North Carolina Mountains (Pisgah Area)

karlabbott · October 25, 2009

My wife and I try to make it out to the North Carolina mountains at least twice a year. On our most recent journey, we headed to the Pisgah National Forest area and based ourselves in Brevard. For this trip, we tried to time it so that we would be there in peak fall color. The weather for this trip was supposed to be cloudy, rainy, and partly cloudy at times. We ended up with mostly cloudy and rainy conditions, which make nice conditions for waterfalls. It also helped that this area has received greater than normal precipitation amounts for this time of the year.

Our first morning started us on a hike near Old Fort, NC to see Lower Catawba Falls. We got there at just the right time and as we were starting to hike out, it started to rain. Here are my two favorite shots showing how nice this falls can be:

#1:

#2:

With that start to the day, we headed to Asheville and then later to Brevard. That evening, I had decided to shoot sunset off of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We drove up to the parkway and as we climbed the ridge everything was looking good for getting a great sunset. Then we got on the Parkway. The whole road was shrouded in clouds:

#3:

At the first overlook that I wanted to shoot from, the wind was blowing fiercely and at times, you couldn't see past the railing at the overlook. It became pretty obvious that I was not going to get the sunset that I wanted to get and so we decided to head off of the Parkway and see what of this outing could be salvaged. Right before we were going to get off the Parkway, there was one overlook where you could at least see something. Here are the results of a shoot that involved the wind almost knocking my tripod over a few times:

#4:

#5:

The next morning was spent at Looking Glass Falls. We arrived early enough that we had this very popular spot all to ourselves. The cloud that we arrived in never really broke even after the sun came up, but that contributes to the mood here:

#6:

#7:

Later in the day, we headed out to Gorges State Park to do the Rainbow Falls hike. On the way, we stopped at a rock outcrop in front of Hidden Falls on the Horsepasture River:

#8:

#9:

Rainbow Falls had so much spray when we got there that I had to break out the camera rain gear to get this shot:

#10:

From there, it was a short hike up to Turtleback Falls:

#11:

On the next day, we were met with lots of rain. I still managed to get a shot of Satulah Falls near Highlands:

#12:

On the way back to Brevard, we stopped off at White Owl Falls and thankfully the rain let up enough for me to comfortably get this shot:

#13:

That evening, we went out to Hendersonville to catch another sunset. Unfortunately, the clouds rolled in so thick that this wasn't possible and it started to rain pretty heavily. Before that happened though, I was able to take this shot:

#14:

All in all, it was a great trip and a wonderful weekend for taking pictures of waterfalls.

rhondavid · October 26, 2009

Very nice series despite the weather. I love the Blue Ridge Parkway and one thing I have found, is the weather can be very unpredictable and you can be in the clouds in the wink of an eye.

I love the water fall pictures. I love the flowing water and the effect you have captured. Family and I will be heading to the Smokies in a couple of weeks and hope to get a chance to take some water fall shots.

Thanks for sharing. Brings back memories of my last trip.