flyminion: (Shine)
Today, I checked out the waterfalls on the Tuckasegee River in Panthertown Valley in the Nantahala National Forest. This area had been on my back burner since the third edition of Kevin Adams’ North Carolina Waterfalls book came out in 2016. The state is currently experiencing an uncharacteristically long stretch of dry weather, and the rivers in the southwestern part of the state are very low, which opens up some of the larger ones for swimming. I had wanted to take advantage of this by checking out some new spots on the Horsepasture River, but they were too secluded to check out safely, and I couldn’t rope anyone into going with me. I thought about revisiting the touristy parts of the river, but I felt like I should check out something new, so Panthertown it was.

Panthertown Valley has over ten waterfalls, so today I planned to hike downstream along the Tuckasegee River and check out Warden, Jawbone, Riding Ford, Elbow, and Red Butt Falls. A sixth waterfall, Lichen Falls, spills into the river from a small tributary stream about half a mile downstream of Red Butt Falls and is only accessible by creek-walking or bushwhacking. Jawbone Falls was the only one on today’s agenda with a guaranteed swimming hole, but Elbow Falls looked like it might also have a small one. Panthertown’s most popular waterfall, Schoolhouse Falls on Greenland Creek, was only a quarter-mile detour from my route, so I planned to check it out as well, as it was unclear from pictures if the pool at its base was deep enough to be a swimming hole.

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In summary, I wasn’t really blown away by any of the waterfalls or swimming holes today. I thought they were all kind of mid, as the kids say, but if I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be Warden Falls, which I would not have expected. It was the second best waterfall and the overall nicest spot, since it had a legit swimming hole. The best waterfall per se was probably Jawbone Falls, but its swimming hole was disappointing due to the underwater clutter and lack of flat rocks for lounging. The middle portion of Red Butt Falls passes with a C- for a legit water slide. It wasn’t very fast or steep, but it offered a good 10-15 feet of smooth sliding. I’m not sure I would make a special trip to check out the rest of the Panthertown waterfalls, but I might consider returning to tie up loose ends if I happen to be in the area and need a filler excursion. It might have to be on a day with subpar weather, though, because I kind of regretted passing up a sunny, low-flow day at the Horsepasture River for this.
flyminion: (Tub)
Today, I went to Lynn Canyon in Vancouver, BC. I am here for three days with eight friends for our 20-year high school reunion (are we really that old?!), and whenever I’m along for a trip, you know I’m going to try to sneak a swimming hole excursion into it. We had tried to plan a Vancouver trip in 2015, and Lynn Canyon came onto my radar when I was looking for outdoorsy things to do in the area. It features a suspension bridge and several swimming holes both upstream and downstream of the bridge (plus a crazy natural water slide below the bridge that ends in a 30-foot drop, and which I have no desire to try). I assumed the water here would be pretty cold given how far north it is, but the park is only about ten minutes from our Airbnb, so I figured it was worth checking out if I could rope anyone into going with me (or dropping me off).

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

In summary, Lynn Canyon was a nice swimming hole destination, and the water wasn’t as cold as I was expecting from a Canadian swimming hole, which may be due to the water coming off the top of a lake just upstream. The temperature was similar to mountain streams back in North Carolina. The setting kind of reminded me of Blue Hole near Elizabethton, TN, but with more waterfalls and swimming holes. My only gripe is that it was too crowded, being that it’s in the city, accessible by public transit, and a short hike along mostly boardwalks and stairs. If I’m ever back in the area, I’d like to check out the Twin Falls swimming hole, and maybe see if there are any accessible areas of the canyon between the suspension bridge and Twin Falls (it looked like most areas were fenced off and plastered with warning signs about how cliff jumping is stupid). I probably wouldn’t try to get to the swimming holes under the suspension bridge, because it looks like you’d have to commit to canyoneering through unknown terrain for a significant distance to get in and out of that area.
flyminion: (Turtle)
Today, I returned to Lost Cove Creek for the first time since 2015 to explore the area downstream of Hunt Fish Falls. The last time I visited, I did it as part of a combined hike with the waterfalls of Gragg Prong (a tributary whose confluence is a little less than a mile downstream of Hunt Fish) along the Mountains to Sea Trail (MST). I didn’t check out any other areas of Lost Cove Creek because I assumed Hunt Fish Falls was its only point of interest. However, when I was swimming at Gragg Prong on the return hike, a kid mentioned that there was a good slide just downstream of Hunt Fish Falls, so I’ve always been slightly curious to return and check it out. I subsequently looked on Google Earth, and there did appear to be some possible slides between Hunt Fish Falls and the Gragg Prong confluence. A recent kayaking video on YouTube seemed to confirm this, but it’s hard to tell in high water if a slide is hospitable for butt-sliding in summer flows. There was only one way to find out.

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In summary, I guess Lost Cove Creek is a one hit wonder after all. I didn’t really find anything interesting downstream of Hunt Fish Falls. There were a few small swimming holes, but they were fairly unremarkable. The swimming hole about a mile upstream of Hunt Fish was also nothing interesting. There were three small slide cascades downstream of the falls, but they weren’t suitable for butt-sliding. It’s possible that the kid who mentioned a slide there was referring to the sloped bedrock along the side of the Hunt Fish Falls plunge pool, as opposed to one of the cascades.
flyminion: (Turtle)
Today, Brian and I walked upper Wilson Creek between FR 192 and Edgemont Road. We had previously hiked the Wilson Creek Trail in 2018, and creek-walked the section of Wilson Creek between the trail and FR 192 in 2019. During the latter excursion, we had briefly looked at the creek just downstream of the Edgemont Road bridge and saw that it had some small sliding cascades and was hemmed by cliffs as it quickly dropped out of sight. We had always been curious to return and walk the creek between FR 192 and Edgemont Road to see if there was anything interesting there, but five years went by and we never got around to it. On our previous excursions, we had checked out 13 out of 15 points of interest (POIs) I marked on Google Earth as potential swimming holes. POIs 14 and 15 are upstream of FR 192, and there is no good satellite imagery upstream of POI 15, so the upstream half of that section has always been a mystery. I wasn’t expecting to find any significant swimming holes there, but I thought there could be some nice cascades since the creek loses over 600 feet of elevation between the two roads.

I’ve noticed that the first weekend in June is almost always dry, which held true this year, although it wasn’t particularly warm in the mountains (today's forecast called for mid 60s). Since the weather wasn’t ideal for swimming, I decided now was the time to check out upper Wilson, since I wasn’t expecting to find any significant swimming holes.

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In summary, this section of Wilson Creek didn't have anything remarkable, but there was one legit swimming hole, and a 25-30 foot waterfall about 100 feet back on a small side-stream. Other than that, the creek was basically a series of small sliding cascades and shallow pools, similar to Little Wilson Creek upstream of Edgemont Road. It did seem like the slides were starting to get bigger toward the upstream end of the walk, so it’s possible there might be higher cascades upstream, between Edgemont Road and the Blue Ridge Parkway. However, I probably wouldn’t check that out unless I really needed something to do.
flyminion: (Jacuzzi)
Today, Cade and I went to some lesser known teacup swimming holes just above a lake in Eldorado National Forest. I'm keeping the location details vague on this one, because swimming holes and waterfalls in this area are prone to weekend crowds, but this spot has somehow managed to stay below the radar. It caught my attention when I saw it featured in some kayaking videos on YouTube. It looked to have many big slides and rock tubs, but all the videos were taken during torrential spring flows, and I couldn’t find any information on this place being used as a swimming hole spot or what it even looked like in summer flows. I figured the slides probably weren’t hospitable for butt-sliding, but it looked like there were probably several good swimming holes. I was mainly interested to check out a section called the Teacups, which is a series of small waterfalls spilling into deep-looking rock tubs. However, these are just above a 60-foot waterfall comprised of a steep series of cascades and tubs (boaters regard the upper and lower tiers of the waterfall as two separate rapids). Kayaking and waterfalling websites mentioned a use trail leading to the main waterfall, but they didn’t specify if it continued upstream to the Teacups. I assumed the waterfall was surmountable, as several kayaking videos showed spotters standing on the sloped bedrock slab next to it, so I was confident enough to take a chance on exploring this area. I also figured it would be a good place for a Saturday excursion, since this spot seemed fairly unknown to anyone other than kayakers.

Another thing I was slightly concerned about was whether the creek flowed year-round or dried up in late summer. Google Earth imagery from different years seemed to indicate that it rarely goes completely dry, but it appeared to be only a trickle in drier years with less snowfall. However, I wasn’t too worried about it since this had been a record snowfall year. According to Dreamflows, the creek was flowing at ~14 cfs today.

