About a year ago on one of our reconnaissance trips to Brevard, we thought we’d visit a couple of the waterfalls in nearby Gorges State Park. We were there on Labor Day weekend, while the state was slowly coming out of lockdown. We had a leisurely start to the day, cruising on over to the park around 10 a.m. on a Sunday. What fools we were! It was a surprise to arrive, only to be turned away because the park was already full (i.e., all parking lots were full). We had to scramble to come up with an alternative plan to make a couple of short waterfall hikes over in the Pisgah National Forest. This turned out well, except for getting caught in a horrible traffic jam on Highway 276 on our way back. So, lessons learned: (1) North Carolina was actually serious about shutting down their parks during the COVID peak, a laughable notion to us Alabamians; and (2) in this town, going anywhere on Labor Day weekend would be out of the question.
So for nearly a year, we’ve been plotting our revenge. Well, that’s overstating it, since we were actually the ones at fault. But we have been motivated to take care of this unfinished business, and more to the point, this is a deservedly popular hike in a beautiful state park. The distance and difficulty would work well with our return to hiking, and after our previous hike in which we’d seen two waterfalls, a somewhat insistent rat snake, and a black bear in just a couple of miles, we were eager to get out there again.
We headed out early on a weekday morning in August, timing our arrival for around 9 a.m. to avoid the hordes. This turned out to be overkill, as the pandemic had eased by then and we weren’t hiking on a holiday weekend. Our plan was to hike the Rainbow Falls trail to the eponymous waterfall and continue on to Turtleback Falls. As shown on the map, Gorges State Park has two entrances, and access to this trail is from the Grassy Ridge park entrance off state highway 281 in the Sapphire community. After a quick visit to the restrooms at the visitor center, we joined about five other vehicles in the spacious paved parking lot near the kiosks in the southwest corner. After perusing the info on the kiosks (as we do on every hike), we set off down a graveled trail into the woods.
The trail is double-blazed at its start, with round orange blazes to indicate the Rainbow Falls trail and round blue blazes for the Raymond Fisher trail. At 0.3 miles, the Raymond Fisher trail splits off to the southeast, leading to a pond and a former backcountry campsite that has been permanently closed. The park is building a new developed campground, planned for opening in Fall 2021. We followed the orange blazes and excellent signage to head westward and downhill. The broad trail wound back to the north before bending west again and crossing the boundary into Pisgah National Forest at about 0.8 miles. This was a mild surprise, as we didn’t realize the waterfalls themselves are on National Forest land.
As soon as the trail enters the national forest, the graveled footbed becomes more of a natural surface but retains its width. Shortly past the state park/national forest border, the trail bends slightly to the right in a heavily eroded section and begins to descend into a hollow, with the Horsepasture River paralleling the trail to the south. At the bottom of the descent there’s an unbridged creek crossing, easily forded under normal circumstances. There’s a nice backcountry campsite off to the right of the trail, though it would rate pretty low for solitude.
The trail flanks the river, heading upstream, with occasional views and access to the water. This section of the trail sported more wildflowers than we had seen previously, with some of the rhododendrons in full bloom. At about 1.5 miles, the trail begins an uphill climb, with the roar of a powerful waterfall growing as you ascend. We emerged from the woods into an open area, with Rainbow Falls in all its 150-foot glory off to our left, framed by sunflowers and smooth phlox.
A wooden fence along one side of the trail protects hikers from a drop into the chasm. The trail continues toward the waterfall, splitting just past the end of the wooden fence. To the left, the trail descends to a viewing platform, passing very close to the waterfall itself. We followed a track down to the bottom of the waterfall, though it’s probably not part of the official trail, and required more care than the groomed trail we had been on to this point. However, from the platform or the bottom of the fall you are more likely to understand why the waterfall is so named.
After being cooled by the mists roaring off Rainbow Falls, we climbed back up to the main trail to the fenced area. We had one more waterfall to visit, which is reached by taking the trail that splits off to the right at the end of the fenced area. This orange-blazed trail continues upstream of Rainbow Falls. For obvious reasons, there are warning signs and fences to discourage anyone from taking a notion of going for a swim at the top of Rainbow Falls. Sadly, these warnings are necessary due to recent fatalities.
At approximately 1.65 miles from the trailhead, Turtleback Falls is visible on the left side of the trail. This is a waterfall of a less dramatic type, a cascade in which the Horsepasture River drops over a natural waterslide that’s about 20 feet tall from top to plunge pool. It’s a popular place for cooling off, though we didn’t see anyone sliding down the fall on our visit. The Forest Service flatly says you shouldn’t swim here, because if the water levels are up, the combination of swift current and slippery footing has caused many people to be swept toward (or over) Rainbow Falls.
We sat on a rock overlooking Turtleback Falls and had our lunch, before saddling back up for the return trip along the same route. A third waterfall, Drift Falls, is farther upstream but isn’t included on the state park’s map, and it’s very close to if not actually on private property, so we decided we’d end our hike at Turtleback. Our GPS conked out around here, but since this was the turnaround point for our hike we figure we covered a total of 3.3 miles out and back. We met quite a few more people on our return trip, and indeed the parking lot was nearly full upon our return.
The waterfalls were the showiest features of the hike, but there were botanical and zoological pleasures as well. At various parts of the trail we identified Indian cucumber root and false solomon’s seal fruiting, downy rattlesnake plantain and St. Andrews’s cross in bloom, and naked flowered tick trefoil in its last stages of blooming, as well as identifying galax and Shuttleworth’s ginger by their foliage. And only about a quarter-mile from the parking lot, sharp-eyed Ruth spotted movement just off the trail to our right — it was a little foot-long ring-necked snake! So that made two hikes in a row with snake sightings. The little fellow wanted nothing to do with us and was quickly hiding under the leaf litter.
False solomon’s seal 
Indian cucumber root 
Shuttleworth’s ginger 
Ring-necked snake
With the wildflowers, waterfalls, and reptile sighting, our first successful visit to Gorges State Park was a triumph, and now that we’ve cracked the code we’ll be out there soon on another non-holiday weekday, as early as we can make it. What wonders await?
Woodlands and Waters 