WINDY, FINALLY

I’ve been obsessed with Windy Falls on the Horsepasture River for almost 20 years. It’s big, it’s powerful, and for any sort of normal person, it’s virtually inaccessible. On the topo map it is intriguing. In person, terrifying. In fact, after one scare at the brink of the falls, I stayed away for several years. Later, access to the area became difficult due to a lack of parking. Those factors, combined with the fact that it always seemed to rain when we planned a trip there, kept me short of my goal for all of those years.

Windy Falls is hard to define. In the broadest sense, it is a 700’ series of drops over less than a ¼ of a mile. Series of drops is the key term, though. Windy Falls isn’t one waterfall, it’s a whole bunch of them. It starts with a pair of small drops, followed by a long run of slides and cascades. Then the mighty Horsepasture squeezes under a house-sized boulder, dashes through a narrow chute, and launches itself off a 100’ precipice. And that’s just the beginning of the good stuff.

Below the big drop are more slides and cascades, another small drop, and an island that splits the river in two. At the bottom of the island are a pair of waterfalls, one on each channel. They lead to the final big waterfall – Roostertail. There’s one more notable drop a short distance downstream, before the river finally mellows out over the final mile to Lake Jocassee.

12 years ago my wife and I hiked from Auger Hole Road upstream to Roostertail and the island. We tried to continue, but found ourselves in the middle of a raging river upstream from a 100’ waterfall. Sheer cliffs surrounded us. We retreated.

I’ve made numerous attempts at reaching the base of the main, biggest drop from above. A couple of hikes ended at the brink of that drop. It’s an exceptionally dangerous place, where one wrong step means death. Yet, it is compelling. The scenery is fantastic, and the sense of adventure is unparalled. Once, while eating lunch on that lofty perch, we saw a bear on the rocks in the plunge pool far below. He had no idea that we were there.

One of those early attempts was nearly successful. My friend Bob found a possible route down from the cliffs, through a wet gully choked with weeds and briars and blocked by deadfall. A steep drop made us hesitate, but we found a way down. From there, boulder hopping led to “The Balcony” – a boulder 35’ above the plunge pool. From here, the view of the falls is good, but not optimal, and there is no apparent route down. That trip occurred in March, and the river was raging. It was so loud that Bob and I had to shout at each other to communicate. Conditions were intimidating, so we retreated.

Last October we returned, and once again reached The Balcony. Once again, we couldn’t find a route down.

A few weeks ago Team Waterfall had a memorable camping trip at the top of Whitewater Falls. Darrin, Spencer, Stephanie, Dillon, and I had a great time that evening around the campfire. We bonded in a way that is impossible to explain. We chatted until well after midnight, and one of the topics of conversation was Windy Falls. Spencer has also been researching Windy Falls for years. Both of us had ideas for getting to the base of the big drop. The next day Jack joined our group for a memorable hike to Big Falls on the Thompson River. Clearly, if a successful trip to the base of the main drop of Windy Falls was possible, this was the group to do it.

Planning the trip was challenging. I felt like all six of us needed to be there. To me, that just felt right, and anything less wouldn’t do. The problem was that everybody was on different schedules. There were work obligations, travel complications, and family commitments. We eventually found a day that might work for everyone. Even that was difficult though, because Spencer and Stephanie had major time constraints. By Saturday afternoon, it looked like they wouldn’t be able to make it. Spencer and I eventually figured out a way to make it work, and Spencer and Stephanie showed a tremendous amount of dedication to make it happen. Ultimately they drove up late on Saturday night, arriving well after midnight, and finally reaching their campsite upstream from Windy Falls around 2am.

All of that planning that Spencer and I did for Windy Falls also sowed the seeds for another trip. But that is a story for another time.

Jack, Bob, and Darrin camped that night farther upstream on the Horsepasture, but they didn’t know that Spencer and Stephanie were in the same area. They arrived early Saturday afternoon for hiking, swimming, and drinking. Bob fell in the river. Jack fell in the creek. Apparently a good time was had by all.

