Several of you emailed me and suggested that I check out this falls and I'm really glad you did - thanks! Cathy and KT had also been here and said it was a must see, so we all decided to make a day of this, Little Bradley, and Pearson's Falls. To get to Big Bradley, we got on I-26 south of Asheville and got off at the Saluda exit. This used to be exit 28, but the DOT has renumbered all of the exits and I haven't been back to check the new number. The exits closer to Asheville are 31 higher than they used to be, so I'm going to guess it's now exit 59. The Adams book says this is Ozone Dr, but we didn't see that anywhere. The way we were coming, we turned left (north on SR 1142), went 3.2 miles, and parked on the wide shoulder on the left.
The trail first enters a field - when we were there over Labor Day '02, Joe Pye Weed and some yellow flowers were in bloom. From here, the trail enters the woods, goes up a small rise, bears to the right and heads towards Cove Creek. It then crosses the creek on some rocks and heads uphill. If the water level is up, you may not be able to cross without getting your feet wet. At about 3/4 of a mile or so, a side trail bears to the left and downhill, and the main trail heads on to a view from an overlook. Keep going and take the 2nd trail to the left to get the view in the next photo. The only problem is you can't see the main part of the falls from this vantage point. It's hidden behind a tree.
Getting to the base requires a steep descent with the help of a rope. Go back to where the trail split and take the right trail down. It splits - left goes to the top of the falls, right goes to towards the base. The best and I think only way down is a 25-30' climb down a rock face to the bottom. There's a rope attached and it looks like it's fairly safe. I usually carry a 25' section of rope on all hikes just because you never know, and we used it to lower some of our packs down. The wall has plenty of foot holds and the rope has knots for hand holds, so the descent isn't really that bad. Here's Hal coming down -
The view of this 65' waterfall from the base is really spectacular and there are several vantage points to get a good photo. Below are a few - KT's in the 1st one (on the left) for perspective.
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