August 11, 2016 - Twin Boulder Falls, Pisgah National Foresst

Since the creek levels were higher than normal, I decided to revisit a waterfall I hadn't been to since 2005. In 2003, Cathy, KT, Harry and I decided to explore an off trail section of Right Fork in the Pisgah. The Daniel Ridge Loop Trail passes by part of this creek, but we wanted to see what was up creek from where the Daniel Loop Trail leaves the creek. Since there's no trail, we decided to just wade and rock hop our way up as far as we could. Long story short, we found a lot of nice cascades, then an excellent 50-60' free falling waterfall. We passed through 2 huge boulders just before the waterfalls, so I named the falls Twin Boulder Falls. That's not an official name, but it didn't have a name and I thought it deserved one. There was no other info about it that I could find at the time. I never added this to my web site since it was off trail and I was hesitant about sending tourists into the danger zone.

When Kevin Adams was working on the 2005 edition of his North Carolina Waterfalls book, he contacted me and we exchanged info on waterfalls one of us had and the other one didn't. He didn't have Twin Boulder Falls, but was only using official names for his book, so he called it the waterfall on Right Fork. Fast forward to 2016 and the 3rd edition of Kevin's NC Waterfalls book. This time he decided to use unofficial names, so if you have either book you can look it up for specific directions.

In the current book, the description says that enough people have been visiting this waterfall that a crude path can be followed from the main trail all the way up. I decided to give this a try and skip walking the creek to save time. The hardest part of this was when I first left the trail in the 3rd switchback. I got down in the gully mentioned in the description, but missed picking up the new trail until I had already climbed over some fallen trees and gone down a steep bank. Once I found the trail, it was fairly easy to follow, but blocked by more fallen trees that I had to climb over before crossing the creek.

Once I made it across the creek, the trail was easy to follow for the most part - just like Kevin says in his book. I didn't realize it until I got back and looked at the GPS that I had gained 1280' in the 2.8 miles it took to get to the waterfall. I didn't bother to stop along the way to shoot the smaller cascades, but began shooting at the 2 boulders. The waterfall was looking good today and turned out to be a good choice for the day's activity. First the video, then the pictures.

the twin boulders

 

Twin Boulder Falls

On the way back I stopped at a smaller no name waterfall that's visible from part of the Daniel Ridge Loop Trail. It's maybe 10' high and pretty nice in the right conditions.