VAGUE
BUT TRUE
Editor’s Note: On this adventure we discovered a waterfall
that we’ve decided to keep secret and unnamed.
If you want to read a trip report without any actual information, you’re
in the right place!
A
couple of months ago Stephanie messaged me about a possible waterfall she’d
identified on a topo map. I took a look
and was blown away. The potential
waterfall was in a remote area in Tennessee, on a medium-sized creek that spilled
over a prominent cliff and into a gorge.
Judging from the map, it looked to be 60-80’ high. Reluctantly, I took a look at the aerial
imagery to see if the base was accessible.
There was a major waterfall there all right, and it looked like it might
have a cave behind it! While River Left
was guarded by cliffs, it looked like it might be possible to scramble down on
River Right. Approaching it from the
gorge below was not an option.
I
did a little research and found that it was located on public property. I checked Gregory Plumb’s book and the
Tennessee Landforms website. There was
no mention of it in either place. This
had the potential to be a true discovery!
Originally
Christy and I had planned to head up to West Virginia after finishing our
Smokies backpacking trip. We wanted to bikepack the 80 mile Greenbrier
River Trail, a rail trail in the southeastern part of the state. Unfortunately, the long
range weather forecast looked terrible for long distance cycling and
camping. Temperatures were expected to
range from the 20’s to the 40’s, with rain and snow every day. I can tolerate hiking in that kind of
weather, but biking? We decided to head
in a different direction.
It
seemed like the ideal time to look for Stephanie’s waterfall. Luckily, she was able to get Monday and
Tuesday off. Christy and I relocated to
a private campground Sunday evening. It
was a decent place, even though we had to walk halfway across the campground
from our tent site to the nearest water spigot.
Also, our tent site didn’t have a picnic table. The lady in the office suggested borrowing one
from an unoccupied campsite. That also
required walking halfway across the campground, and
carrying the table the whole way back.
Our fire pit didn’t have a grill, but a nearby cabin that was unoccupied
had one on the porch. Given all of the
inconveniences, I didn’t feel guilty about borrowing that grill to cook dinner.
Stephanie
arrived later that evening, shortly after we had finished a late dinner. She had her boyfriend’s dog, Bo, with
her. Well, at this point you could
probably say that Bo is her dog. We
enjoyed some beers and the last remnants of our campfire before heading to
bed. We had a big day planned for
Monday!
I
got up early and made breakfast for everyone.
Then we piled into Stephanie’s car, which was actually Stephanie’s mom’s
Jeep Cherokee. The paved road led to a
good gravel road, which led to a not good dirt road. Ok, that’s an understatement. It was mostly muddy ruts and steep hills and
washed out gullies. Stephanie had a
blast driving down it, while Christy and I focused on not throwing up or
banging our heads on the ceiling. We had
miles to go, and I was afraid that we would get stuck, or find the road
impassable. Instead, we crested a hill
and popped out on a good gravel road.
Where did that come from? My map
showed that the good gravel road was a trail.
Meanwhile, the road shown on the map that we had driven was more like a
trail. Go figure.
This
would be something of a recurring theme throughout the day.
We
reached the junction with the road I’d hoped to drive down, but it was badly
overgrown. Instead we continued ahead and
stopped near a field. We were on the
opposite side of the creek from what I’d planned, but we were perfectly on the
route that Stephanie had come up with.
We spent a few minutes gearing up and began the third phase of our
adventure. (To clarify, the first phase
was the research and the second phase was the drive).
We
hiked through the field and then dropped down to a tributary of the creek. This stream is small, and we bushwhacked
alongside it, crossing it frequently.
Early on we passed a deer skull.
Hopefully it wasn’t an omen!
We
reached the confluence with the main creek, which was roaring! With the water up, the waterfall was bound to
look great! We just had to get there.
We
rock hopped the big creek to avoid a cliff and started bushwhacking
downstream. A couple of minutes later we
stumbled onto a trail. Where did that
come from? It wasn’t on the map, and it
was completely unexpected. To our right
it headed uphill, away from the creek and towards the road I had originally
hoped to approach from. To the left it
descended to the creek and crossed.
Our
plan had been to bushwhack / rock hop / wade downstream to the brink of the
falls and then look for a route down on River Right. The trail caused us to reconsider. Perhaps there was an easier way? At the very least we should see where it
went.
We
rock hopped the creek again and reached the base of a cliff. We followed the trail past an overhang and up
through a narrow defile in the rocky cliffs.
We then dropped back down towards the creek, passing under an
overhanging boulder. The trail returned
to the creek briefly, but it didn’t follow it.
Instead it began climbing along the base of more cliffs, away from the
creek. This didn’t seem promising, but
we were curious. It seemed to be headed
towards the rim of the gorge. It wasn’t
likely to lead to the base of our waterfall, but it might offer a good view.
That’s
exactly what happened. We climbed high
above our creek before we reached a junction.
There we turned right, towards the rim of the gorge. A few minutes later we emerged from the woods
at the brink of a cliff. We were greeted
with a stunning view. We were surrounded
by the sheer cliffs of the gorge, and a wild, violent river roared through a
garden of boulders far below. We walked
to the edge of the cliff and gazed down.
Directly below us was our creek, spilling over a cliff into the gorge. The view of the waterfall was poor, but the
overall scene was a stunner. We agreed
that the day was a success even if we couldn’t reach the base of the waterfall
for a better view.
Getting
to the base did not look promising. Our
side of the creek was a wall of cliffs.
The far side was a little less hostile, but still cliffy. I decided to scout a bit in hopes of spotting
a route. I bushwhacked along the cliff,
parallel but above our creek. This was
horrible at the beginning and then it got worse. The low point was having to crawl under a
fallen tree surrounded by briers. The
rock underneath the log was carpeted with holly leaves. At least I had on long pants!
