North Carolina – South Mountains State Park

Bill learned about South Mountains State Park from a visitor to Kings Mountain. It is only about an hour away – just on the edge of the mountains region of North Carolina. A topographical map in the visitor center gave us an idea of the terrain.

The park contains miles of hiking trails, but we targeted the highlights: a waterfall and two overlooks. We headed on the one-mile trail to High Shoal Falls. The trail started out flat and wide following the cascading Jacob Fork River.

In the image above, Bill is preparing to take the photo shown below where the Shinny River (pronounced “shiny”) joins the Jacob Fork River.

The trail got steeper and rockier as we approached the falls with interesting geology including a 1989 (Hurricane Hugo) rockslide across the trail. Signs along the trail explained the geology.

Barbara spotted a little man-made pile of rocks amidst the cascades that Bill willingly scrambled to photograph.

The trail led to a close up view of High Shoal Falls.

The cool thing was that we had the falls all to ourselves. Part way back we came upon a boisterous school group heading for the falls. Glad we got there when we did!

On the way back we took the Chestnut Knob Trail, a spur trail to two overlooks. We hiked up, up, up 0.7 miles to Jacob Fork River Gorge Overlook where a break in the trees allowed a very distant view of High Shoals Waterfall.

Bill continued another 1.1 miles to Chestnut Knob Overlook, a rock outcropping where one could see for miles. Bill could even spot Charlotte in the distance.

 

In the meantime, Barbara headed back down, down, down. Then she went on the Hemlock Nature Trail that hugged the gurgling river.

Another nice hike on a beautiful fall day!