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In summary, I ended up enjoying this spot more than I thought I would. It had crystal clear water and many sculpted rock pools to explore. It kind of reminded me of Rock Creek, although the surrounding scenery was not quite as striking. It didn’t have any major slides (at least not that would be slidable without a kayak), but it did have some potential low jumps that might be possible with a precision landing. I should note that I didn’t thoroughly explore the pools downstream of the main waterfall, so I can’t say for sure that there aren’t any serviceable jumps or slides there. The water temperature today was 61°F, but it felt a little warmer less freezing than that (maybe 64-ish). The air temperature was in the upper 70s, but the teacups got sun exposure all day, which made the warm rock slabs an ideal place to bask after a brisk swim. Perhaps the temperature is warmer in drier years, when the flow is probably much lower in late summer.
flyminion: (Slide UC)
For the third day of our trip, Cade and I went to the Tenaya Creek Slide in Yosemite, which is a massive natural waterslide where Tenaya Creek flows over a vast expanse of solid granite downstream of Tenaya Lake on its way to Yosemite Valley. The creek is very seasonal and normally dries up by the end of July. However, the record snowpack made it difficult to predict when the seasonal creeks would dry up this year, so I was hoping it would still be running in late August. I could see from Glacier Point on Monday that Tenaya Creek was definitely flowing, so I knew we were good to check it out today.

Before we went to the slide, I wanted to do some recon on the upper Tuolumne River for possible future excursions. I had originally thought about hiking to Glen Aulin on this trip, which is on the Tuolumne River a few miles downstream of Tuolumne Meadows. However, this section of the river actually has a temperature gauge, and it indicated the water temperature was currently in the 50s (as opposed to upper 60s or even low 70s in low/normal snowfall years). It had been about 60 °F before the storms came through on Sunday and Monday, but I’m guessing the rain must have washed some of the snowmelt into the river and made it colder. Still, I wanted to get a look at some of the closest swimming holes to the road just to get an idea of what the geology and water clarity looked like in person. It looked like we could get a sneak peek by hiking about a mile on the Pothole Dome Trail to where the river flowed over some exposed bedrock on the downstream end of Tuolumne Meadows. I was also interested in seeing a little bit of the Lyell Fork Tuolumne River, as it looked to have clear, blue water, and I had marked one point of interest on Google Earth near a footbridge about a mile upstream of the road at the Tuolumne Lodge.

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

In summary, the Tenaya Creek slide was an okay natural waterslide, but it wasn’t great for butt-sliding at today’s flow due to the difficulty of getting an obstacle-free route to the bottom. It would probably be best enjoyed on an innertube or some kind of inflatable device that can pad the bumps and open up more paths to the bottom. I had thought this was just going to be a slide, as the pool at the bottom was only about three feet deep, but the rock pool at the base of the upper waterfall was a legit swimming hole. Before coming here, I was wondering how one might use Yosemite Falls as an indicator of whether Tenaya Creek is still flowing (since Yosemite Falls has a live webcam that streams 24/7). Yosemite Falls was still flowing strongly two days ago, as was Chilnualna Creek yesterday, while Tenaya Creek was flowing more gently today. Therefore, I would guess that Tenaya probably dries up before Yosemite and Chilnualna Creeks do, meaning that most ephemeral streams in the park would probably be too high and cold for swimming when Tenaya is at optimal flow.

As for the Tuolumne River, I would be interested to explore more of it and hike to Glen Aulin in a drier year when the water is lower and warmer (it apparently gets up to 70 °F some years, according to its temperature gauge), but there was no way it was going to be pleasant under today’s conditions.
flyminion: (Jacuzzi)
Today, Cade and I kicked off our fifth California swimming hole marathon by hiking to Chilnualna Falls in Yosemite National Park. This creek was one of the first swimming hole spots I had put on my list when researching our first trip back in 2017, but we didn’t end up making it to Yosemite that year or on any of our other trips for one reason or another. The closest we came was in 2018, but they closed the park due to the Ferguson Fire three days before we arrived, and we couldn’t get out of our vacation rental, so we ended up having to resort to smoky backup plans outside the park. This time, we booked hotels with flexible cancellation policies, as you never know what’s going to happen in California, but I’ll admit that a tropical storm is the last thing I would have expected. The original plan was to do Chilnualna yesterday and do the touristy stuff in Yosemite Valley today, but yesterday's forecast called for scattered showers and a high of 68 °F with the remnants of Hurricane Hilary passing through, so we swapped the days and did the valley yesterday. We were hoping the weather would be better today, since this was our last day staying in Oakhurst (near the southern entrance of the park in Wawona, where Chilnualna Creek is), but it was still partly cloudy and in the low 70’s.

Chilnualna Creek boasts two sections of interest. The lower section near the trailhead features two swimming holes known as The Ledge and Honeymooners, and a short distance upstream from those (as the crow flies) is the Big Pot. I had marked another point of interest on Google Earth about a quarter mile upstream of the Big Pot, but it looked like it might be in the middle of a waterfall, so I was unsure if it would be accessible. The upper section of interest is Chilnualna Falls, which is a three-tiered waterfall about five miles up the trail. The uppermost tier features a large swimming hole at its base, and several teacup cascades above the main drop. It was unclear from pictures if the teacups were accessible, as the terrain around them looked pretty steep depending on the angle, but I was interested to find out. I knew we probably wouldn’t be able to hit all the swimming hole highlights of the creek in one day, so my main objective for today was to check out Chilnualna Falls. This meant we would probably have to come back another time to see everything on the lower section, but I still wanted to check out the Big Pot, as it had been the swimming hole that initially piqued my interest for this creek.

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

In summary, Chilnualna Creek would be a great swimming hole destination in hot, perpetually sunny weather. Today’s hike offered some great views, but the cool, overcast weather made it disappointing and uninviting from a swimming hole standpoint. The increased flow and freezing cold water did not help. Chilnualna Falls was swimmable, but the creek picked up a few more tributary streams between there and the lower swimming holes, making the Big Pot a little too rough. Even though I didn’t really get into any of the pools today (other than the base of upper Chilnualna Falls for a few seconds), I’m thinking the best swimming hole would be the uppermost significant tub above Chilnualna Falls. It was large in diameter, appeared deep, and had a perfect rock diving board (if the water under it is deep, which I didn’t check). I would like to revisit Chilnualna Creek in a more typical year, so I can do a proper exploration of the Big Pot, and also check out The Ledge and Honeymooners. Even though hiking all the way to Chilnualna Falls is kind of a drag, the payoff would be worth the effort in nicer weather, so I would consider going back up there again as well.
flyminion: (Slide HC)
Today, I hiked to Harper Creek Falls, but instead of taking the trail, I hiked (almost) all the way there through the creek. The forecast for today was dry, but it was unclear if it would be cloudy. I had planned to do this hike if it was clear, but I had another one in mind if it were cloudy. It was overcast in Lenoir this morning, but the hourly forecast was sunny from noon to 2 PM, and then partly cloudy after that. I decided to go ahead and do Harper, since that meant it would be sunny for most of the hike, and late afternoon clouds might dissuade me from staying at the falls too long, since I had to drive back to Raleigh afterwards. This trek seemed ideal for a day where I was either arriving or leaving, because it’s less than a four-hour drive back to Raleigh, and I wasn’t expecting it to be too strenuous since the creek only drops about 100 feet over more than a mile.

I planned to enter the creek at its confluence with Wilson Creek and creek-walk upstream to the primitive campground near the confluence with Raider Camp Creek, where the Harper Creek Trail joins with the North Carolina Mountains-to-Sea Trail (MST). On previous visits, I had caught glimpses of several sliding cascades over bedrock slabs on the quarter-mile section of creek just downstream of the falls, which I have never checked out, so I planned to re-enter the creek there and creek-walk the rest of the way to the falls.

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In summary, there are a couple of legit swimming holes (and several pockets of deep water) on the lower section of Harper Creek, but they are all forgettable in comparison to the pair of primo swimming holes at Harper Creek Falls. I'd say the new pools I found today would probably only appeal to fishermen looking for solitude upstream from the commotion of Wilson Creek Gorge.
flyminion: (Shine)
Cascade #7Today, I finally got to tackle the waterfalls of Flat Laurel Creek, which has been up there on my wish list since the third edition of Kevin Adams’ North Carolina Waterfalls book came out in 2016. This is a stretch of creek that loses about 800 feet of elevation in a series of cascades and waterfalls over three quarters of a mile. I wasn’t sure if there would be any swimming holes, but it seemed like the creek walk would be worthwhile regardless. Also, there are a couple of roadside attractions in the immediate vicinity (Bubbling Spring Branch Cascades, Sunburst Falls on the West Fork Pigeon River), and I knew that the former had a swimming hole. I was curious to see if Sunburst Falls did as well.