The
suffering was worth it. I finally got a
clear view of the far side of the creek.
The cliffs extended from the top of the falls as far as I could see. Below them though was an inviting ramp that
followed their base right down to the base of the falls. If we could find a break in that initial wall
of cliffs we would have a relatively easy walk down to the falls. But was there a break? There wasn’t anything in clear view, but
farther away the forest was thicker.
Hopefully those trees were hiding a weakness in the cliffs.
My
scouting mission was only partially successful.
I didn’t see a direct route down to our creek upstream from the
falls. We decided to backtrack. When we reached the creek crossing we had a
decision to make. Should we follow the
creek downstream and then skirt the cliffs until we found a break? Or should we try following the trail in the
other direction?
We
decided to try the trail. We had a
pretty good idea what the creek route would get us. Perhaps the trail would be better.
We
climbed up and away from the creek. We
contoured back towards the gorge briefly, but then the trail curved back to
pass through a gap in a minor spur ridge.
The trail was leading away from our goal, but the spur ridge was heading
directly back in the correct direction. The
forest was open, so we headed cross country directly towards our goal. This went smoothly at first, until we neared
the rim of the canyon. Then the forest
thickened and the Earth fell away before us.
This was not promising.
We
tried going left, back towards our creek.
There was nothing but sheer cliffs in that direction. We doubled-back and approached a gully that
initially looked promising. We thought
we might be able to get down it with a rope, but it was wet and had several
sheer drop-offs. We decided against it.
Another
section of cliffs loomed beyond the gully.
I could see the ramp I’d spotted below us. It looked like it might originate around the
corner, beyond those cliffs. We decided
to check it out.
We
backtracked back up the hillside and traversed above the cliffs we had spotted
from the gully. The far side looked
discouraging. It was more of the same –
heavy undergrowth and a sheer drop off.
However, Stephanie decided to follow her instincts. She crawled through an incredible tangle of
rhododendrons and then began a sidehilling traverse
across a steep gully. The good news is
that all of those rhododendrons kept us from falling off the cliff. The bad news is that they also kept us from
making any sort of measurable forward progress.
Stephanie
was not to be denied. She wriggled ahead
until she reached a tree that had fallen down the slope. She climbed down the tree like it was a
ladder. A minute later I heard a victory
whoop. She was down!
Christy
and I followed. We eventually disengaged
from the fallen tree ladder and butt-slid the last 10 feet. When I reached the ramp I’d spotted, I
marveled at our surroundings. Sheer
cliffs towered above us in every direction.
How did we get down that?
Stephanie had picked the perfect route.
In fact, it was the only route.
The fallen tree ladder had made it possible. It had crushed some of the undergrowth and
provided something to hold onto. Without
it, a rope would’ve been necessary, if the vegetation had been passable at all.
Unfortunately,
Bo wasn’t having it. Climbing down the
ladder tree was not an appealing option for him. Stephanie climbed back up to him and tried to
encourage him, but it wasn’t happening.
Ultimately, we had to leave him there while we made a quick run down to
the falls.
From
there we enjoyed a delightful stroll down the ramp along the base of the
cliffs. The ramp led to an impressive
rock shelter / overhang where the ground was littered with boulders that had
fallen from the cliffs above. At the
back of the rock shelter was a cave that tunneled back into the cliffs for a
couple hundred feet. We explored it to
the end before heading down to the falls.
My
ramp led directly to a ledge about 1/3 of the way up the falls. The descent from there to the base was a
steep bushwhack. We arrived at an
immense blue-green plunge pool. The
water was up – there were standing trees in the plunge pool! The waterfall is a stunner. It’s a powerful drop of 60-70’ surrounded by
sheer cliffs. There are two
sections. The larger, upper drop
projects out in a torrent of whitewater.
It crashed onto the previously mentioned ledge before leaping another
25’ into the plunge pool.
This
was a hard place to leave, but Bo was waiting.
Stephanie hurried back, while Christy and I dawdled. We eventually caught up and began the hike
out. The return hike was faster, easier,
and much more efficient. We returned to
the car around mid-afternoon. The drive
out was faster, easier, and less terrifying, as we stayed on the good gravel
road that is shown as a trail on the map.
We eventually returned to the campground and took showers. Then we headed into town to run errands and
discuss our plans for the evening and the next day.
We
didn’t have specific plans for Monday night.
The campground was pleasant enough, but we didn’t really want to spend
another night there. Fortunately,
Stephanie knew about a place that was fantastic! After a long drive down
a dirt road we parked near a gate. A five minute walk brought us to a cliff with an excellent
view of another breathtaking gorge. We
were surrounded by cliffs, and a river wound its way through the gorge far
below. We arrived shortly before sunset,
which was perfect timing. We made dinner
and enjoyed a few beers, but skipped the
campfire. It just seemed unnecessary
there in such an amazing spot.
Christy
and I decided to sleep in our hammocks, despite a forecast that called for a
decent chance of rain late that night.
We have one tarp for two hammocks, but luckily
we found 3 perfectly spaced trees that allowed for an ideal setup. However, the wind really picked up that
night, which caused the tarp to flap loudly for hours. In fact, two of the tent stakes got ripped
right out of the rocky ground in the wee hours of the night. I didn’t particularly enjoy getting up at 3am
to fix the tarp, but the howling wind was strangely soothing. It only took a minute for it to rock me back
to sleep.
The
rain held off, save for a few sprinkles while I was cooking breakfast the next
morning. We packed up early that
morning, as we had another big day planned.
Back to Tennessee
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Please remember to Leave No Trace!