Filed under: family, The Great Outdoors | Tags: brevard, courthouse falls, north carolina, pisgah, triple falls
For the past year, Ashley has been in school EVERY saturday. She currently has Saturdays off and with some busy weekends ahead, we are taking full advantage of this freedom!
We left Columbia at 2:00PM on Friday, and standing on the top of Triple Falls in DuPont state forest shortly after 5. I’ve been to Triple Falls 4 or 5 times, but I’ve never seen anything like what I saw this time. There were 4 or 5 kayakers who ended up going straight down the middle waterfall. It was incredible, and there is no way I would ever do that.
Triple Falls
Saturday, our goal was to visit new places where we had never been before. We are both creatures of habit, and normally go the same place each time. We started the day off hiking on the Art Loeb Trail. We drove down 475 until the Art Loeb crosses at Gloucester Gap. Our goal was to make it to the top of Pilot Mountain. I wasn’t sure of the milage, but I’m guessing that from Gloucester Gap to Pilot Mountain would have been somewhere between 4-5 miles (round trip). The best thing about that trail was that even on Labor Day weekend, we didn’t see a single person on the trail. We didn’t make it to the top though. The trial was extremely steep – over 1000 ft gained in elevation in about 1.5 miles that we did. Also, we had some other places that we wanted to go, and didn’t want to waste all of our energy early in the day.
Overlook on hike to Pilot Mountain - Art Loeb Trail
After the hike, we drove to French Broad Falls and Shoal Creek Falls. Ashley took some amazing pictures here. It was extremely easy to get to, as it took less than 2 minutes to hike (walk) from the road to the waterfall. I wish I had a bathing suit, because it was a perfect place to go for a swim.
French Broad Falls
Shoal Creek Falls
Once we left those falls, we headed further down Hwy 215 to Courthouse Falls. You take a dirt road for about 3 miles, and then it’s a short 10 minute hike to the falls. Courthouse falls was a beautiful sight to see. Apparently, people jump from the top of the falls even though it’s 45 feet high. Once again, not something I’m interested in doing. No amount of peer pressure could induce me to stand on that ledge and jump.
The day ended with dinner with dinner at Papa’s and Beer in Hendersonville. If you haven’t eaten there, you gotta go and try one of the burritos. I believe that what I had was called the Asada burrito? Incredible!
Without a doubt, the best part of the day was getting to spend an entire day (and a half) with ashley in the mountains. Thank you Lord for the beautiful weather! We couldn’t have asked for a better day.
Natural Beauty!