Earlier in the week there was an 80% chance of rain all weekend. Somehow that failed to materialize, even though Jack camped Saturday night. The Jack camping rain jinx was defeated! It did sprinkle a little bit on Sunday morning, but it wasn’t enough to dampen the rocks.

Dillon and I arrived on Sunday morning ready to roll. We met Jack in the parking area, and noted that Stephanie’s car was there. A good sign! I later found out that they arrived after midnight, after the park gate officially closes. By some luck, it had still been open. Then, when they reached the parking area, they claimed the final camping permit for the Horsepasture River.

We were supposed to meet at 9, but there was no sign of Darrin or Bob. At 9:45 I wrote out some directions and left them on Darrin’s truck. We headed down the trail and ran into them a minute later. Bob was hungover and wasn’t up for the hike, but Darrin was ready to go. He raced back to his truck to unload his pack, promising to catch up.

We followed the established route to the Horsepasture River just upstream from Windy Falls. We found Spencer and Stephanie’s campsite there, but they had already departed. I was eager to catch up, so we headed straight for the base. On the way down I checked the brink of the falls to make sure they weren’t there. There was no sign of them, so we started down the route I’d followed twice before to reach The Balcony.

After a short distance I walked through a monster spiderweb. That was puzzling. If Spencer and Stephanie were ahead of us, why was that spiderweb still there?

Some gnarly bushwhacking and scrambling led to a steep drop. I tied off my rope to ease our descent. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it would’ve been better to save it for later.

The steep descent led us to an amphitheater surrounded by cliffs on 3 sides. Mountain Wizard called it the Snake Den. I didn’t see any snakes, but there was plenty of poison ivy. Some scrambling through a boulder field led us to a massive rock above The Balcony. There is a cave below here that you can camp in, but we scrambled up. From there we had a great view of the waterfall, the plunge pool, and Spencer and Stephanie relaxing below. I emitted a victory bellow. Team Waterfall scores! Spencer and Stephanie had found their way down, and we would be there momentarily.

We scrambled down to The Balcony and worked our way over to the Keyhole. Mountain Wizard describes the Keyhole in his account, and from it I was able to decipher its’ location. From above, descending the Keyhole looks like a terrible idea. I had assumed that Spencer would tie off a rope there, but there was none to be found. Later I discovered that they had descended by a different, more difficult route.

Dillon, the Key Master, led the way. He chimney down into the slot, before downclimbing the final 20’. Darrin and Jack followed. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the route, but there was no way I was stopping on The Balcony again. Instead of chimneying, I entered the slot farther up and squeezed through a tight passage between boulders. After some scrambling and downclimbing, I reached the final 10’ sheer drop. This part was tricky. I stepped down onto a pair of 2x4’s somebody had pounded into cracks in the rocks. They were wobbly, but they held. The problem was that I couldn’t see where to go from there. Darrin gave me a spot, and helped me down the rest of the way.

From there, we descended a sloping rock to the river and the bottom of the waterfall, before turning back into the mouth of a cave. We passed through an impressive fissure that would be the highlight of most any other hike. The cave features lots of fallen rock and even a minor waterfall of its own. We emerged from its mouth to wade a waist deep pool. On the far side we met Spencer and Stephanie at the very bottom of the main drop of Windy Falls. Success!

They had been there about an hour. They had taken a more direct route, using two ropes in the process, descending the cliffs a little bit closer to the brink of the falls.

The next couple of hours were spent celebrating. Just downstream we found a sliding cascade. Below was an impressive rock shelf 15’ above a deep channel. Most of us took turns jumping from that perch into the icy waters. When I took the plunge, I hit the water and kept sinking. For a moment I wasn’t sure if I’d ever re-surface. Once I did, I fought my way across the powerful current to the far side. There, I scrambled barefoot up onto a giant flat-topped rock. From that spot I had a great view downstream. Just below me was the island Christy and I had hiked to 12 years earlier. After all of these years, I’d finally seen the entire gorge.

