Chasing Waterfalls in Pisgah and the Smokies

Western North Carolina has more waterfalls than anyone has properly counted. The useful question is not which one is best, it is how much walking you want to do before you see water.

When they run highest

May and June are the peak months. Spring rain is still working its way through the watershed and the volume shows. By late summer the same falls can be a fraction of that, which is pleasant for swimming and less dramatic for photographs.

After a heavy rain any of these will run hard for a day or two. That is the best time to see them and the worst time to get close to them.

Roadside, no hiking required

Looking Glass Falls in Pisgah National Forest is visible from the road, with steps down to the base. It is the one we send people to when the plan is a scenic drive rather than a hike.

Linville Falls has a series of overlooks reached by well maintained trails, most of them under a mile, with the effort scaling to how many viewpoints you want.

Worth the walk

• DuPont State Recreational Forest, where several substantial falls connect on one loop
• Catawba Falls, on a trail that follows the river most of the way
• The quieter falls in Graveyard Fields, reached from the Parkway

The rule about wet rock

Every serious accident at these falls involves the same thing. Wet rock at the top looks like dry rock and is not, the moss holds water long after the surface appears to have dried, and there is nothing to grab on the way down.

Stay behind the railings where they exist, and off the rock at the lip of any fall where they do not. Swimming below a fall is a different question and is fine at the spots that allow it.