Waterfall 100 Challenge: Big Falls & High Falls On Thompson River

Waterfall 100 Challenge: Big Falls & High Falls On Thompson River
9/29/22 – 8.3 Miles

Today’s WC100 adventures were in a familiar neck of the woods (pun intended). On the eastern side of NC 281 passing through Nantahala National Forest, dozens of creeks make their way through watersheds to join the big rivers, including Whitewater, Horsepasture and Thompson Rivers.

Headed south on US 281 from its intersection with US 64 west of Lake Toxaway, Jim and I drove to Brewer Road. Referencing information from Kevin Adams’ book North Carolina Waterfalls (3rd Ed.), we parked on the side of Brewer Road and looked for our trailhead at an old gated logging road. I used my GAIA app to record our hike. [The GAIA topo map has this trail marked; the National Geographic map does not.]

At least 8 waterfalls are accessible from the route we hiked. Our must-see goals were Big Falls at the far end and High Falls on a side forest road near the beginning. In between we passed spur trails to Reid Branch Falls, Simon Falls, Rich Falls, Standing Rock Falls, and Unmentionable Falls.

On an out-and-back hike, it’s tempting to follow every side trail to waterfalls on the way to the far end of the route, but here is some advice: go all the way to the furthest point of interest first and then work your way back looking for the side trails. It is much easier to manage your time and you won’t be caught at twilight still miles from your car.

The old forest road was littered with occasional blowdowns, to be expected, otherwise easy to follow. About a mile along the gradual descent we reached the right turn to High Falls – we’ll come back to that. We stayed left and continued downhill, soon reaching a crossing of the Thompson River. We took the time to remove shoes and socks and wade across.

Gentian – the only flower I noticed all day

Through the trees we glimpsed a cascade that the GAIA app labels as Unmentionable Falls. I guess with the plethora of waterfalls nearby, the waterfall namers ran out of names. Past this cascade, Thompson River curves to the right as lesser creeks join it, increasing in size as it flows down and across the NC/SC state line and into Lake Jocassee.

The next 3 miles on trail were unremarkable save for one more unmarked fork where again we stayed left, high above the river. Along the way, reminders of logging days.

We slowed our pace, relying on the GPS to find the side trail to Big Falls. The descent started out reasonably but, as we’ve experienced with remote waterfalls, it became a slippery slope and rock scramble combo where hiking poles are useless and sturdy rhododendron branches are vital.

Getting a little tricky amongst the boulders

Trusting that this set of ropes is safe

We took turns edging out on a sloped rock to get a view of some of the cascades that make up the falls. 

Tipping the camera angle up to capture the cascades

Tipping the angle down to include the nearest chute

Whoever goes down the rope must go back up, no photos, it wasn’t pretty. I breathed a sigh of relief when we got back on the main trail. We backtracked up the logging road, agreeing that we didn’t have time to investigate the smaller waterfalls along the way to High Falls. Since there was no trail signage or blazes, we relied again on the GPS to get to the correct turn, then walked about half a mile to the drop to the river’s edge.

We certainly could hear the waterfall, but it was partially obscured around a bend. Nothing to do but wade in the water around a few big boulders…and there she was, in dappled shadow, a rooster tail spurting midway down the slide.

My feet were already wet, so I might as well wade further into the pool and stand in the water that was on its way downstream to become Big Falls. Everything is connected.

"Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop,
 a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole."
 ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Waterfall 100 Challenge: Wintergreen Falls

Waterfall 100 Challenge: Wintergreen Falls – 9/28/22 - 10.7 Miles

My husband is a very agreeable guy. How many exploratory hiking trips has he said “yes” to? Here we go on another waterfall escapade…or two…on my list.

We made a rare mid-week excursion to get ahead of Hurricane Ian passing through western North Carolina, and booked an Airbnb in Brevard, a great home base to access hundreds (yes, hundreds) of waterfalls in western North Carolina.

First up: Wintergreen Falls, deep in Gorges State Park (not the one in DuPont State Forest!)