The main obstacle for the Flat Laurel Creek walk is that it’s a thru-hike where you leave a vehicle at each end of the trailhead (otherwise you have to backtrack through the creek down hundreds of feet of cascades), so I needed a second person who was both willing and able to do this type of hike. My friend, Chris (who did Cave Falls with me last summer) was up for it, so we planned to do it today since the forecast was cloudless and bone-dry.

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In summary, Flat Laurel Creek lived up to my expectations and was worth the wait. It was definitely one of the best creek walks I’ve been on in terms of effort vs reward. It was a workout, but it wasn’t super strenuous or technical (for experienced off-trail hikers). Chris got through the whole thing without getting his feet wet (except for intentionally soaking them in the main swimming hole, with his shoes off). Once the cascades get going, they are pretty much non-stop all the way to the top. I wasn’t sure if there would be any legit swimming holes, but there was one at the base of cascade 7(ish). There were also a couple of smaller pools that looked like they might be legit. The creek walk would still have been worth the price of admission even if the main swimming hole hadn’t been there, but it really rounded things out. That particular spot was probably the highlight of what we saw today.

As for the roadside attractions, Bubbling Spring Branch Falls failed to impress after Flat Laurel Creek. The supposed swimming hole at the top looked kind of dinky, so unless there was something upstream that I missed, then I would say it’s probably not worthy of a return visit unless I happen to be passing by for some other reason. Sunburst Falls, on the other hand, looked like a legit swimming hole, so now I’m interested to find out if it’s a one-hit-wonder or just a sneak peak at what else the West Fork Pigeon River has to offer.
flyminion: (Shine)
Lower section of Laurel Fork FallsFor the past three days, my mom and I have been kayaking on Lake Jocassee. We had been talking about going again after our trip last year, but there haven’t really been any good stretches of warm, dry weather until this week. Last year, we checked out places within out-and-back paddling distance of Devil’s Fork State Park, but we didn’t get to see all the waterfalls that spilled into the lake because the kayak shuttle was booked up that time (the kayak shuttle is a pontoon boat that hauls you and your kayaks to a drop-off point on the lake, for an exorbitant fee). The named waterfalls on the lake are Laurel Fork Falls, Mill Creek Falls, Devil’s Hole Creek Falls, Wright Creek Falls, and Bad Creek Falls (okay, the last one isn’t named, but it’s large enough to be noteworthy). We had only visited the latter two waterfalls last time, so our objective this time was to see the other three, especially Laurel Fork Falls, which looked like the highlight. The shuttle was available this time, so we were in business. There was only one available villa (#2) at the park this week, so we snagged it while we still could.

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In summary, yesterday’s excursion from Laurel Fork Falls to Devil’s Fork State Park was a pretty good paddle. The temperature was in the 80’s with barely any clouds, and there were plenty of opportunities for swimming, snorkeling, and grapes. Now that I have seen all the named waterfalls of the lake, I would say Laurel Fork Falls is easily the highlight, with Wright Creek Falls (which we saw last year) coming in second. Mill Creek Falls looked like a great swimming spot, but it’s not the most impressive of the waterfalls. Devil’s Fork Falls wasn’t that interesting because it was so cluttered with deadfall that it was hard to get a good view of it. We didn’t really go anywhere new Monday or today, but today was a nice day to revisit some of the highlights from last year. Swimming on the lower Thompson River was much more pleasant than it had been in spring of 2021, so now I can officially give those swimming holes a thumbs up. We saved a few loose ends for a future trip, including the Whitewater River arm of the lake, which apparently has some nice cascades near the mouth of the river.
flyminion: (Slide HC)
The log pool on North Harper CreekToday, I finished up my explorations of North Harper Creek. I normally wrap up my swimming hole explorations around the beginning of September, since it’s usually too cool in the mountains for swimming to be pleasant after that, but I saw an unseasonably warm, dry stretch of weather coming up this week, so I decided to take the whole week off work to take advantage of it. After all, I haven’t really taken a legit vacation this summer due to the lack of dry weather here in the Carolinas, and airfare to California being super steep.

When I explored North Harper Creek last summer, I spent two weekends checking out some points of interest (POIs) I had marked on Google Earth. The first weekend was cut short when I had to abort the hike to get help for a woman having an allergic reaction to yellow jacket stings. On the second weekend, I managed to check out all of the remaining POIs I had marked, but it seemed like there might be some interesting parts of the creek that were not visible on Google Earth. I had marked seven POIs on North Harper Creek (numbered in order from upstream to downstream), and it was starting to get dark by the time I got to POI 1. After that, the trail rose high above the creek, and it sounded pretty busy between POI 1 and Chestnut Cove Branch Falls. I also had not marked any POIs upstream of North Harper Creek Falls, but there were almost certainly some cascades there judging by the noise and the amount of elevation gain (but I couldn’t see them because it was almost completely dark). My objectives for today were to creek-walk the area between POI 1 and Chestnut Cove Branch Falls, and check out the area upstream of North Harper Creek Falls in daylight.

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

In summary, I didn’t find anything super noteworthy on the section of North Harper Creek I explored today. The section of the creek between POI 1 and Chestnut Cove Branch Falls was pretty uneventful, but the section above North Harper Creek Falls proved to be worth a look. There were no major swimming holes (a couple of small pools that may or may not have been deep), but there were a few cascades that were nicer than any of my marked POIs, a couple of which were at least 15 feet high. I would say the nicest one was the one that I had to scoot down the fallen tree to get to. Normally I would be bummed about not finding a swimming hole, but given the cool weather today, I was fine with just doing a creek walk.
flyminion: (Shine)
Cave FallsToday, I finally got to go to Cave Falls in Linville Gorge, which has been on my to-do list for a while. I had tried to get to it alone last month by swimming through the Bob Ross Gorge and climbing up the rocks next to a rapid/small waterfall the boaters call Seal Launch Portage (aka A Good Way to Die), but I decided it was too sketchy to do alone (as with my previous entries, all rapid names are per American Whitewater and A Wet State). I’ve been trying to find people online who are into this sort of thing, and I networked with this guy Chris from Asheville who said he liked intense hikes and might be up for it, so we planned to meet up and tackle it today. Unlike my previous trips to this section of the gorge where I had used the moderate Spence Ridge Trail, today we would be using the more strenuous but more direct Devil’s Hole Trail, which loses about 1000 feet of elevation in a about a mile and meets the river about a quarter mile upstream of Cave Falls.

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In summary, Cave Falls is a pretty cool spot. It has a large swimming hole with a low jump of about six feet, and it’s surrounded by some pretty impressive geology. From what I’ve seen so far, I would say the best swimming hole in the gorge is easily Cathedral, both in terms of swimming hole functionality and geological grandeur, but Cave Falls is a contender for runner-up, along with the Bob Ross Gorge and Babel Tower Falls (the latter actually isn’t one of my top picks, but it’s a fan favorite, so I felt obligated to throw it in there). I was hoping to tie up a few loose ends from my winter scouting trip (e.g., Jailhouse) today, but we were unable to do so since the rain cut things short. After experiencing the Devil’s Hole Trail for the first time, I can say one thing for sure: I did NOT skip leg day.
flyminion: (Shine)
Point of Interest #1 - Lower Section of Upper Creek, NCFor the last day of my Asheville/Boone trip, I decided to explore the lower section of Upper Creek. I had previously hiked the trail that follows this section of the creek in 2016, when I conquered Raven Cliff Gorge with Mary and Orin. We had seen that there were some possible cascades and swimming holes on our way up the trail, but we neglected to check them out since they were not on the agenda for that excursion. Returning to check out this section of the creek was never high on my agenda, but I chose to do it today because I had to drive back to Raleigh afterwards, and I wanted to do something that I thought would be relatively quick and easy. This particular trailhead was only a couple of miles off the paved road, and it was farther south (i.e., closer to I-40) than most of the other swimming hole attractions in the Wilson Creek area, so I would have more of a head-start for the drive back. I had scanned the creek on Google Earth and marked six points of interest (POIs), and my plan was to hike all the way to POI 6, which was the farthest upstream at about 1.5 miles from the trailhead, and then work my way back downstream. This would allow me to scope out all the side-trails down to the creek on the way in so I would know all my options for accessing my POIs on the way back.

