Waterfall Odyssey

A group on Flickr decided to take a Saturday and visit as many waterfalls as possible. It is always interesting to be around other photographers because you are sure to learn something just by watching and listening. I was planning on going on Saturday with about 8 other people.

On the Wednesday prior, the guy organizing the event had to cancel due to a death in his family. The Friday prior came and nobody on Flickr was talking. I decided to make a map and gets some plans going. I emailed five people to see if they were going to make it.
My replies came back Friday afternoon. One forgot and made other plans, one said his wife was sick, two backed out for an unknown reason, and the last said he would meet me at 9am. The group went from eight to two but I was still excited.

My phone started ringing Saturday morning and my partner was backing out. Chance of rain.
If you have been reading around here for very long, you probably know that I do not handle changing plans very well.

I went to the computer and stared at Google maps. I didn't want to hike by myself but I was definitely going out. I started laying out a route and Cari said she would join me. We decided to make it a family trip into the mountains.

Here's a map of our route:

View Larger Map

Our first stop was the town of Newry, SC. The town was built around a textile mill and has never changed. There is a post office, the original mill store, the mill, and a block of mill homes.
Randy and I poked our head in the first floor of the mill but I decided not to head upstairs while the girls waited in the car. It was pretty spooky in there. Lots of equipment and furniture has remained since the huge mill closed. Maybe Rake will come up and explore the building with me some day. We left Newry and headed up to North Carolina. Whitewater falls only requires a half mile hike on a paved trail. The short trail meant I wouldn't have to listen to whiny kids. At the end of the trail there are approximately 300 steps down to the observation platform. There was a sign at the top begging you not to climb on the rocks. It said that 15 people have died there by falling. At the observation platform, Meredith looked through binoculars and said, "I can see a dead person!" I think it scared the old couple that was there. Not that she saw a dead body but that she said it with such pleasure. After recovering from the climb out, we got back in the car and headed East. We stopped at the only restaurant near lake Toxaway. It was a cute restaurant with outdoor seating. Too bad they made us wait over an hour for our chicken sandwiches.

On the way back home we stopped at one more waterfall. Twin Falls doesn't require a very long hike so the kids didn't complain very much. I let them climb up to the base of the falls and splash around for a while. Then Randy decided it was cool to slip and slide down the rock and crash into Meredith. We decided to go before a kid cracked their head open.

The five of us had a good day exploring and seeing a few waterfalls. I ended up with a couple of good shots as a bonus.

It didn't even rain.