Log Hollow Falls

North Carolina Travelog #12
Pisgah National Forest - Thu, 21 Sep 2023. 3:30pm

After visiting Discovery Falls atop a steep spur trail off the main route of Log Hollow Road, we hiked back down and continued farther in along Log Hollow. At the next stream crossing there was another falls— this one not up a long, steep side trail but pretty much right there, visible from the main trail.



This is Lower Log Hollow Falls. It's less than 50 yards off the main trail.



While you can see it from the main trail, it looks way better from up close.

I made this close-up picture using the backcountry waterfalls photography technique I wrote about in my previous blog. It's really effective, and beats lugging my nice tripod around on all my backcountry hikes.

"Wait," you might be thinking, "You called this Lower Log Hollow Falls a moment ago. That implies the existence of at least an Upper Falls, right?"

Yup. Though not everyone knows it's there!



We knew it was there because the great trail description on AllTrails.com told us it was there and showed it on a contour map. And the volunteer at the ranger station yesterday told us, too. But as easily as this knowledge came to us, it clearly eludes a lot of other people. Hikers who arrived at the lower falls ahead of us turned around and left the area without even looking for the upper falls. The trail itself is not obvious unless you've been advised where to find it. As you can see in the photo above, it's faint in some places and also steep.



Upper Log Hollow Falls is another of those falls that's pretty tall when viewed from a distance but you can't see all of it up close. That's okay; what we saw here at the base where we rested for a while was plenty beautiful. (BTW, this is another backcountry monopod picture, @ 0.1 sec.)

In beauty I walk.

Blue Ridge Parkway, Graveyard Fields

North Carolina Travelog #13
Pisgah National Forest - Thu, 21 Sep 2023. 4:45pm

After visiting a bunch of waterfalls on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains today, most recently Log Hollow Falls, we drove up to the ridge itself. Here the Blue Ridge Parkway traces along the crest of the mountain for an amazing 469 miles. We will only drive about 20 miles of it today, from the junction with US-276 to the junction with NC-215, then back down the mountain and looping along US-64 back to our hotel in Brevard. Elevations along this stretch of the parkway rise above 5,000 feet.

In this 20 mile stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway we're driving today there are several points of interest marked on the map that caught our attention. One was Graveyard Fields. Despite its very metal name it wasn't actually our top interest, more like maybe #3 instead... until from 1/2 mile away we caught a glimpse of a big waterfall there. Then we knew we had to stop.

So, what is Graveyard Fields? Before arriving I guessed, based on the name, it's a place where some early settlers died trying to cross the mountain in a harsh winter storm, kind of like how Donner Pass in California is named for the doomed Donner family emigrants. Nope, I was wrong. It's actually about trees. This sign in front of the namesake Graveyard Fields explains:



A strong windstorm hundreds of years ago knocked down all the trees in this area, leaving them looking like a huge graveyard. Then a fire in 1925 burned away all the fallen trees. Now, 98 years later, the area has completely regrown and looks nothing like a graveyard. I'm amused by the irony that the fix for one natural disaster was another natural disaster. 😅

Graveyard Falls

North Carolina Travelog #14
Pisgah National Forest - Thu, 21 Sep 2023. 6pm

Graveyard Falls. I'm not sure that's the official name, but since it is a waterfall in the Graveyard Fields area along the Blue Ridge Parkway, that's what I'm going with. We spotted the falls 1/2 mile away while driving toward the area and knew we had to stop. After spending a bit of time at the valley overlook and learning how this area got the name Graveyard Fields (previous blog) we started down a trail toward the waterfalls.



Like many of the falls we've seen in the Blue Ridge Mountains this trip, Graveyard Falls pours over a rounded rocky bald. That means instead of pouring off a chute or ledge and dropping down one big tier in free-fall, it cascades over rocks in numerous smaller drops. The photo above shows the upper part of this falls. Altogether these falls are about 60 feet tall; this upper part is just the topmost 15 feet.

I got across the falls from Hawk (who's sitting near the top of the photo) by rock-hopping across the stream above the falls then scrambling down dry parts of the exposed rock on the far side. Also, I created the silky look of the water with the backcountry waterfalls photography technique I wrote about earlier today. Now you know why that topic was on my mind— I'm making frequent use of it this week!

After enjoying the scene here for a while I scrambled back up the rocks, across the stream, and then back to the trail with Hawk to hike down to the bottom of the falls.



Well, okay, you can see the whole falls from the bottom, here— because it's far enough back. And because the area is open enough.

Once again I picked a rock-hopping route across to the opposite side of the stream.



Same falls, different perspective. And different effect. Here the motion blur of the water flowing over the falls, especially on the lowest part, really does make it look like a silk sheet laid across the rocks. This photo I made with an exposure time of about 1/2 second... and no, I didn't use my hiking-pole-turned-camera-monopod to stabilize it. I braced my camera on a good, old-fashion rock in the middle of the stream!

"Why didn't we do this when we LIVED here?"

North Carolina Travelog #15
Back at the hotel - Thu, 21 Sep 2023. 10pm

Today has been an amazing day. We went on several hikes and visited a whopping 10 waterfalls... all within a 30-45 minute driving radius of our hotel. I didn't even realize it was 10— I kind of lost count after 5 or 6— until we got back to our hotel room this evening and I sorted through my pictures.

As deliriously happy as we were throughout the day we also had moments of self criticism. You know, that feeling you have when you're doing something that is amazing and you pause to reflect, "Okay, this is amazing.... Why didn't I do it sooner?"

In our case "sooner" could have been twenty-some years ago when we lived in North Carolina. We lived here. Well, not here-here in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We lived a few hours away in Chapel Hill, NC. I was doing my grad work there, and Hawk stayed with me two summers between finishing her undergrad in another city. We could have made weekend trips out here.