Pisgah National Forest Journey

My wife and I recently returned from a journey to western North Carolina, specifically the area around the Pisgah National Forest. The weather was great from a hiking stand point, but left a little to be desired photographically as the skies were clear the entire time we were there.

The first night there, we took in the sunset from an overlook off of the Blue Ridge Parkway. This overlook required a 0.1 mile hike to get to and that seems to deter others pretty well. We had scoped out several points earlier in the day and when we came back to this one there was another car at the parking for the trailhead. I saw the man get out with his family still in the car, walk down a little ways, come back and report that you'd have to hike a bit to see this one. Then they drove off. It's a shame to see people miss some of these sites because "you have to hike", but at the same time, I like to find places that I can have to myself.

This particular overlook gives you a great side view of Looking Glass Rock, one of the more prominent features of the Pisgah National Forest in the Mt. Pisgah area. Here are two pictures that I made that night:

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The next morning brought hiking and varying amounts of fall color. The areas to the north of the Blue Ridge Parkway were already starting to show signs that fall had passed its peak. The area still had an allure though.

This year, the reds are not nearly as vibrant and pronounced as they usually are in Western North Carolina. Yellow is the color of this fall season:

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We decided to hike to the cascades of Flat Laurel Creek and on the way there, I spotted this view from the side of the trail:

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You can certainly see that there aren't as many colors in this area as in areas south of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Kevin Adams in his authoritative guide to waterfalls in North Carolina said that this hike was a 3-10 in difficulty with a very steep and tricky descent to get down to the creek. He certainly wasn't lying. When we finally arrived at the section of the cascades that we were going to, the sun was pretty high up. In spite of the sun, I was able to make the following two pictures of the cascades:

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When we turned around and looked downstream, this is the view that we saw:

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You can see just how clear the sky really was. At this point, some clouds would have been much appreciated. Regardless of how clear the sky was, the area was quite beautiful and the temperature of the air was very comfortable. We spent a good bit of time just enjoying the scenery that we had come to on this hike.

That evening, we headed to the Cowee Mountain Overlook for sunset. When we got there almost a full hour before the sunset, the parking area was already starting to fill up with people and the "DSLR army" was out in full force. This particular meeting of the "DSLR army" seemed to be a local area camera club who was there to photograph the sunset. The last time I had tried to do a sunset at this overlook, the wind was shaking the car back and forth, the clouds were so thick you couldn't see the sign marking the overlook, and the clouds just kept getting thicker. Honestly, I hadn't even seen the view from here until we pulled up. It's quite the classic mountain view with the multiple layers of mountains. The view also is unique in that there aren't trees to get in the way and the foliage that grows at the edge of the overlook is not as dense or tall as at other overlooks, making this a very nice spot to sit and admire the mountains. If that weren't enough, this particular overlook points due west.

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The next morning we had a full day of hiking on the schedule again. That said, before we got our day started with a full English breakfast at our B&B, we were out taking pictures of the fall foliage in the Davidson River area. This area seemed to have some of the best fall foliage that hadn't fallen of the trees yet.

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The air was quite clear and crisp and made for a great time to photograph Looking Glass Falls:

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The day continued after breakfast with one nice hike. The sun was hiding enough when we got to the first waterfall on that hike, that I was able to make this photograph of the Waterfall on Cedar Rock Creek:

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Just before we got to the waterfall, we started to smell someone cooking breakfast. It turns out that there were 2 people camped under the rocks not too far from the falls and on the path to the falls.

By the time that we made it to the next waterfall, the light was very bright and shining directly on the scene. Even though this didn't yield anything photographically, it was very nice to just be able to sit and enjoy the scenery.

We ended up taking it easy the rest of the trip and so that wraps up my story here. Thank you for reading and looking at my photos.