Wilson Creek Gorge

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I wasted too much time getting started on my mountain swimming hole adventures last year, so this year I wanted to hit the ground running (err, hit the creek swimming?) at the first opportunity. I had been checking the forecast and saw this coming up in the mountains:

In the mountains, just one weekend day above 80 °F with no rain is rare, but BOTH weekend days sunny and above 80? This called for back-to-back swimming hole treks. I booked a room at the Pineola Inn since it is convenient to the Wilson Creek area, the land of swimming holes that are TOTALLY BALLER. As usual, my local friends were either busy or just not feeling enthusiastic enough about mountain swimming holes to make a 3.5 hour drive from Raleigh. Miranda was home in Abingdon visiting her parents and wanted to go to a swimming hole that we had never been to, but under the stipulation that it did not require a long or strenuous hike. I had driven through Wilson Creek Gorge two summers ago on the way to Harper Creek Falls (arguably the best swimming hole in the Wilson Creek area) and snapped a few pictures, but I had not had time to swim in Wilson Creek or explore it thoroughly.

Normally I consider easily accessible swimming holes to be low hanging fruit, but since I have two days to visit swimming holes, I figured one of them did not have to be a grueling expedition. Plus, the gorge had seemed scenic enough on my last visit to warrant further exploration, despite being right off the road. I met up with Miranda at the motel, and after I checked in, we headed to the gorge. The scenic area is a four-mile stretch of Wilson Creek that runs along a dirt road and is basically a continuous expanse of rapids and pools lined with boulders and sloping rock walls. The first thing we noticed when we got there was that the road was basically a dust storm due to the traffic (crowds are one obvious downside of low hanging fruit). It was a constant fog, and all the vegetation lining the road was covered with dust. Miranda’s black car was gray after a couple of minutes

I had examined Wilson Creek on Google Earth and marked the points on my GPS that looked like the best swimming holes. One of the areas was Ten Foot Falls, a class IV rapid which I had somehow missed on my last trip. After about two miles, we parked near where I thought Ten Foot Falls was supposed to be. There was a full parking area where we wanted to pull off, but we were able to park on the side of the road a couple hundred feet ahead. We walked down to the creek from where we had parked, and there was a pool about five feet deep just above a small sliding rock.

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We got in the water and swam across the pool. The water was not as cold as I was expecting for a mountain stream this early in the summer, most likely because Wilson Creek is unshaded through the majority of the gorge. I would say the water was probably 65-70 degrees. We sat in the rapid upstream of the pool for a couple of minutes, and then we slid in the water and let the current push us toward the slide. We slid down the slide and continued floating downstream. The current and hydraulics were stronger than I had expected. After the flow pulled me over a couple of shallow rocks, I decided I was tired of letting the creek beat my ass, so I got out and walked along the boulders on shore. Some of those rocks were hot! I could make out a drop not far ahead, so I walked over to it and saw Ten Foot Falls. It was a sliding waterfall that drops about ten feet into a long, deep pool lined with sloping rock walls on both sides.

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In high water, this is apparently a class IV rapid, but it still looked pretty swift at the current creek level. Miranda had continued to float down the creek after I had gotten out, so I walked back upstream to let her know she was getting close to the falls. When she entered the chute just above the falls, the current almost swept her over, but she grabbed a large rock just above the brink. I had to talk her out of sliding down it until I could scout it from the bottom. I worked my way down the rocks and swam across the pool to the base, and the current pushed me away from the falls. I saw a guy climbing on the rocks by the pool, and I asked if it was safe to slide down the falls. He said he had seen people do it, but he wouldn’t do it himself because there is a strong whirlpool at the bottom. The majority of the flow went over the extreme right and left sides of the falls and met in a “v” formation at the bottom. He said the whirlpool was at the tip of the v. From the bottom of the falls, it looked like if Miranda slid from where she was sitting, that she would go into a large hole in the middle of the slide, but if she moved over, that she would hit the rocks that jutted into the slide on the river right side. I went back up and talked her out of sliding from the top, and we got out of the water and climbed down the rocks to the bottom of the falls. A guy with a diving mask came up and told us that you could climb down into a hidden ‘jacuzzi’ in the middle of the slide. He went up to the top and climbed into the jacuzzi. I can’t remember if he slid down from there or if he went back up. A few guys who were in the swimming hole got out and went to the top of the falls. One of them climbed into the jaccuzi and then slid from halfway down. The other two slid from the top, and they both hit a bump in the middle of the slide. It looked painful, judging from the expressions on their faces. None them got pushed under by the supposed whirlpool. Miranda and I climbed back up to the top of the slide, and I climbed into the jacuzzi. It was hard to move around on the slide because the force of the water was so strong. I could only put my hands and feet on the slide, because I would have been swept over if I put my body into the water. I stuck my foot into the jacuzzi, and the force of the water was pretty violent. It was only about three feet deep, but I didn’t slide into it until I was confident I could touch the bottom. If my feet had gone out from under me, I would have been swept down the slide (although it probably would have been fine from this point). I moved aside to a calmer spot on the slide so Miranda could climb into the jacuzzi. After she did, we both slid down from halfway. I was worried about the whirlpool, and I went right into the spot where the guy said it was, but I didn’t feel any downward currents. Instead, the current swiftly pushed us clear of the slide and into the big pool.



Some teenagers were sliding down the steep rock wall on the river right side. There was a bucket attached to a rope so that people could pull water up to the top of the rock and wet the sliding area, but the bucket was cracked, so one girl put dish soap on the rock. This made the rock super slick, and she slid down really fast.

