Falls and Fungi
The Lower Whitewater Falls Trail starts near the North Carolina/South Carolina border and offers a great view of a tall waterfall.
The Lower Whitewater Falls Trail starts just short of the North Carolina/South Carolina border on Hwy. 130 from a parking lot of Duke Power’s Bad Creek Hydroelectric Station. This 2-mile hike in to an overlook for the falls is moderately strenuous, and provides a series of great views through extremely varied terrain.
The trail begins in relatively open terrain, but then plunges into a lush rhododendron forest. One side of the trail was covered with a carpet of brilliant green moss. My wife came along on this hike, and as the Queen of Fungi, she helped me see all of the wonderful varieties of mushrooms and other fungi throughout. On the first leg of the trail there were small white mushrooms peeking out from beds of the moss, as well as a group of goblet-shaped mushrooms that still contained water from either a recent rain or dew.
As the trail approached a pair of bridges leading across a fairly large mountain stream, the trail cut through deep green fern beds, as well as some other unusual undergrowth that I saw on the Sourwood Trail. Just past the stream crossing, the elevation change is considerable, becoming more strenuous. It was about here that we saw a wild rabbit just off the trail, but the rabbit was faster than my camera.
About midway through the trail, we hiked between two tall trees like a gateway and then the trail began to descend to where the overlook juts out from the side of a gorge. This wooden overlook provides a lovely view of the Lower Whitewater Falls across this very green and heavily forested gorge. The falls are quite tall, plunging over a rather sheer cliff face down into the gorge. We spent some time here enjoying the scenery before heading back up out of the gorge and back off the trail.
After finishing the trail, we drove the few minutes up the road to where the main Whitewater Falls area provides an easy walk to an overlook to the main waterfall. This is a beautiful view, and can be reached from the Lower Whitewater Falls Trail, which might be another hike for another day.
