April 19, 2016 - 2 waterfalls on Avery Creek, Pisgah Ntional Forest

It's actually May 5th right now and I'm so far behind on posts I thought about abandoning the blog all together. It's more to keep up with that I thought it would be. Instead of giving it up, I decided to just leave out some hikes and focus on the waterfall stuff I do. Cindy and I have been doing hikes in DuPont, along the Mountains to Sea Trail, and in other areas for the 3 books she is working on. If I ever get caught up, I'll try to add some of those hikes back in.

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April 19 - Online friend and fellow waterfall lover Jennifer Knepp recently posted some shots from the upper waterfall on Avery Creek in the Pisgah Ranger District that reminded me I have never seen that waterfall. I've known it was there, so I really don't have any excuse for not going. Today was supposed to be mostly overcast which is good for waterfall shooting, so I decided to head that way. Directions to the parking area and a trail description can be found on my site here - http://www.ncwaterfalls.com/avery_creek1.htm

There was only one other vehicle at the parking are when I arrived which is always a good thing. The hike to the more popular waterfall on Avery Creek is a fairly easy one and I had the waterfall to myself for the entire 2 hours I spent there. The overcast forecast turned out to be partly cloudy, so a lot of time was spent waiting for a cloud to cover the sun and just relaxing around the waterfall. This section of the forest hadn't greened up quite like I hoped, but that's alright. Water flow was good and this beats the hell out of being at work. Below are a couple of shots - look at the bottom of the page for the video.

Avery Creek Falls

Once I had shot all of the video and stills I wanted, I continued up the trail to look for the upper waterfall. I was using the directions from Kevin Adams' book which are pretty straight forward. He is right - it was easy to miss the side trail that goes down to the base of the falls from the main trail. If you do pass it like I did, the top of the waterfall is visible from the Avery Creek Trail and that's how I knew I had missed it. Not too many people go down here, but it was more obvious once I knew where to look. Even though there's a lot of clutter at the base of the falls, Upper Avery Creek Falls is still a very nice waterfall with a lot of character. I had this waterfall to myself also and spent about the same amount of time here shooting and soaking up the beauty. If you haven't been, you should add it to the list if you are in the area! Below are some stills, then the video.