family stuff, so Sandy and I headed there by ourselves. We headed west on US-460 to Pembroke and turned on Route 623 into Cascades Day Use Area. After paying the day-use fee, we began our hike. Normally, I would hike the lower trail to the falls and the upper trail back to make a loop. But we weren’t sure if Casey and any others would be arriving later, so we hiked in the opposite direction to maybe run into them. We hiked the upper trail which follows an old roadbed upstream along Little Stony Creek high above. It’s up on a ridge above the creek, so we couldn’t see the creek while hiking, but there were some nice rock formations along the trail.

We also saw a cute little chipmunk on some big rocks along the trail here.

When we got to the split to go down to Cascades, we continued on the trail another half-mile to Upper Cascades. There’s a split in the trail and we went right to head to the Upper Cascades.

This was my first time to the area when the waterfalls weren’t frozen, so it was interesting to see them in their normal state. Due to the rain over the past day, the Upper Cascades was flowing quite well.

We climbed down the wet rocks to get to the base for a picture of the waterfall. The water level was high enough that it was hard to get far enough away to get a picture of the entire thing. What a difference a rainy night had made!

After some pictures at the base, we climbed back up to the top for a view of the waterfall tumbling down the ledges. Then, we started hiking back. Back at the split, we turned left to head down to Cascades. This 70-foot waterfall is truly spectacular – one of the best in Virginia, in my opinion.

And this was my first time seeing it when it was not frozen. It started to rain while we were here, but Sandy had an umbrella so I could get a couple pictures of the waterfall without getting the camera wet.

Then we started hiking back along the lower trail, following Little Stony Creek downstream back to the parking area. The creek is rocky and has many small cascades and drops downstream from Cascades and the rain had stopped shortly after we left the waterfall.

We saw a small waterfall on a small tributary of the creek. I imagine that this waterfall only exists after a good rain. We stopped at a couple more points along the creek on our hike back to view the pretty cascades.

Near the trailhead, we saw the old sawmill boiler that was used for power when the area was being logged.

Soon, we made it back to the parking area and started making our way home.

Waterfalls before the Wedding

For the last weekend in September, Sandy and I headed up to Blacksburg, Virginia for Casey and LeAnna’s wedding. We left very early Saturday morning so we could get a couple waterfalls on the way up. We got off I-77 near Bland and headed into the Eastern Divide Ranger District of Jefferson National Forest, stopping along Forest Road 201, Dismal Creek Road. From here, it was less than a tenth of a mile down Dismal Falls Trail (#1058) to Falls of Dismal. Although it’s nothing like the spectacular the Dismal Falls of North Carolina, Virginia’s Dismal Falls was very scenic.

The water level was a little low, but the leaves were starting to change, making for a very pretty scene. There were also some cool rock formations along the creek near the falls.

We climbed around on the rocks, getting pictures of the waterfall from different angles. The creek-wide waterfall tumbles down about 10 feet over a number of ledges at a bend in the creek.

After a few pictures, we headed back to the car and drove east towards Blacksburg. From US-460, we headed east on Route 603 to the North Fork of Roanoke River. We crossed the river on a very sketchy one-lane bridge and followed a gravel road into Falls Ridge Preserve. The Nature Conservancy has protected this beautiful area and allows public access. After getting our stuff together, we set off hiking across the open area and into the preserve. Just past the open area, we turned right at the fork to follow the Bradley Trail to the waterfall. A wooden overlook provides nice views of the scenic travertine waterfall.

Next to the waterfall are a bunch of small travertine caves with thin streams of water flowing down over them.

We got a couple of pictures and then headed up past the waterfall. There were a bunch of small cascades where the water flows over deposits from the creek.

We continued on and turned right at the next fork to follow the red-blazed Chamberlain Trail up to the top of the ridge.

The trail is moderately steep, but nothing too strenuous. At the top, the trail makes a short loop around the summit, but the dense vegetation at the top prevented any good views. It was overcast anyway, so we wouldn’t have been able to see anything. We did see a cute box turtle along the trail, though he stayed in his shell while we tried to get a photo.

We then followed the red trail back to the beginning and turned right to head back to the parking lot. Along the way, we stopped at some of the fantastic caves near the waterfall.

The caves aren’t very big, just a few were large enough that we could squeeze in for a picture.

One was particularly interesting – it really resembled a face with two small caves high up as the eyes, a protrusion that looked like a nose, and a wide cave at the bottom that resembled a mouth. As we hiked back through the open area, we saw a little red eft, the terrestrial juvenile stage of the eastern newt.

We finished up our hike and then headed back towards Christiansburg. We ate a light lunch at Ruby Tuesday and then checked into our room at Fairfield Inn. After a quick shower, we changed clothes and headed to the Blacksburg Country Club for the wedding. It was an outside wedding, but the weather was a little dreary. They erected a tent for the ceremony and then the reception was inside. We had a really nice time celebrating with Casey and LeAnna on their special day and it was a beautiful wedding.

Labor Day Waterfalls

Monday morning, we broke camp, said good-bye to our friends, and then headed east. We went north on SC-107 and cut over to SC-130, stopping at an overlook where we had lovely views of Lake Jocassee in the early morning light.  We then took NC-281 and US-64 into Brevard, NC and then followed US-276 back into South Carolina. Right across the state line, we parked at the trailhead for Raven Cliff Falls at Caesars Head State Park. Although it was still fairly early in the morning, the parking lot was already almost full. Raven Cliff Falls is a popular area, especially on a holiday. We ended up getting one of the last parking spaces. After paying the day-use fee, we started hiking the red-blazed Raven Cliff Falls Trail. In about 1.5 miles, we turned right on the blue-blazed Gum Gap Trail and followed this for another mile or so. Due to the greater crowds here, we fortunately didn’t have to deal with the spider webs along the trail - someone else had come through first and cleared them. We did walk through a nice area of rhododendron tunnels and saw more interesting mushrooms along the way, however.

At the next split, we turned left on the pink-blazed Naturaland Trust Trail and hiked down to the top of Raven Cliff Falls.

Unfortunately, the trail ends after the suspension bridge over the top of the waterfall. I was hoping to be able to get a little closer to the waterfall, but it wasn’t possible. There were some very nice cascades above the waterfall, however.

So we started hiking back.

Where Gum Gap and Raven Cliff Falls Trails intersect, we turned right to go to the overlook for the waterfall. The view here, however, isn’t very good.

The waterfall is quite far away and the view is mostly obscured by foliage. If it wasn’t on the WC100 list, it probably wouldn’t be worth the time to visit. But now Sandy had completed the challenge. We took a picture or two and then headed back. Back at the car, we drove back into North Carolina through Brevard and got on I-40 east. Since it wasn’t too late, we decided to hit one more waterfall on the way. We got off the interstate at exit 112 and headed into Valdese to McGalliard Falls Park. It was just a short walk to the top of the falls where an old grist mill and water wheel are located.

We had to go past the mill and take a steep path to the creek and then rock-hop back up to get to the base for some pictures.

For being in a city park, it’s a rather nice waterfall. We got some pictures of the waterfall and the old mill then headed back up.

It was a just a short drive into Morganton for dinner at Las Salsas, then made our way home.