June 1 – Upper Falls of Upper Creek

Another day with a forecast of scattered thunderstorms. We picked a nice short hike close to home. It stayed kind of grey all day so the pictures aren’t as vibrant as I would have hoped.

The trailhead is only about 10 minutes away. There are two trails, each about 1.4 miles return. I had planned to do both of them but after we did the trip down to the Upper Falls and scrambled around the rocks for a long time we didn’t have the energy to go to the Lower Falls.

The trail was nice and wide. At the start there were some Mountain Laurel.

The trail was level for a short while and then went steeply down hill through a few zigzags to the top of the falls. We didn’t realize how steep it was until the climb back up.

The trail was in good shape as this was about the worst we had to deal with.

We had to watch out for this monster.

I stopped to pick up and examine this pine cone and soon discovered that it has very sharp spines on the end of each section.

The last drop down to the creek was very easy.

This put us at the top of the 100 foot Upper Falls.

You could only see the first dip.

I climbed down a bit farther.

And then a view over the edge with the camera held out.

Our future lunch spot is on the rock in the center of the picture above.

Before heading down we decided to explore upstream. First a small drop.

And then around the corner to a pool beneath a jumble of rocks.

Getting farther required a few rock jumps and watching out for the wet rocks.

Above that was a large pool and a smooth cascade.

I think this must be a very popular place in the summer. We saw fire rings all over the place and this rope for swinging in the pool below the falls. While we were here we only saw three other people, later down at the bottom of the falls, and they only stayed for about 5 minutes.

I had a rest while Jennie explored the shore.

We headed back to find the trail to the bottom of the falls. The first problem was to cross the creek.

These pictures are from the way back but the problem was the same. There were a couple of ways across but each required a rather long step onto a wet and slippery rock. We just took our time.

The trail down was short and relatively easy. We found a flat spot on the rocks and had lunch.

I always try to get a close as I can.

Then I went downstream to scramble over some more rocks. Jennie is in the upper right, in the picture below.

At this point I turned around and head back to Jennie.

It’s amazing how just a bit of sunlight can really perk up a picture.

We headed back to the car. We said we would decide whether to do the other trail when we got back but we both knew what the decision would be.

Back at the RV we have had a bit of everything weather-wise with sun, rain but mostly just grey. There was a pretty strong thunderstorm at about 4 pm lasting an hour, Lots of high wind, thunder and lightning.