Sam Branch originates on the north side of Sam Knob and flows NW for about 1.5 miles, dropping ~1300' in elevation along the way. It's basically a long series of cascades and falls. On a solo trip to the falls in mid August '03, I noticed where people have been scrambling up that rock I mentioned on the previous page. I headed up and it turns out that this is the beginning of a trail that follows the left side of the creek for a short distance up the mountain. I decided to head up to check it out and got these next 2 shots in the area above the lower falls. The part of the creek way up in the top left is about a 20' drop - looking down is, well, a long ways down.

This area, including the trail, is obviously steep and would be treacherous in wet conditions. I decided it would be best not to go any farther alone, so I headed down and later on called Harry and told him what I had found. We decided to go back the following Saturday, but it turned out I had to work (2nd shift). Maybe we could squeeze it in before my 3PM start time. We got to the area about 9:30 and started up. Just above the area in the previous shots, we came across a not so steep area with a small cascade and sun beams shining through the forest.

We continued up the trail, just out of sight of the water. The trail eventually came to a place with steep rock up to the left and no safe way to pass, so someone had laid a 15' section of a small log across as a kind of bridge across the face of the rock. From here on, the rock continued to be on our left - to our right was a very steep drop off towards the creek thick in rhododendron, laurel, and other shrub. Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to make this trail and we figured it would lead us right to that major waterfall. Then it ended. Straight ahead was thick briar, to the right was way down. The only possibility - and it looked like the way people had gone - was to climb the rock. Parts were wet with seepage and a slip was certain death, so we opted to turn around and find a place we could get down to creek level and try that way. Just a short way back down the trail, Harry noticed a small side trail that zigzagged down to the creek. From there we headed up and found a nice 30' cascade to take a break. The sun was just above and shining on the falls, so I didn't even bother taking a shot. I headed up above that for a look and there was a 50-60' cascade above that! Was this the falls in Adams book, or had we missed it on the way up, or was it further up?? We figured it would be best to continue exploring on a day when I had more time, so we turned around. Once we got past the place where the rock was to one side of us, we wondered if we could get up to the top of the rock by cutting around and up. I still had some time, so we decided to try it. There were signs of foot traffic, but we didn't find a definite path. Somehow we managed to find our way out on to the rock and had a killer view.

Off that rock is straight down and Harry noticed 2 anchors where people have apparently been rappelling. The creek is to the left and in the distance we could see a drop off that just might be that major waterfall. Story to be continued...