Waterfalls and A Mountain

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

We all slept well last night with the windows open listening to the creek rush by. A little cooler this morning and suppose to be a lot cooler tomorrow – in the 50’s – after a cold front goes through today. Really great weather. There was a chance of rain today but we never saw it.

After breakfast Anne’s cousin Nancy offered to take us on a waterfall tour in the Nantahala National Forest. We always enjoy waterfalls so we were all far it. We left the campground continuing on east on 64 through Franklin.

From Franklin 64 turns into a Scenic Byway leading to Highlands. This section of 64 definitely qualifies to be labeled a scenic byway. It was an absolutely beautiful drive through the Cullasaja gorge. We had to make several stops for pictures. So very pretty. You know we love funny name places. We stopped at one water fall visible from the highway called Bust your Butt Falls. It looked like you could if you weren’t real careful. Next stop was at Dry Falls which was anything but dry. It was a short walk from the highway down some steps and a boardwalk. It’s called dry falls because you supposedly can walk behind the falls and stay dry. Not when the wind is blowing in the wrong direction. Next was Bridal Veil Falls, another falls right beside the highway but lighting was poor for pictures so we stopped back by on the way home and got some good pictures. We did a driving tour of Highlands. Really pretty little town with neat little stores and gorgeous landscaping. Glenn Falls was multi-layered and required a good deal of somewhat strenuous hiking, but worth the work.

We stopped at Whiteside Mountain and had a quick picnic lunch before starting the hike up the mountain trail. Fortunately we had Nancy for tour guide because here she told us we should take the strenuous way up, with lots of steps and roots and steep climb. The sign said to take the more gentle incline from old road bed up the mountain. Nancy definitely knew the best way because the “strenuous” route on the way down would have been really hard on the knees. It was about a four mile round trip.

We traveled on to Cashiers and took another wildly scenic, curvy road back to Highlands stopping at another waterfall or two on the way back. Driving that road also gave us a great view of Whiteside Mountain from below and made it obvious where it got it’s name. Wonderful day of waterfalls and scenic beauty. Thanks Nancy for being our tour guide.