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In summary, the lower section of Upper Creek does have some cascades and swimming holes, but nothing that really holds a candle to Upper Creek Falls or Raven Cliff Gorge. The best cascade was probably the lower one at POI 2, which was about 7-8 feet high. POI 1 ended up being the highlight of the places I checked out today, boasting two cascades and two legit swimming holes. I wouldn’t say it's worth making a special trip, but it would make for a nice short hike and swim if you happen to be camping at one of the sites along FR 197. With today’s trek, I am one step closer to exploring all of Upper Creek between FR 197 and Upper Creek Falls. The only section I have left to explore is between Upper Creek Falls and the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, which will be one hell of a creek walk.
flyminion: (Shine)
Today I needed to re-start this vacation off right, so I (mostly) tied up a six-year-old loose end and re-visited the Horsepasture River under more ideal conditions. I had previously visited in 2016 with Cade, but that was during a period of heavy rainfall, and the river was too high and turbulent for swimming to be safe. The main attraction of the Horsepasture River from a swimming hole standpoint is Turtleback Falls, which is a 15-20 foot sliding waterfall that ends with an eight foot drop into a deep pool. Not getting to do this in 2016 was a bummer, so it has been high on my bucket list for the past six years. The main waterfall attraction is Rainbow Falls, a 150-foot behemoth that also has a swimming hole with a jumping ledge. I thought this pool might have strong currents even at low flow due to the waterfall’s size, but people still swim in it, so I definitely wanted to see if it was hospitable. Other loose ends from my last visit included not checking out the swimming hole situation at Stairway Falls, and not making it to Side Pocket Falls, so I wanted to check those out if I had time after visiting Turtleback and Rainbow.

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In summary, today was a much nicer day at the Horsepasture River than last time. I would say it’s one of the overall best rivers in the state when it comes to delivering multiple quality swimming holes. It also had moderate water temperatures (for a North Carolina mountain stream). The current was still kind of strong today, but the main attractions were still serviceable for strong swimmers. The weather was also really nice. I think it was in the upper 70’s with no clouds in the sky, so it was warm in the sun and comfortable in the shade. I would say the best swimming hole per se was the Rainbow Falls plunge pool, but sliding down Turtleback Falls is obviously the main attraction. I wouldn’t really say the Turtleback plunge pool is a great swimming hole, though, because the current is actually stronger there than in the Rainbow Falls plunge pool. It’s one of those ones where you want to get out ASAP after dropping in from the slide. Stairway Falls offered a couple of serviceable swimming holes, mainly the one at the very bottom. Those pools didn’t have any jumps or slides (well, maybe the top one, but I wasn’t going to test it), but they are a more secluded alternative to the more popular spots if you’re looking for less people. Now that I’ve finally gotten to experience the main swimming holes under (somewhat) more hospitable conditions, I will have to check out some of the river’s more secluded ones, starting with Side Pocket Falls.

Exit Falls

Jun. 18th, 2022 11:59 pm
flyminion: (Shine)
Today I hiked to Exit Falls on the Whitewater River. For some reason, I hadn’t really gotten the swimming hole itch when the weather started getting warm this year, but then I went home for EmilySarah’s wedding last weekend, and the summer mountain weather got me in the mood. It looked like there was going to be a rare stretch of warm, dry weather in the mountains starting this weekend and continuing into next week, so it seemed like a good time to hit up some of the larger rivers that are too rough for swimming after periods of heavy rainfall. That of course includes the Linville River, but I’ve also been wanting to focus on the four major rivers that feed into Lake Jocassee (the Whitewater, Horsepasture, Thompson, and Toxaway Rivers). I had checked out most of the Thompson last year, and I have unfinished business at the Horsepasture (which I plan to visit tomorrow), but I wanted to start things off with the Whitewater River, since I haven’t explored it at all (aside from viewing Upper Whitewater Falls from an overlook on a family vacation when I was 11).

I’ve read trip reports about a series of lesser-known waterfalls upstream of Whitewater Falls, but there’s no official trail, so accessing them requires a combination of old logging roads, bushwhacking, and river-walking. While a few of the falls apparently have swimming holes, the only one that looked worthy of making a special trip for (from a swimming hole perspective) was Exit Falls, which is situated where the river exits a slot canyon, thus the name. People who visit all the waterfalls in one trip generally do a shuttle hike with one car on the downstream end of the route (where NC 281 crosses the river) and one car on the upstream end. Since Exit Falls is much closer to the upstream end, I opted to approach from that direction. Kevin Adams gives the directions for this approach in the third edition of his North Carolina Waterfalls book from 2016, but the updated listing on his website says he no longer advises that route because it’s overgrown. He mentions that there’s an easier route, but it crosses through private property. When I hear "overgrown", I envision a path that hasn’t been pruned in a while. Another blogger’s trip report gave the GPS track for the legal route, so I figured I could put his waypoints in my GPS and use them to stay on track.

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

In summary, this excursion was such a doozy that I almost forgot I even went to Exit Falls. I mean, it’s a pretty waterfall and swimming hole, but I hesitate to pass judgment on it since I was preoccupied with the horrible bushwhack (in fact, this entry is mostly about that, with Exit Falls thrown in as an afterthought… but that was honestly the overall vibe of this misadventure). Even though the pool is surrounded by cliffs, I’m not sure there would be any serviceable jumps due to the vegetational clutter on top. I have seen a video were rappelers climbed halfway down the waterfall and jumped the rest of the way into the pool, but you couldn’t do that without a rope. But yeah, "overgrown" and "hard to follow" are understatements for the current state of this (former) route. Those descriptions are from 5 and 6 years ago. Succession has run its course, and this former route is now just a straight-up bushwhack with no discernible trail to speak of. I might be interested in checking out more of the upper Whitewater River waterfalls if I were with a group of people who had been there before and knew what they were doing, but I don’t think I would come back here alone again.
flyminion: (Biting Midge)
Wheelie rapidYesterday, I decided to take advantage of this year’s Climate Change Christmas to go scouting for swimming holes in Linville Gorge. After my most recent visit in September, I found that the Linville Gorge Trail (LGT) stayed fairly close to the river, but the summer foliage blocked the view and made it difficult to scout for swimming holes. The air temperatures over the Christmas holidays this year have been in the 60’s, even in the mountains, so I figured this would be a good time to look for potential swimming holes to check out next summer. In addition to the unseasonably warm temperatures and the leaves being off the trees, the river is currently near summer flow due to a drought, so it looks about the same right now as it does in summer as far as water levels are concerned (the river yesterday was at 59 cfs/1.08 ft, according to the USGS gauge).

On my last visit, I had checked out the section of the river between the Spence Ridge Trail and the Devil’s Hole Trail. My objective for yesterday was to pick up where I left off and check out the section between the Devil’s Hole Trail and Babel Tower. I wasn’t sure if there would be any worthwhile swimming holes here, which was all the more reason to explore it during winter so as not to waste a nice summer day if there weren't any ideal swimming spots. I had marked a few points of interest on Google Earth that I wanted to check out, all but one of which were directly above or below named rapids (all rapid names are according to American Whitewater). The points of interest (starting at Babel Tower and going downstream) were Used to be a Portage, Wheelie, Zoom Flume, Zig Zag, Skylight, Diagonal Chaos, Death Penalty, Adam’s Oof, Jailhouse, Cyclops, and an unnamed spot just upstream of Cyclops that I dubbed “Jean Grey” (since I’m an X-Men fan and it’s close to Cyclops). Of these, I was most interested in checking out Jailhouse. My plan was to hike down from the Babel Tower Trail to the intersection of the LGT, and then follow the LGT downstream as far as Jailhouse, or maybe all the way to the Devil’s Hole Trail depending on how I was doing on time.

Click here for the full Babel Tower to Jailhouse scouting report with pictures and videos )
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Today, in sticking with the Linville Gorge winter exploration theme, I went to Linville Falls with Miranda. She wanted an easy/moderate hike so she could bring her dog, so we only did the overlooks and didn’t hike down to the plunge basin. This was fine with me, since my legs were pretty angry from yesterday. Also, swimming is prohibited at Linville Falls (with signs warning of a $5,000 fine and/or 6 months in jail for violators), so there wasn’t much point in scouting out the plunge basin. The last time I visited Linville Falls was way back in 2000, and as I recall, the plunge basin would be among the most epic swimming holes in the state if swimming were allowed (some people still do it, though).

Click here for the full Linville Falls trip report with pictures and videos )
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In summary, after yesterday’s scouting, I would say the pools that warrant further exploration in the summer are Jean Grey and maybe Jailhouse, both of which are close enough to the Devil’s Hole Trail that they could potentially be tacked onto the end of a Cave Falls expedition. The section of the LGT between Babel Tower and the Devil’s Hole Trail stayed pretty close to river level (usually no more than 50 feet above it), and there were scramble trails that allowed river access near most of my points of interest. On the Babel Tower end of yesterday’s hike, Skylight and the big pool between Blindside and Death Penalty might be worth a closer look, but I probably wouldn’t make a special trip for those, as they are too far upstream to include with Cave Falls.

