Agile Trekker: Paradise/Wolf Creek Falls attempt

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
3/1/2023	1.3 miles	1 hour 28 minutes	226'	0.9 mph	111.4

Parking:

See book

Map:

Gaigps

Directions:

See Kevin Adams North Carolina Waterfalls

We had 2 waterfall hikes planned before our herding lesson. I decided we should tackle the harder one first. I've read the distance is 0.4 miles or 0.8 miles, probably depending on your route. The book rates the difficulty of this hike as 10 out of 10. It says it's one of the 2 hardest waterfall hikes in NC.

There is one route that crosses Duke Energy property. The plus side of the route is that it's probably easier to find. The downside of the route is that it goes across Duke's property and there is a wide river crossing. Sometimes Duke releases water from their dam, making the river crossing dangerous. I've also heard there is a rope to get down to the falls. Most people take this route. Apparently, it doesn't have a good view of the falls.

Then there is the route we took. The pro's - it doesn't cross Duke property and is supposed to have a better view of the falls. The con's - omg. Well despite reading the book and studying the map, we kept going the wrong way. There are 3 trails going down from the parking lot. First, we took the left one. Nope. That seemed to go down to the river crossing route. Then we took the middle one which really wasn't a trail and ended up butt scootching down. Turns out there is another easier trail down on the right side of the parking lot. So, we followed a reasonably nice trail for a while, and then had to cut off it.

That's when the bushwhacking begins. None of this is marked on Gaia. Gaia just has the river and the waterfall marked. No trail. We tried various routes to cut over to the waterfall. It didn't seem like we ever got it right. Some were trails that were too easy but ending up going away from the falls. Then we had routes that were too hard. I was concerned about breaking my other ankle....so we climbed back up to the ridgeline. We bushwhacked along the ridgeline through mountain laurel and then tried another route down. It was so steep. Basically, you needed to make sure you had something to hold on to, or you'd keep sliding. That's when I saw a cliff drop off. Um nope. I ran out of things to hold onto, and I didn't want to slide off the cliff if I couldn't stop. Argh. I made the decision to turn around. Glen was up for trying the river crossing route, but at that point I'd had it. Enough hiking for the day. We did see the top of the falls from the distance. Does that count?

So, we headed to Brevard for lunch and relaxing. We found a restaurant called Sully's Steamers that has bagel sandwiches. Perfect. Then stopped by to Bracken Mountain Bakery for chai and a loaf of their addictive raising bread. It's amazing. I did some sketching and relaxing, and then off to herding. Krumm still wasn't very confident, but he improved compared to his last lesson.