Secret Falls, Highlands

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
2/18/2023	3 miles	1 hour 43 minutes	351'	2.2 mph	88.5

Parking: 

• Big Creek Road, Highlands

Map:

• Gaia Gps

Directions:

• See North Carolina Waterfalls by Kevin Adams

Carolina Mountain Club Challenges:

• 100 Waterfalls Challenge, Secret Falls

I'm still doing short hikes. We planned 4 waterfall hikes in Highlands, NC, which would total 3 miles. The first hike was going to be Dry Falls. Highlands has very narrow twisty roads. We drove a long way on one to get to Dry Falls. And then found the parking lot was full. Better to try this again on a weekday. We skipped it and continued on. 

The next stop was Secret Falls. There is a road closure in the winter, so the book gives instructions on the winter route. We took Horse Cove Road (beautiful) and eventually ended up on a gravel road. One of those 1 lane gravel roads where you really hope no one comes from the opposite direction. We got lucky. The book mentions that due to the winter road closure, you need to walk an extra .25 miles to the trailhead. The road was closed even before that. A bridge was being re-built, so we parked right before the bridge. 4 of us squeezed our cars in there. There isn't a lot of space. The walk to the waterfall was easy, except for the very end. We did have a couple of stream crossings, and I did end up wading through one. The trail was eroded at the end. There are signs of trail maintenance - new steps going in, but a lot of work still needs to be done. We let Krumm wade at the base of the waterfall. No swimming for him though. Gaia was useful for finding where to go. We did end up seeing people who must have parked on the other side of the road closure (closer to the town center). We saw more people than expected on the trail given how little parking there was (at least where we parked).

We parked here.

This waterfall was hard to photograph given the location of the sun.