I didn’t really learn anything new from today’s visit to Linville Falls. From the overlook views, the river does not seem very interesting below the falls, so I probably wouldn’t make a special trip to check out the Gulf Branch confluence downstream of the falls unless I were tacking it onto a Linville Falls plunge basin hike.
flyminion: (Shine)
Bad Creek Falls - Lake Jocassee, SCThis is the final entry about my three-day vacation at Lake Jocassee in South Carolina. Day 1 and Day 2 are covered in my previous two entries.

This morning, my mom and I packed our stuff and checked out of the villa at 10 AM. I had originally wanted to go to the Horsepasture River today and revisit the swimming holes that were too rough to be safe during my 2016 visit due to the high water, but after yesterday’s deluge, I figured it was pretty pointless to hit any swimming holes on the rivers that feed into Lake Jocassee. Instead, we decided to paddle up the Howard Creek arm of the lake. Our goal for today was to make it to a waterfall that spilled into the lake from Bad Creek (I will refer to it as Bad Creek Falls, although I think it’s technically unnamed). We decided that after that, we would go as far as we felt like we could go and still make it back to the boat launch by 4 PM, since we had to drive four hours back to Abingdon afterwards.

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

In summary, although I usually prefer creeks and rivers over lakes, Lake Jocassee is a great lake with exceptionally clear water and plenty of waterfalls, cliffs, and beaches to explore. The weather was less than ideal on the first two days of our trip, but it turned nice on the last day, as per Murphy’s Law. It was still warmer than my excursion on the lake back in early June, and kayaking was more enjoyable this time around since we brought our own kayaks and didn’t have to return them by a certain time. Even though we had three days on the lake, there were still a lot of things we didn’t get to see. Next time, I would like to check out the Whitewater River arm of the lake and maybe scramble upstream a bit on that river. I would also be interested to check out the rest of the Howard Creek arm, and hopefully get a shuttle to check out the other significant waterfalls on the lake.
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Update: We returned in 2022 and visited the rest of the major waterfalls. Click here for the trip report.
flyminion: (Waterfall)
Wright Creek FallsThis is the second of three entries about my three-day vacation at Lake Jocassee in South Carolina. Day 1 of the trip is covered in my first entry.

For the second day of our vacation, my mom and I paddled to Wright Creek Falls on the Thompson River arm of the lake. I had gone to this waterfall the last time I was here, but that excursion was kind of rushed because I rented a kayak from the park that I had to return by 6 PM. I had done a creek walk on the Thompson River that day, which didn’t leave much time to see anything else. Today, we had originally wanted to see the waterfalls on the northeastern arm of the lake (where the Horsepasture and Toxaway Rivers feed in), but that was too long for and out-and-back paddle, and all the kayak shuttles were booked. We opted to just do Wright Creek Falls so my mom could see at least one of the significant waterfalls.

Click here for the full Day 2 trip report with pictures and videos )

We made it back to the boat ramp and loaded the kayaks into the truck just as it started to rain, although it wasn’t a torrential downpour like earlier. We had paddled 10.4 miles today, according to my fitness tracker (although that also includes my brief waterfall scrambles). That’s about what the distance would have been if we had taken a kayak shuttle to the more distant waterfalls and paddled back to the park. We drove back to the villa and had hamburgers for dinner. I also ate two cupcakes, because screw my arteries! Also, note to self: bring a Brita pitcher or bottled water if you ever stay in a Devil’s Fork State Park villa again, because the tap water here is wretched.

Day 3 of the trip is covered in my third and final entry.
flyminion: (Turtle)
Me sliding at Point of Interest #1So the plan for last Sunday was to explore North Harper Creek for swimming holes, which has been on my back burner since 2016. What actually happened was that I got to call 9-1-1 for the first time (more on that later). As a result, I ended up having to bail halfway through the hike last weekend, and I returned to finish it up today.

North Harper Creek was the last major creek accessible by trail that I had not explored in the Wilson Creek Area. I had scanned it on Google Earth way back in 2015 or 2016 and marked several points of interest (POIs) that could be potential swimming holes. North Harper Creek features three named waterfalls (North Harper Creek Falls, Chestnut Cove Branch Falls, and Bard Falls), but I couldn’t find any info on whether or not there were any significant swimming holes, which is why this hike has never been a top priority for me. But, the weather was nice the past two weekends, and the larger rivers in the area were too high for swimming due to recent hurricanes, so I finally ended up doing North Harper for lack of anything better to do.

I had two options for this hike. Since the most promising-looking points of interest were all upstream of Bard Falls, I could do an out-and-back hike from the North Harper Creek Trail head to Bard Falls, or I could start at the Harper Creek Trail head and do a through hike up Harper Creek to the confluence with North Harper Creek, and then hike the entire North Harper Creek trail. I was more interested in the latter option, as it would allow me to also check out Harper Creek between Harper Creek Falls and the confluence, and the area of North Harper Creek downstream of Bard Falls. Plus, it would include Harper Creek Falls, which would be a fine swimming hole consolation prize should I not find anything interesting on North Harper Creek. I had marked three POIs on regular Harper Creek between the falls and the confluence, as well as seven POIs on North Harper Creek for a total of 10 POIs along the route I had planned to hike. The POIs are numbered from upstream to downstream, with POI 1 being the farthest upstream on North Harper Creek, and POI 10 being the farthest downstream on regular Harper Creek. The only obstacle for the through-hike option was that I needed a second vehicle and someone who was willing to do an 8-9 mile hike, so I had to wait for a weekend when Brian (my brother) was free, which ended up being last weekend.

Click here for the full trip reports with pictures and videos )

In summary, I guess I don’t have any strong feelings about North Harper Creek. There were a couple of legit swimming holes, and although they weren’t anything remarkable, they are more secluded and pristine than most trail-accessible places you would find in the Wilson Creek Area. North Harper Creek does have some significant named waterfalls as well as some nice unnamed cascades. The most noteworthy sections of the creek were from Bard Falls to POI 3 (above which the creek flattens out for a while), and from POI 1 to North Harper Creek Falls. POI 4 ended up being a legit swimming hole, as did the uppermost pool of POI 3 (which was smaller than POI 4, but also less shaded). A good out-and-back waterfall + swimming hole hike would be hiking to Bard Falls from the North Harper Creek Shortcut Trail and stopping by POI 3 or 4 for a dip. The section of creek from Bard Falls downstream to the confluence with Harper Creek was pretty forgettable, as was the section of regular Harper Creek from Harper Creek Falls up to the confluence with North Harper Creek.

With about 9 miles of creek and 10 POIs to explore, this definitely ended up being more of an undertaking than I had anticipated. I probably would have ended up having to break it up into two trips regardless of last weekend’s 9-1-1 incident. I wish I hadn’t wasted an hour and a half today exploring the section downstream of Bard Falls, because my explorations of the good stuff ended up being rushed. That said, this excursion did leave some lingering curiosities. If I were to come back here in the future, I would want to explore a little downstream of POI 4, and creek walk the area between POI 1 and Chestnut Cove Branch Falls, as it sounded like there were probably more cascades there than what I saw. The creek seemed like it was probably too tight and boulder-strewn in this area for there to be any significant swimming holes, but you never know. It also sounded like the area upstream of North Harper Creek Falls could have some potential as well, but most of it was not visible from the trail (plus it was basically dark out by the time I reached that point).
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Update: I returned to North Harper Creek in 2022 and thoroughly explored the area upstream of POI 1. Click here for the trip report.
flyminion: (Paradise)
North Fork American RiverFor the fifth and final day of this year’s California swimming hole marathon, Cade and I returned to Royal Gorge for the first time in four years. The gorge has five major waterfalls and many swimming holes, most with a variety of jumping opportunities, but the miles of sketchy dirt road driving to get there and the long hike down into the gorge make it impossible to see much of it in a day trip. On our previous visit in 2017, we had only been able to see waterfall #2, which is located about where the trail crosses the river. Waterfall #1 is upstream of the trail, and 3-5 are downstream. The third one appears to have the best swimming hole, from what I’ve seen on social media. The second waterfall is a spectacular spot in its own right, but I wanted the full gorge experience. My original plan for this summer was to learn backpacking back home in North Carolina during June and July and then apply my knowledge to Royal Gorge at the end of the summer. However, since we had to do our trip way earlier this year to stay ahead of the drought and inevitable wildfire season, I came in unprepared to camp. I hadn’t planned on returning to the gorge if we weren’t going to overnight it, but Cade wanted to go again regardless, so I put it on the itinerary. However, after the brutal hike to and from "The Green Bridge" two days ago, Cade wasn’t sure he was up for the gorge anymore. We had originally planned the gorge for yesterday and Emerald Pools for today, but Cade’s legs were too destroyed for a long hike, so we swapped days and did Emerald Pools yesterday. Cade still wasn’t sure about the gorge since he was still hurting and wasn’t sure the water would be warm enough to be enjoyable. Last time, the water temperature had ranged from 56-60 °F in different pools, which was too cold for a swim to be pleasant. I insisted we do it though, because we had kind of already committed to it schedule-wise, so blowing it off would mean resorting to lame backup plans for the final day of our trip. Plus, since the water was so warm downstream at “Green Bridge” and Yankee Jim’s, I was curious to see if it would be warmer this year in the gorge as well, because Royal Gorge with comfortable water temperatures would be pretty much the best thing ever.

