Pisgah National Forest: Catawba Falls

Noelle, Sierra and I celebrated Mother's Day as a family with a trip into North Carolina for some hiking and delicious food. We made the drive through Asheville and into Black Mountain where we stopped for a delicious lunch at the Trailhead Restaurant.   After lunch we drove a little bit further east to the town of Old Fort and the traihead for our hike to Catawba Falls.

While the Forest Service has recently built a parking area for the popular trail, it lies on the other side of a closed bridge, and so it is inaccessible to vehicles. Pedestrians are still allowed to hike across it though, and so we started our hike by walking across a closed bridge and through an abandoned parking lot. Once on the actual trail the hiking experience greatly improved. We soon came to a few relics of past human use. There were a few stone walls lining the trail and even the ruins of some sort of building.

After inspecting the ruins we were back on the trail heading upstream to the falls.

We crossed a small, cascading side stream

and then found an old concrete dam

and another set of concrete ruins.

As we headed further up the trail we saw one of the largest garter snakes I've ever seen.

Then, before we knew it, we were at Catawba Falls.

We stayed at the bottom of the lower falls, but there was a trail that led to a platform in the middle of the large set of cascades. Supposedly, there is a rope fixed that allows hikers to access the impressive upper falls. However, with Sierra in the backpack, there was no way we were going to do any rock climbing today.

Instead of rock climbing we relaxed on the rocks at the base of the falls and enjoyed the sound of the cascading water. It was also fun watching Sierra play in the water and throw rocks into it.

We even found a few salamanders.

Sierra was a bit curious about them.

After about 45 minutes at the falls, we decided it was time to head back to the car. We crossed the Catawba River on stepping stones

and took a short side trail to another set of ruins that I believe may be an old electricity generating station.

From there it was a quick walk back to the car. We headed back to Black Mountain for some ice cream before making our way back to Greeneville.