Last Saturday Christy,
Andy and I, along with Myron and Dorcas, two of
Andy's friends hiked in an area near Linville Gorge.
Kistler Highway runs along Linville Gorge's west rim,
and just west of that road is Paddy Creek, and it's two tributaries: the
Black and Yellow Forks of Paddy Creek.
2 years ago, Andy and I
had hiked to the Yellow Fork and found one of the most gorgeously beautiful
waterfalls either of us had ever seen. We both have talked about that
waterfall a number of times since, saying we definitely wanted to return.
So Saturday's hike
finally got us back to that gorgeous creek.
Andy had also heard
about a waterfall on the Black Fork of Paddy Creek, and so the day incorporated
two hikes.
The morning began with
the hike to Black Fork.
ANDY HAS A BUILT IN GPS!!
Andy's info on this
first waterfall was that it was on "a blue blazed trail off Dobson
Road." We parked at the end of Dobson Road, hiked on down beyond
the gate, and soon saw a trail heading south off the ridge. We followed
it a short ways, and soon realized this was not the trail we wanted. It
was pretty much heading STRAIGHT down. However, Andy's super
accurate internal GPS clicked in and he thought this trail might head to the
waterfall on the Yellow Fork, where we would be in the afternoon. A
glance at my GPS track shows Andy was spot on:
http://www.brendajwiley.com/gps/sunday_hike.html
On the upper, red track,
note the short section that heads SE away from Dobson road. At least the
section we hiked shows it heading DIRECTLY to the waterfall on the Yellow fork
(shown at the lower end of the blue track).
Once we realized this
wasn't the trail we wanted, we backtracked back up to Dobson road, and soon
enough found the trail we were looking for.
A nicely graded trail
dropped us down 200 feet in elevation, bringing us to the top of some rocky
outcroppings, providing some great long range views to the south. A
little further along the trail, we dropped a little more elevation, coming out
at the base of a long ridge of pretty much vertical rock walls. A
pleasant trail followed all along the base of these walls, and after 0.3 mile,
we came to a very pretty, vertical waterfall. Low volume, but the entire
cliff face was gorgeous .... dark,
moss covered rock, moist and shaded, with a waterfall that pretty much had a
sheer vertical drop, and then some stair step cascades at the base, after which
the water flowed across a horizontal rocky section that crossed the trail, and
then continued further downhill.
PHOTOS ARE ....
....disappointing!!
My photos don't look
ANYTHING like what this gorgeous scene actually looked like. Sigh ...
I was unable to capture any of the "dark, moist, damp, mossy"
feel that this whole area had.
We ate lunch at this
spot, and then explored further down the trail, which continued its course
along the rock walls. We ran into a number of rock climbers in this
section. The trail soon petered out, and we returned to the waterfall
for one last look before heading back to Dobson Road. My GPS track shows
were were still some distance from Black Fork, so
this waterfall comes down an unnamed tributary that is not even on the map.
WATER FROM SOLID ROCK!
On our return trip back,
just before we started the climb back up to Dobson road, we explored along the
base of the section of rocky outcroppings that we had been at the top of in the
morning. THIS brought us to the coolest, most unique find of the day ...
as we were walking along these vertical rock walls, we came to one section
where there was a deep, tall, narrow crevice in the rock wall. And out of
one of the cracks along the rock face, about 6-8 feet up from the trail, water
was spurting out of the rock, and dribbling down to the ground, forming a small
pool at the base. Honestly ... it was the most unique, intriguing
scene!! I just sat there watching this water spurt out of solid rock!!
ONCE AGAIN ....
And let's play the
refrain again ... my photos of this don't look ANYTHING like what this sceen actually looked like. Sigh
....
I finally pulled myself
away from this neat spot, (Andy had gone ahead at this point, and the others
did not make this side trip, choosing to wait for us on the main trail).
BACK TO THE WORLD'S MOST GORGEOUS WATERFALL
Once back at the cars,
we headed the few miles back to the spot on Kistler
Hwy where we pick up the pseudo trail that leads to the waterfall on the Yellow
Fork of Paddy Creek.
This isn't an official
trail, but enough folks go here that the trail is pretty easy to follow the
whole way. However, there's lots of downed trees
to maneuver around ... a lot more than either Andy or I remembered from two
years ago. Additionally, except for the first 0.4 of a mile, this trail
goes STRAIGHT down the ridge to the creek. The last section before the
creek even has a ladder in place to get you down one section of vertical rock
face.
I don't know about Andy,
but as I was heading down to this waterfall, I was worried that I was
"over remembering" its beauty from two years ago. Memory tends
to inflate and exaggerate really neat spots, and I was worried that was
happening again with this waterfall.
Well, actually the
reverse happened!!
When I got down to the
water's edge, it was like I was seeing the waterfall for the first time.
It was actually even MORE beautiful than I'd remembered it. The massive
rock wall encircling the water's drop, with its numerous layers of vertical
slabs of rock, the creek curving down the the edge of
one of these slabs and forming a section of a vertical drop for the upper half
of the waterfall, and then landing on a base of layered rocks to form a
gorgeous cascade at the base, all of which then spreads out into a jaw droppingly gorgeous pool.
And if that's not cool
enough, at the far end of the pool, ALL the water flows through a small opening
that leads under a HUGE boulder, running underground a short ways, and emerges
on the other side of the boulder into yet another pool!
We spent an hour and a
half here ... photographing and swimming.
Well, Christy swam
anyway. I tried to, but the water was so cold I only got in as far as my
waist. Andy got in at the second swimming hole, doing a short swim
there.
We finally pulled ourselves
away from this spot, and made the tough trek back to the car. Nothing
like a climb of 700 feet in a little over a mile with completely cooled down,
cold leg muscles!!
Some additional thoughts
from me:
- The base of the Black
Fork Cliffs feature impressive moonshine still remains. There were
several barrels, and (I think) the remnants of the furnace.
- The far end of the
cliffs had a neat feature - an underground waterfall. Behind the rock
face was the distinct sound of rushing water. It wasn't visible (except
for a trickle of water at the base of the cliffs), but the auditory experience
was really cool.
- There was another
minor waterfall just before the amazing grotto with the water squirting out of
the rock. It wasn't much, but it was a nice little shower spraying down
the side of the cliff.
- The more I think about
it, the more I think that the actual Black Fork (that we didn't get to) may be
worth exploring.
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