Miranda and I floated from this pool over a small set of rapids into another pool. The rocks on the right side were steeper in this pool, and I could see a few people jumping from them. The left side of the pool was lined by a gently sloping rock on the upstream end, and a sandy beach on the downstream end. I recognized this as a place I had stopped to take pictures in 2014:



I had somehow missed Ten Foot Falls just upstream when I stopped here on my previous visit. As I went through the rapid spilling into the pool, the current almost pushed me into a middle-aged couple, and I overheard the woman telling her husband that this was much better than Steels Creek. I asked them which part of Steels Creek they had visited, and they said they had gone to the commercialized recreation area just off NC 181, which is way downstream of the section of Steels Creek that I had explored last summer. I told them about Steels Creek Falls and how secluded it was, and they seemed intrigued. I tried to give them directions, but I realized that it was too complicated and hard to find simply from verbal directions. I told them to make sure and Google it before trying to find it. Miranda and I stayed in this pool for a few minutes, and I started getting cold, so I got out and warmed up on the hot rocks. Miranda went down a small slide on the upstream end of the pool several times and insisted I try it, so I got back in briefly and did it once.

We got out of the creek and climbed the sloped rock back to the road, and we walked back to her car. I got my phone and walked back down the creek (now with shoes on) to take pictures of the places we had just swam. We drove down the creek, and I had Miranda stop a couple of times so I could get out and take pictures of other areas. In one area, the dust from the road was so bad that it looked like there was a smoke cloud at the bend upstream.



We drove further downstream, and I saw an area that looked pretty cool from up on the road. I took a scramble path down to it, and it was a pool lined by a steep rock wall. The creek dropped from that pool over a small cascade into another pool with a small beach.

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According to American Whitewater, this drop is called Razorback, and it is a class IV rapid in higher flows. I walked around on the rocks above the cascade and saw two guys getting out of the water with their inner tubes. They said they had tubed down from a quarter mile upstream, and that it was pretty bumpy due to all the rocks sticking up. At this point, Miranda was getting impatient (she waited at the car), so she started blowing her whistle. I had trouble finding the path I had come down at first, but I eventually found it and climbed back up to the car. I was pretty hot by now. We left and headed back toward Pineola
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Miranda asked if there were any other convenient waterfalls or swimming holes on the way back. I had been meaning to check out the waterfalls on the upper section of Steels Creek, which are conveniently right off a gravel Forest Service road (more low hanging fruit), so I said we could stop by there. On the way back up NC 181, we turned off onto the gravel road that crosses the upper section of Steels Creek. I had examined this area on Google Earth last year, and I had found two waterfalls (one of which was on a tributary of Steels Creek) that looked pretty substantial. According to the third edition of Kevin Adam’s North Carolina Waterfalls book, which just came out last week, these waterfalls are Newt Falls (on Steels Creek) and Zigzag Falls (on the tributary). Zigzag Falls looked pretty big on Google Earth, and hiking vlogger Zachary Robbins recently posted a video of his bushwack to the falls that makes it look pretty impressive. There is no trail to it, so it’s basically all bushwhacking. We drove as close as we could get to it from the road. I was interested to see if there were any swimming holes at the base. I started to bushwhack down the hill while Miranda waited in the car. It looked like I could get all the way to the bottom and enter the creek just downstream of the falls, but I knew Miranda probably wouldn’t have the patience to wait for me to do that, so I started back up the hill. As I was coming up, I could see a partial view of the falls through the trees, but I couldn’t see if there were any pools.



There were footprints in the leaves, and I thought I could hear voices coming from the falls, but there had been no other cars, and I couldn’t see any people. I went back up to the car, and we drove back to where Steels Creek crossed under the road. We could see Upper Steels Creek Falls just upstream from the road, so I walked up the faint path next to the creek to try to get a good picture of it, but the area was too cluttered to get a good vantage point.



I also wanted to try to get a picture of Newt Falls, just downstream of the road. The Mountains-to-Sea trail is supposed to go across the top of it before intersecting the road, but I couldn’t find where the trail met the road. I bushwacked through the woods to the brink of the falls and found the trail. There was a large sloping rock face next to the falls, and I was able to walk a little ways out on it while holding onto a tree. I probably could have scooted to the bottom,if I had more time. It was not a great vantage point, but these were the photos I was able to get.

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I followed the trail and found were it met the road, and Miranda swung around with the car and picked me up. We drove back into town and had burgers and shakes at San Dee’s Café.

So yeah, today’s excursion satisfied my lingering curiosities about Wilson Creek Gorge. It would have been nicer if it had not been so crowded and there was not so much dust lingering everywhere, but that’s what happens when you go to well known, easily accessible swimming holes. I probably wouldn’t make the drive up here just to go there, but I would hit it up again if I were in town for a few days with friends who wanted a swimming hole without a long hike. I would like to further explore Zigzag Falls, maybe as a tacked on ending to another expedition, but I wouldn’t do it by myself. I would probably want crew of two or three people given how treacherous the area looks.

I haven’t decided where I will go tomorrow. Raven Cliff Gorge on Upper Creek is topping my to-do list for this area, and I still have loose ends to tie up at Steels Creek and Gragg Prong. However, Raven Cliff Gorge is not something I would do alone, and I’m not too fond of going to Steels Creek by myself either, so I’m leaning toward Gragg Prong. I am also considering checking out North Harper Creek Falls and Bard Falls on North Harper Creek, but I don’t know if they have swimming holes, and I will be supremely disappointed if I don’t take a dip tomorrow.