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

In summary, it was nice to revisit one of our all-time favorite California swimming holes. Last time, I had said that it would be the perfect swimming hole destination if only the water temperature were more comfortable, and today it was. Unfortunately, today’s visit was pretty brief. I would almost say the amount of time we spent at the actual swimming holes wasn’t worth the time and effort spent getting there and back, but it was good to see that the river has the potential to be warmer in this location than what we experienced in 2017. Since we visited three places on the North Fork American River this year, we also have a basis for comparison to predict the water temperature in Royal Gorge based on other, more easily accessible locations along the river. Although our favorite California river has been the South Yuba up to this point, the North Fork American has proven to be the nicer of the two rivers during extreme drought conditions. It stayed clean and clear this year while the places we went to on the South Yuba were brown and dirty. One decision we’ve made from today’s trip is no more doing Royal Gorge as a day trip, unless we get started super early and have a Jeep or some other robust off-road vehicle. The amount of rough dirt road driving and subsequent hiking is just too much for the amount of time we actually get to spend enjoying the swimming holes. I’ve never had any desire to backpack or primitive camp before I found this place, but now I feel like I really need to learn to backpack so I can see the other four major waterfalls (and numerous other swimming holes) the gorge has to offer. We might need to network with some people who have suitable vehicles for these roads, though. Anyone with a jeep want to be our friend?
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Click here to see my ranking for the swimming holes we visited on this trip )

This year’s trip was a little stressful since we had to work around a number of last-minute obstacles to make it happen, and the conditions were pretty extreme this year. We were dealing with 100-degree heat on some days, which is hot even for northern California. It didn’t help that we got sunburned on day one, either. The drought narrowed down our options for this year and made the South Yuba River dirty and less appealing, but it did have the silver lining of warming the waters to bearable temperatures in some of the places that are normally too cold to be enjoyable. It was also a little disappointing that we didn’t go anywhere grandiose this year (that we hadn’t been to already), so I’m hoping we’ll finally get to explore more of the Yosemite area next time. It feels kind of weird to have a California trip in the rearview mirror and be less than halfway through July, so I’ll have to see if I can make do with North Carolina for the rest of the summer.
flyminion: (Paradise)
Lower Emerald PoolsFor day four of our trip, Cade and I returned to the Emerald Pools on the South Yuba River to do a proper exploration. We had briefly stopped here on the way back from Island Lake on our 2017 trip, but we didn’t get to Emerald Pools until 6 PM after the sun had set. The water was 54 °F that day, which was in no way going to be pleasant for swimming. The main reason I had been wanting to get back to Emerald Pools is that I discovered it was the location of a mystery swimming hole I had seen in a YouTube video prior to our first trip in 2017. The video features two swimming holes, one of which I recognized as God’s Bath. The second swimming hole looked really enticing – clear blue water, a side waterfall spilling in, and numerous ledges for jumping, but I could not for the life of me figure out where it was. I spent hours (okay, weeks) on Google Earth scanning pretty much every major California river I could think of to no avail. Finally, after our 2018 trip, the uploader revealed the location as Emerald Pools. With that massive clue, I was easily able to find the mystery pool on Google Earth, but I never would have guessed I had been so close to it. I suppose the main spots, known as the Lower Emerald Pools (where the jumpers go) and the Upper Emerald Pools (where families go), had distracted me from the lesser-known pools on that stretch of the river.

I had planned to tie up this loose end during our 2019 trip, but we ended up blowing it off that year because we had hit a string of unpleasantly cold swimming holes, and we knew the Emerald Pools were not going to improve that situation. The pools are only about a mile downstream from the Lake Spaulding dam, which means the water is cold year-round since it doesn't have much time to warm up after being released from the bottom of the lake. On top of that, both 2017 and 2019 were record snowfall years where the rivers were colder than normal. However, 2021 has been the opposite (record low snowfall and warmer water than normal), plus the area is currently under an excessive heat warning, so I figured if there was ever a year Emerald Pools would have a tolerable water temperature, this would be it.

We had originally planned to revisit Royal Gorge today (which entails a strenuous 7 mile round trip hike) since it’s a Sunday and Emerald Pools is highly popular, but yesterday’s hike kind of destroyed Cade, so we decided to swap the days and just deal with the weekend crowds since the hike to Emerald Pools is less than a mile (although it does entail some minor rock climbing).

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

In summary, Emerald Pools is a great cliff jumping spot, so it’s no surprise that it’s one of the most popular spots in northern California. The cliff walls are so textured that there is a jump from pretty much any height you could want up to 70-ish feet. However, I wouldn’t really call it a great swimming hole per se because the water is too cold for a swim to be enjoyable. Even at today’s unusually “warm” water temperatures, it was really only tolerable for jumping in and quickly getting out. The water also wasn’t very emerald-y today due to all the brown filth swirling around, but I suppose that’s the price one pays for the water temperature not being in the 50’s. I would likely hit up the Emerald Pools from time to time if I were a local, but it’s probably not a place I would return to when visiting from out of state unless I were with someone who wanted to go. If I did go back, I would like to explore the rest of the box canyon downstream of the mystery pool (I guess I can stop calling it that, now that it’s no longer a mystery).
flyminion: (Shine)
North Fork American River, CAToday, my friend Cade and I kicked off our fourth annual California swimming hole marathon with an excursion to Yankee Jim’s Bridge on the North Fork American River, and we also checked out Shirttail Creek Falls on a side stream about a mile upstream from the bridge.

Lining up this year’s trip proved to be challenging because Murphy’s Law was attacking from all angles. We normally hit up California swimming holes in late July or August because many of the rivers are fed by snowmelt, and they don’t become (relatively) warm and hospitable until later in the summer. However, California had record low snowfall this past winter, and everything is drying up at a greatly accelerated rate due to the drought. I checked the water levels for the rivers we had visited in the past, and the levels this June were already below where they usually are in late summer. I kept seeing on the national news that lakes were so low that the water levels had dropped below the ends of the boat ramps. I knew we needed to get a move-on if we wanted to stay ahead of the drought (and the inevitable accompanying wildfires), so we scheduled a seven-day trip from July 5-11. However, I got hit with a job interview request for that week, and they were unable to be flexible with the dates. Cade already had some work projects on the back end of those dates and was only able to push the dates back by a day, so we ended up having to shave two days off the trip. I had originally planned to take us to Yosemite for the first couple of days, and then move up to gold country (i.e., the area of the Sierras just north and east of Sacramento) to spend more time exploring the South Yuba and North Fork American Rivers. However, after cutting the trip down to five days, we decided to blow off Yosemite yet again and spend the entire time in gold country. If these setbacks weren’t enough, we then found out that the area would be under an excessive heat warning with temperatures in the 100’s (not including the heat index) for pretty much the entire duration of our trip. That was going to make the excursions with long hikes potentially dangerous, but we thought that this in conjunction with the drought might have the silver lining of making some of the colder swimming holes (e.g., Emerald Pools, Royal Gorge) a little warmer this time.

Yankee Jim’s didn’t strike me as a standout swimming hole, but I wanted to go there for two reasons. First and foremost, it was featured on a Rescue 911 episode (aptly titled “American River”, which you can watch here), and I heard they were possibly going to tear down the bridge soon to put in a new one, so I wanted to see it while it was still there. Second, we hadn’t checked out any spots on the North Fork American River other than Royal Gorge (which was awesome, but the water was way too cold), so checking out more swimming holes on the North Fork American was my main objective for this trip. I had come up with a few potential spots to check out, but most of them require a fair amount of effort to get to, so I figured Yankee Jim’s might be a good starting point since it’s right off the road. It would also give us a chance to test the water temperature to see if arduous hikes to more remote spots further upstream would be worth it in the coming days. Yankee Jim’s had apparently become Instagram-famous and blown up with tourists last year during covid, causing a 300-car traffic jam on the small one-lane dirt road that leads to it, so I made it a point to schedule this excursion for a weekday.