I can only surmise that this waterfall has been on Carolina Mountain Club's WC100 Challenge list for years prior to the closing of Auger Hole Road. What used to be a 4-mile round trip hike is now 10+ miles, and my guess is that visitation has dropped dramatically over the years. [Note: Jim was not feeling well, endured this hike with a grimace, but he did it! My hero.]

The hike reports I’ve read about Wintergreen Falls are intimidating, some successful, some not. What begins as an easy hike on an old forest road becomes a very difficult bushwhack. My favorite trip report person writes here about his hike some years ago.

“Auger Hole Trail was once a road, so maybe we could speed this whole thing up by biking it,” said the naïve person (me) with a vested interest in completing the hike. You can't determine the condition of an old forest road until you get on it, but the elevation change didn’t look too bad - just 3 miles on Auger Hole to connect to the Wintergreen Trail! We parked at the trailhead, saddled up and hit the trail.

Almost immediately we hit our first obstacle

Fortunately, this was the only bridge. The condition of the road wasn’t bad, no serious blowdowns or potholes, but who was I kidding? Jim is a cycling machine and can power through any terrain, but the elevation changes were more than I could manage consistently. (In my defense, we were loaded down with daypacks and hiking poles.) After about 1.5 miles of me walking my bike up the steeper hills, we decided to continue on foot. 

We chained the bikes to a tree (pretty sure nobody else would be coming along)
 and walked the next 2 miles on Auger Hole Trail. 

Now that we're on foot, let's look at some fall flowers.

Where Auger Hole Trail continues straight to cross the Toxaway River, we took a right turn onto Wintergreen Trail, a narrower old forest road. The name is misleading, as the trail doesn’t go to the waterfall, but stops at the Wintergreen campsite. It’s a nice destination, two spaces w/ picnic tables and fire rings. A few steps beyond is the Toxaway River again.

Bear box for food storage

Artifact or trash?

Toxaway River at the campsite

Knowing that we would be doing some bushwhacking, we should have left our hiking poles at the campsite but it's hard to break that habit. From this point I had no GPS track, only some notes to help us. [I was creating a GAIA track.]

We found the beginnings of a trail following the Toxaway River upstream

For the most part, I could not see the trail but could sense it – until I couldn’t even do that. The vegetation was beginning to die back, but so much of the foliage was rhododendron and mountain laurel (which doesn’t die back) that we were feeling our way intuitively most of the time. I knew enough to keep the river on our left side and walk upstream, but I was not willing to walk in the water like some have done.

The trail

Would you follow me here?

At one point a huge boulder outcropping came close to a sheer edge and we had to scramble up and over and around it. I’d read about this in others’ writings so was not surprised and actually felt some assurance at being on track.

An unnamed waterfall, not ours, but it sure is pretty

We reached Panther Branch (yay!), easy enough to rock hop across. We followed a brief series of faded pink flagging tape that abruptly ended. The faint trail seemed to continue rising until we reached a point where we were stumped. Had we wandered toward some dead end that others had also followed? We retraced our steps, but the only way forward was incredibly steep down in the direction of the river, nothing to hold onto. Once I slid so far down that I stopped only by putting my feet out to hit the trunk of a tree.

Jim and I sat there for some time, debating our options. I thought I could hear big water, maybe Wintergreen Falls, but we were probably about a quarter of a mile away. Looking at the GAIA track later, it appeared that we progressed about a quarter of a mile from the Panther Branch crossing in 1.5 hours.

Ultimately we decided that neither of us had the skills to go forward, and we turned around. The return to the campsite seemed short (20 minutes?) From there it was 3.5 miles back to the bikes, and 1.5 miles getting the bikes back to the car. Jim was able to ride his, while I rode some and pushed some. This was my physical low point, tired from the bushwhacking.

I was extremely disappointed not to reach Wintergreen Falls, but we had made our very best effort and safety is the most important thing.

We drove back to Brevard, had no energy for eating dinner out, so we hit up Ingles for provisions and found our little Airbnb. Somehow I had missed the detail that it only had portable heaters, but the chilly night was great for sleeping after a long adventure in the woods. Tomorrow is another day!

“A river doesn’t just carry water, it carries life.” ~Amit Kalantri