Graveyard Fields & Skinny Dip Falls

I saw a stretch of nice weather coming up for the latter part of this week, and since this coming weekend is Labor Day Weekend, I decided to take a couple of days off work and use this Thursday and Friday to get some last-minute swimming hole action in before the Labor Day crowds arrived. Today I went to Graveyard Fields along the Blue Ridge Parkway. I had originally intended to do this during last month’s visit to the Asheville area, but there ended up being rain in the forecast on the day I was supposed to go, so I ended up going to DuPont State Forest instead. The forecast for today was clear, though, so it was time to take another shot at Graveyard Fields. Graveyard Fields is a shrubby valley in the mountains interspersed with skeletons of dead trees, thus the name. Yellowstone Prong flows throw the valley and goes over three waterfalls: Upper Falls, Second Falls, and Yellowstone Falls. Second Falls (sometimes mistakenly referred to as Yellowstone Falls) features a swimming hole that looks attractive in pictures, thus my interest in the area. About a mile downstream from Graveyard Fields is Skinny Dip Falls, a small waterfall and popular swimming hole located where the North Carolina Mountains-to-Sea Trail (MST) crosses Yellowstone Prong. My objectives for today were to check out Skinny Dip Falls and all three of the Graveyard Fields waterfalls.

( Click here for the full trip report with pictures and videos )

In summary, I thought the only decent swimming hole today was the one at Second Falls. It was clear, blue, sun-exposed, broad enough to swim across, and the water was cold but not ice-cold. Skinny Dip Falls had seemed like it would also be a good one, but in person it just seemed like a less interesting version of Blue Hole (Mill Creek, TN). Both the swimming hole and waterfall at Skinny Dip were a lot smaller than I was expecting based on pictures I had seen. I’m honestly not sure why it’s even a named waterfall. It’s just kind of an average series of small cascades where the MST happens to cross the creek. It would be a nice find as a secret spot on a creek walk, but it’s not something I would contend with crowds to visit. From a waterfall standpoint, Second Falls and Yellowstone Falls were nice. I was a little underwhelmed by the small pool at Yellowstone Falls, but it was a nice escape from the crowds (it actually wasn’t super crowded at Second Falls, it was more that there just wasn’t much space for people to hang out around the pool). Upper Falls was just kind of meh after seeing Second and Yellowstone Falls, and it didn’t offer any swimming opportunities.