Waterfallin with Lisa

4/22/19

Lisa and I

Lisa decided to take a vacation day to go hiking with me. What a good friend! It wasn’t hard to twist her arm though. We left at 7 am. With 2 choices of Balsam Grove or Shining Rock we headed toward Brevard NC.

The first stop was Big Bearwallow Falls. We park on 215 walk up 75 yards, go over the guard rail and climb down a couple hundred feet through rhododendron trees. I swear Lisa parts them suckers like Moses parts the Red Sea! She was down at the falls in about 2 minutes. I get stuck on briars and branches! But in 3 minutes I’m there. 😁

We take a few pics and up we go! I have not hiked with her since Feb 5 and really haven’t done many hard hikes so on this up I was quite winded!

We head up the Road make a right and go down a half a mile and park. This falls is an easy trail right below the road. This one is Lemon Falls.

We jump back in the car and head to FR140. Last time this road was closed and we hiked up to Courthouse Falls (2.5 miles). This time it’s open and we drive to a road called 5031. It closed. We park at the gate. This falls is .8 miles down the road. We decide to leave our backpacks behind and head to the falls.

We followed and old road up and around till it forked. The trail down to this falls was just before the fork. It was a short climb down to Chestnut Falls.

So right here is what it’s like to hike with Lisa. She is looking at Gaia and sees we have been going parallel to the next two waterfalls we want to see. The directions would say go back to car, back down the road 1/2 mile take the trail in. BUT as the crow flies we are less than a half a mile above the falls. She (we) decide to trek down through the woods until we can pick up the trail to Kiesssee Falls. It’s steep in places, lots of running water and briars but we go! Down. We do pick up the trail and follow it a bit north till we hear the falls. For some reason it’s a nice trail but there isn’t a trail down to the falls! We can see it and start making our way down. We go scrambling down to the bottom. Turns out this is upper Kiessee Falls.

We scramble back up a different way.

Lisa goes up through these trees and … I follow. We go back down the trail looking for a way to get down to Kiessee Falls. Everywhere we look is about a 20 ft cliff we have to get down. I’m on the trail and she starts sliding down. She says she’s gonna see if she can find a way down and off she goes scrambling down. This is how it always works. Then after a bit I decide if she can do it so can I. I start to make my way down. By the time I am beside the falls but about 25 feet from the base I see her down there taking pictures. She basically had to slide down there.

I can see the falls side view from where I am but it counts! Here is her pic from the bottom:

I wait where I am as she climbs back up. Just as she reaches where I am at she sees a rope that someone has left for just this reason! Oh well, she doesn’t mind doing it the hard way. We climb a very steep climb up to the trail.

Well we didn’t bring our backpacks so we don’t have any water or food and it’s about 1 pm. Thankfully it’s an easy mile our so back to the road.

When we reach the road we have to walk up it about 1/2 mile to the truck. Lisa discovers she lost her car keys somewhere. There is no possible way to find them. With a little miracle we are able to get a signal near the truck. I called locksmiths, Tow trucks, Toyota and even AAA. The best I get is a guy that would be here in 4 hours at best. Lisa gets a hold of her husband and he leaves Rock Hill at 2.

Well it’s gonna be at least 3 hours and I’m dying of thirst we decide to hike to Courthouse falls. We like this one. It’s a beauty. We decide to drink the water. Then we played around down there awhile. You see we are wearing our Thelma and Louise shirts!

This looks like an awesome swimming hole. I’m not getting in there first but I did climb in thigh high.

Well that took an hour and we have at least 2 more. Lisa suggest another falls but I don’t have the energy so we headed back to the truck. It’s been about 6 hours no food or water. Except the stream water.

We hung out at the truck laughing, telling stories and just enjoying being in the mountains. We never got down or upset about the situation. 2 cars were passing by and I stopped them to see if they had extra water – nope. Then another car came by I stopped and asked him. He gave us a bottle that had already been opened but we drank it anyway.

It was hot we tried to get shade.

Lisa said Grandma Gatewood slept on the leaves and we went down the embankment to chill.

We hung there a while and I went back to the truck. The sun had moved and the Bed liner wasn’t so hot. That guy came back by and offered us a green Tea. We took it. That helped for thirst and hunger cause it had sugar in it.

Then her husband called and couldn’t find us. Lisa decided to run down to highway 215 and catch him driving by and for me to stay in case he called because there was no signal at the bottom. So she ran 2.5 miles. No food or drink. She is badass like that!

My phone died so here I sit. No cars going by. This was my view for an hour.

Not to bad!

After awhile I decided to go walk down the road and here they come. Yay! That was a long way for him to come! 4 hours waiting. I went straight for my PBJ and water!

I’m proud of us though. We never got upset or agitated. 6 miles and 8 ish hours without food and water. We can guarantee we will take our backpack with us no matter how short the hike!

That was a hundred times better than an ordinary work Monday anyway!