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

In summary, Yankee Jim’s was nothing spectacular (for California), but it was a decent swimming hole with some jumps and a comfortable water temperature (with the caveat that this is an unusually low flow year). I can now say I’ve crossed it off my Rescue 911 bucket list. I’m not sure why it has gotten so blown up with tourists, though. I doubt many of them are viewers of Rescue 911. Probably from influencers on Instagram going down there and taking selfies, but it seems like a pretty ordinary California swimming hole, so I’m not sure why this particular spot is Instagram famous. Maybe just because it’s so close to the road? Shirttail Creek Falls was okay. It's not something I would make a special trip for on its own merit, but it makes a nice bonus if you’re already doing an excursion in the area.
flyminion: (Shine)
Boulder swimming hole in Guest River Gorge, VAToday, I decided to take a bike ride on the Guest River Gorge trail near Dungannon, Virginia. The weather continued to be cool and cloudy for the past couple of days, but it looked like this afternoon might be sunny and in the upper 70’s (still not quite ideal for swimming holes, but after the rest of this week, I’ll take it). I didn’t have big swimming hole expectations for today, anyway. I was really just curious to ride the trail and see what was there. It first caught my attention in 2012 when I drove past a sign for it on the way to nearby Little Stony Falls. In 2013, curiosity got the better of me, so I stopped by the gorge on the way back from Little Stony with one of my friends. It was a rails-to-trail bike trail like the Virginia Creeper Trail (which is where we usually went bike riding when I was growing up). We walked the first half-mile or so and went through a tunnel, across a trestle, and found a legit swimming hole with a large sandy beach just downstream of the trestle. The water looked gross and sudsy, though, so the Guest River was never high on my to-do list for swimming hole explorations. Therefore, it seemed like a good option for a day like today, where I didn’t have high expectations and just wanted to get out and do something. I decided I would probably just bike-ride and not get in the river unless I found an exceptionally awesome swimming hole.

The entire trail is 5.5 miles one way, so when you reach the end, you have to turn around and backtrack. The trail follows the river downstream on the way in, so the return ride is uphill. I had marked ten points of interest on Google Earth, so my plan was to check them out on the way down, and then swim in the best one (if any were worthy of swimming in) on the way back up. POIs 1 and 7 were the only ones I definitely wanted to check out, and the others I would scramble down to if it wasn’t too much trouble.

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

In summary, the Guest River Gorge Trail is a nice bike ride that offers several swimming holes, but the water quality of the river doesn’t look very appealing, and there was a lot of trash by the river bank. The only swimming hole I found possibly tempting enough to overlook the water quality was the one with the large boulders. As far as biking goes, though, I think this trail would be more enjoyable when the leaves are off the trees. There were towering cliffs above the trail for much of the ride, but I hardly noticed them because of the foliage. I also would have been able to get better views of the river if not for the leaves. After having seen how the Google Earth imagery translates to ground-level views, I’m thinking the area from the boulder swimming hole to POI 4 might have actually been the most geologically interesting from a swimming hole standpoint. Perhaps I’ll return in the winter or early spring to get a better view of what I missed on today’s ride.
flyminion: (Shine)
Waterfall on the Thompson RiverToday, I kayaked up Lake Jocassee to explore some more swimming holes on the Thompson River. I was sort of intent on reaching a swimming hole by unconventional means, and my first idea was to bike (well, partway) to Wintergreen Falls on the Toxaway River, but renting a bike seemed like too much trouble, so I decided kayaking might be fun. Plus, my lower body got a workout yesterday, so I figured I would give my upper body a workout today. Yesterday’s hike at the upper Thompson River had nice waterfalls and a couple of swimming holes, but none that were really primo (plus the air and water were both too chilly for a swim to be pleasant). I was hoping the lower section of the river might be an improvement on both counts, since it looks less shaded on Google Earth and is at a lower elevation. I had noted a couple of significant-looking sliding waterfalls with pools on Google Earth, and it looked like the river had continuous cascades and pools from the lower slide down to where the river flows into the lake. When researching Lake Jocassee, I had also come across Wrights Creek Falls, one of several waterfalls that spill directly into the lake (that was actually how I got the idea to go kayaking in the first place; I didn’t actually decide to do the lower Thompson River until after finding out it fed into the lake near Wrights Creek Falls).

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

In summary, I found the lower stretch of the Thompson River to be a little more swimming-hole-licious than Big Falls and the other upstream waterfalls. There were at least three legit swimming holes and one potentially slide-able sliding waterfall. I would say the best swimming hole would be the big one with the log over the cascade that spills into it. I didn’t check the depth there, but it was the largest swimming hole and seemed to have the most potential for vertical tomfoolery. The water was also slightly warmer less frigid here than the upper section, although if you want warmer water, then you might as well just swim and cliff jump in Lake Jocassee, which was about 12 degrees warmer than the Thompson River today. That said, this lake is on my “would come back to” list. The weather was still a little cool for a swim to be totally refreshing, but the lake would be great on a hot sunny day. It has clear blue water and a lot of nice coves to explore. I probably wouldn’t rent a kayak and try to redo an excursion like the one I did today. Having to return the boat at a certain time made things too rushed, and I didn’t have much time to just relax and enjoy being out on the water. It would have been nice to have an extra hour or so. My upper body is sore and stiff from aggressive paddling, my legs and shoulders are sunburnt, and the paddle blisters on my hands are epic. I’m looking forward to a hot bath in the jaccuzi tub and some aloe vera when I get to my parents’ house in Virginia tomorrow. I am now ready to collapse from exhaustion.
flyminion: (Waterfall)
Big FallsI’ve noticed over the past few years that there’s always a non-rainy window in the North Carolina mountains around the first of June. The Farmer’s Almanac suggested the whole week was going to be dry, so I decided to capitalize on it. As time grew nearer, it looked like only Monday and Tuesday were going to have nice weather, so I decided I would stay in Brevard for a couple of days and then spend the rest of the week chilling at my parents’ house in Virginia.

Since the western NC rivers are not rain-swollen right now, I decided it would be a good time to explore one of what I am dubbing the Jocassee Four (the four rivers that drain into Lake Jocassee: the Toxaway, Horsepasture, Thompson, and Whitewater Rivers). Since I would be soloing today’s hike, I decided on the Thompson River, which offers a couple of swimming holes and several waterfalls. The main attraction is Big Falls (which for some reason I always think of as “Thompson Falls”, although I think that is also a recognized name for it). It first got on my radar in 2015 or 2016 when I saw it while perusing Google Earth and thought it looked enormous, but then I found actual photos of it and didn’t think it looked that interesting. However, several North Carolina waterfall connoisseurs including Kevin Adams speak highly of it and say photos don’t do justice to the size. Even so, it still didn't pique my interest until I found out that the long slide at the base ends in a deep pool. In addition to that, the Thompson River has several other waterfalls on the way to Big Falls (Simon Falls, Rich Falls, Standing Stone Falls), with Rich Falls featuring a legit-looking swimming hole. Multiple sources including the third edition of Kevin Adams’ North Carolina Waterfalls book talk about how the hike to Big Falls is a difficult 3.6 miles one way, and that it’s so remote you’ll be spending the night there if you get hurt. I was intimidated by this at first, but it occurred to me that I’ve done worse things over the past few years (there’s no way it could be worse than Curtain Falls), so I figured I’ve got this. Kevin Adams says it’s actually not that hardcore compared to bushwhacks and creek walks, but warns that you will get a workout. My plan was to hike all the way to Big Falls, and hit Rich Falls on the way back. I had no intention of seeing the other waterfalls, since they didn’t look to have good swimming holes, but I figured I might check them out if I had the time and energy.