More swimming and sunning followed. Darrin actually crossed the river twice with his camera to get photos from different vantage points. The first time he swam while holding his camera above the water. The second time he had Spencer toss his camera across the river to him. That may have been the most daring part of the adventure.

Eventually Spencer and Stephanie had to leave. It was a bittersweet moment, but that is always true when you leave a magical place. The rest of us hung back, which created more photo opportunities. We all got photos of them on The Balcony, and later, at the brink of the falls. They got photos of us looking down from above. The final collaboration of photographs is incredible.

We lounged around a bit longer before heading back up. The climb up The Keyhole was challenging. Getting up onto the 2x4’s was easy enough, but the next part is tricky. The route goes through a notch between two boulders. The closer one juts out enough that you have to lean back to keep from banging your head on it. Leaning back made it almost impossible for me to get a good handhold on the other boulder. I made one attempt with Darrin spotting me and fell. Fortunately Darrin half caught me, and I landed well. This would not be a good place for even a minor injury.

We came up with a different plan. Darrin climbed up and then gave me a hand. That worked, but if I do this again there will be a rope in place here! That would make it much easier.

The rest of the climb is easier, though Jack nearly got stuck squeezing through the narrow slot between the rocks just before the exit.

The rest of the hike out was straight forward. We took a side trip out to the brink of the falls since the rocks were dry. We enjoyed the views of the plunge pool below us and the gorge farther downstream, with the cliffs of Narrow Rock Ridge towering overhead. We also got a close up view of the house-sized boulder that the river runs under, and the raging water slide leading to the very brink.

I overcame my fear of the “Crack of Doom” and hopped across it to reach the very brink of the falls. In my memory, the Crack of Doom was a narrow vertical fissure in the cliffs dropping all the way to the very center of the Earth. I’d had a bad experience there back in the 90’s while leading a large group on a hike for the Sierra Club. We had all hopped across the chasm on the way down to get to the brink. Due to the slope of the rock, you can’t actually see down into the crack from above. On the way back up I waited for everyone else to leave. The last guy jumped across but landed flat footed on the steep, smooth rock. He began sliding backwards, into the abyss. Without thinking, or even looking, I jumped across and gave him a shove. That push got him moving in the correct direction, but it caused me to start sliding backwards. There wasn’t anybody behind me to help. In a panic, I threw myself forward onto the rock and dug in with my fingers and toes. Somehow I stopped my slide, and was able to slowly crawl away from danger. Once I got on my feet I hurried to catch up with the rest of the group. Somehow they had failed to notice that I had been in mortal danger.

I avoided the Crack of Doom on all subsequent trips. It turns out that I had never actually looked down into it. My imagination was more than happy to fill in the blanks though.

This time though, I faced my fears. I gazed down into the chasm, which ends after about 6’, where the rocks close in. The Crack of Doom? More like the Crack of Hmmm. Unfortunately I’ve told many people the story of how I nearly died there once. How embarrassing! It’s lucky that I didn’t fall down in there – I might’ve twisted an ankle or something.

Here are the best excuses / BS stories I can think of to save face here:

1) My memory sucks, and I’ve been to a lot of waterfalls. That near-death experience actually happened at a different waterfall. Yeah, that’s it….

2) A few years ago an earthquake hit the NC mountains. That earthquake shifted the rocks and caused the fissure to close.

3) Dirt, rocks, and other debris from the cliffs above have gradually filled in the crack over the last 17 years.

We returned to Spencer and Stephanie’s campsite and took some time to explore the two smaller waterfalls upstream. We poked around in some boulder caves and tunnels, and took a swim in the pool below the cascade adjacent to the campsite (we’re calling it Campsite Cascade). On the hike out we took some time to appreciate the little things, like the mountain laurel blooming and a nice patch of pink lady slippers. We even considered adding in a side trip to Sidepocket Falls, but it was getting late and we decided to quit while we were ahead.

This hike was a tremendous achievement, even by the normal lofty standards of Team Waterfall. Thanks again to Darrin, Jack, Spencer, Stephanie, and Dillon for being a part of it!

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