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

In summary, I hesitate to pass judgment about the quality of the Thompson River's swimming holes since today was not a very ideal day for swimming. It was overcast and in the 60’s, and the water was in the upper 50s. I’m not sure if the water was so cold because it’s early in the year, or if it’s always that cold since the river is mostly shaded when it isn’t plunging over waterfalls. As for the hike, this was far from the most difficult hike I’ve ever been on. Most of the hike is on a fairly easy logging road. The only sketchy parts are the side trails (or perhaps I should say "slide" trails) down to the waterfalls. But Kevin Adams is right: you will get a workout. As for the swimming holes, the one at Big Falls does have a potential jump and is backed by one of the larger waterfalls of the region, so I wouldn’t rule out returning to it with company on a nicer day. Big Falls itself didn’t knock my socks off, but I may be a tough crowd after marathoning California swimming holes and Cumberland Plateau plunge waterfalls over the past few years. While not as high as Big Falls, Rich Falls does have a slightly larger swimming hole. I’m still bummed that Simon Falls didn’t have a larger plunge pool, because what an awesome slide it would be if the landing weren’t a doozy. So yeah, the Thompson River makes some decent offerings in terms of swimming holes, but today wasn’t very enjoyable for me (mostly due to the weather). I’m actually planning on checking out more of the Thompson River tomorrow near where it flows into Lake Jocassee. Hopefully the lower elevation there will mean slightly warmer temperatures.
flyminion: (Turtle)
IMG_7960.jpegToday, I went to Middle Creek near Mount Mitchell. I was hoping to do something bigger and bolder, like one of the four major rivers (i.e., the Whitewater, Thompson, Horsepasture, and Toxaway Rivers) that drain into Lake Jocassee, which all have lots of waterfalls and swimming holes. I don’t think any of those have their own gages, but I looked at the state map to get a general idea of how high the rivers were in the southwestern part of the state. Green and especially orange dots (normal and low flow, respectively) are good, but light and dark blue dots mean the rivers are high, and southwest NC was a swath of blue, which meant I would need a smaller waterway for safe swimming today.

river level map 4sept20.jpgI admittedly hadn’t done my homework on the area of the state west of Boone, as I hadn’t expected to have to make do with North Carolina this year, so I didn’t know of many swimming holes on smaller streams that I hadn’t already been to. Earlier this week, I noticed that Kevin Adams had posted some waterfalls on his website that hadn’t made the third edition of his North Carolina Waterfalls book, and Middle Creek caught my attention. It had a number of waterfalls, a couple of which looked like they had deep pools at the bottom. The waterfalls of interest (in order from downstream to upstream) were Lower Middle Creek Falls, Squawroot Falls, and Middle Creek Falls. The latter didn’t appear to have a very big plunge pool, but it was so close to the other two that it looked worth checking out. There are several more waterfalls beyond Middle Creek Falls, but there is no trail to them, and they didn’t appear to have swimming holes, so I figured they probably wouldn’t be worth the effort. I had also scanned Google Earth and marked five points of interest (POIs) downstream of the main waterfalls. Well, I had actually marked six, but the sixth one ended up just being part of Lower Middle Creek Falls.

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

In summary, I didn’t see anything remarkable on Middle Creek, but Lower Middle Creek Falls had a legit swimming hole that, while unremarkable, definitely had secret spot appeal. I doubt many people are going to make the effort to bushwhack to it, let alone hike that far on the narrow path. Squawroot Falls also had a swimming hole, but the pool wasn’t very big. Middle Creek Falls was probably the most impressive waterfall of the day; it looked kind of like Upper Catawba Falls, but with less water going over it. POIs 1-4 weren’t terribly interesting, but at least my curiosity is satisfied. The rocks at Middle Creek were pretty slippery today, making this a somewhat treacherous outing, especially alone (I didn’t see anyone all day). I was kind of over the bushwhacking and ‘paths of least resistance’ by the end of the day, although I think if I had blown off the POIs and just went to the three named waterfalls, I might not have gotten quite as fed up with it.
flyminion: (Shine)
Second Falls - Graveyard Fields, NCI 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.
flyminion: (Waterfall)
Triple FallsToday, I went to DuPont State Recreational Forest. My original plan had been to check out the waterfalls and swimming holes of Graveyard Fields on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but the forecast had changed to a 60% chance of rain today (which in the mountains is usually a 100% chance). I decided DuPont would be a more rain-friendly excursion, since most of the “trails” there are gravel roads, and DuPont’s main allure is waterfall viewing rather than swimming. DuPont is immensely popular, which is why I saved it for a weekday. It features three popular waterfalls (Hooker Falls, Triple Falls, and High Falls) over about a mile stretch of the Little River, with Hooker Falls featuring a swimming hole. A fourth waterfall, Bridal Veil Falls, is about 1.5 miles upstream from High Falls. Two additional waterfalls, Grassy Creek Falls and Wintergreen Falls, are located on Grassy Creek, a tributary to the Little River. My main objective for the day was to see the four Little River waterfalls and Grassy Creek Falls. Wintergreen Falls didn’t look especially enticing, since it is small and doesn’t appear to have a swimming hole, but I figured I might check it out if I needed to kill time after seeing the others (spoiler alert: I didn't).

I headed out a little after 10 AM, and it took me about an hour to get there from Asheville. The weather in Asheville had been partly cloudy, but it was gray and overcast when I arrived at DuPont. I was hoping the fact that it was a gray weekday morning with rain in the forecast would deter the crowds, but no such luck. There was a parade of cars circling the Hooker Falls parking lot waiting for a space to clear up. After circling once, I thought I would try what appeared to be an overflow lot that I had passed coming in about a quarter mile up the road, but I decided to circle one more time and managed to nab a spot as someone was leaving. My plan had been to hike to Hooker and Triple Falls from here, and then go to the High Falls parking lot for the rest of the hikes. However, I was now afraid to relinquish my parking spot for fear that I would have to waste more time trolling the High Falls lot for a space, so I decided I would just hike to the other falls from here. Overall the distance would be about the same; I just wouldn’t be able to return to my car to pick stuff up and drop stuff off as needed between waterfalls.

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

In summary, DuPont State Forest doesn’t have it going on from a swimming hole standpoint, but it does have some impressive waterfalls and nice trails for mountain biking and horseback riding. So yeah, it’s mostly a waterfall viewing destination with a couple of opportunities for swimming. Hooker Falls is not what I would call a primo swimming hole, since it doesn’t have any extras (e.g., jumps, rope swing), and the current is somewhat concerning, but it will do for simply taking a dip. I also took a refreshing dip in Lake Julia, but I don't really consider lakes to be swimming holes. The crowds around the three main waterfalls were annoying, but the crowds thinned out once I got to the trails upstream of High Falls. From a waterfall viewing perspective, I would say the highlights were High Falls and Triple Falls. Bridal Veil was the one I was most looking forward to seeing, but I would rank it #3 of the ones I saw today. Grassy Creek had clean, clear water and looked like it had potential for a nice swimming hole, but I didn’t devote much time to exploring it since I mainly focused on the Little River waterfalls. Grassy Creek also features Wintergreen Falls, which I didn’t get to today, and one or two more cascades that the park doesn’t advertise (judging by Google Earth). I doubt I would return to DuPont unless I were vacationing with friends or family who wanted to go there, but if I did go back, I would probably make it a point to check out Wintergreen Falls and the other Grassy Creek cascades.
flyminion: (Shine)
IMG_7480a.JPGToday I went to Wolf Creek Falls in Tuckasegee, North Carolina. Since the forecast called for nice weather this weekend and into Monday, I decided to come to Asheville for a couple of days to start exploring a new batch of swimming holes after running out of new places to check out near Boone, and since I probably won’t be doing a California swimming hole marathon this year. Wolf Creek Falls was at the top of my list of things to check out in the area west of Asheville. Wolf Creek Falls is the official name according to the third edition of Kevin Adams’ North Carolina Waterfalls book, although most people refer to it by a different name. I’m going to be difficult and not use the common name (even though I like that name better) because Wolf Creek Falls won’t come up on Google Maps when you search for it (heh heh). I first heard of this swimming hole from Kevin Adams’ book in 2016 and marked it with a purple pin in Google Earth (my mapping scheme is yellow pins for places I might check out if in the area but wouldn’t make a special trip for; purple pins are places that pique my interest enough to make a special trip; and blue pins are “I WANT TO GO TO THERE”). As much as I hate swimming holes blowing up because of social media, a few recent photos and videos of Wolf Creek Falls prompted me to elevate it to blue pin status, so it was my main motivation for planning this trip. I was kind of anxious about it because the swimming hole features two jumps, one on each side of the waterfall chasm, and the one I had my eye on looked kind of sketchy because you have to use a rope to climb up a rock face to get to the ledge. If I managed to do that and decided I didn’t want to jump once up there, well, too bad. It looked about 20 feet high in pictures, which I’ve done before, but it also looked like the ledge might not have a stable platform from which to jump, which can be a deal breaker for me at that height. The other jump was 40-50 feet high, so I wasn’t even considering doing that one. There was only one way to find out if I would do the lower jump, though.

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

In summary, Wolf Creek Falls is a top-shelf swimming hole and my new favorite for North Carolina. It’s unfortunately a well-known party spot that attracts visitors from all over (including me, admittedly), but I guess that’s to be expected. It’s one of those places you just want to tell your friends about. I mean, you’ve got a large, deep pool of blue water, comfortable water temperature, towering cliffs, striking geology, good jumps, and a big waterfall. Plus there’s a nice little bonus pool at the top of the falls for a warm-up/cool-down swim. Sounds like a winner to me.

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