The Adventures of Bushwhack Jack

Carson Creek Adventure

Transylvania County, NC

Saturday, June 9th, 2012

Silver Slip Falls

Andy, Darrin, and I figured the morning's CMLC hike would finish up around lunchtime giving us the afternoon for another hike.  Several ideas were tossed around, but I came up with the suggestion to just play it by ear!

During the mornings hike, we received a tip on how to get to the base of Silver Run Falls on Carson Creek.  Silver Run Falls is the spot where Connestee Falls and Batson Creek Falls Merge together and form a single waterfall as one.  Rumor has it this it is a pretty spectacular spot!

After receiving the tip, we all decided that would be our afternoons adventure.

We took a brief stop to check on my truck tire which was looking pretty darn low earlier in the day and noticed it was even lower.  But we would worry about that later!

Following the directions we received, we bushwhacked our way down towards Carson Creek.  Since some after hike research shows that we actually crossed private property, I am not going to post any directions.  However, the only signs we saw during our hike were saying that the land was protected by the Pacolet Area Conservancy.

Once reaching the creek, we immediately found a series of nice cascades.

Cascades along Carson Creek

We decided to head upstream first since that was the direction of Silver Slip Falls.  We stopped on several occasions to check out and photograph some additional cascades and small waterfalls.

Cascades along Carson Creek

We eventually made our way to the base of Silver Slip Falls, which is truly spectacular.  There is a great swimming hole at the base of the falls which Darrin decided to take advantage of.

Darrin at the base of Silver Slip Falls

We spent a good hour there taking it all in and photographing this awesome waterfalls from all vantage points!

Silver Slip Falls

After getting our fill of Silver Slip Falls, we backtracked a bit and continued downstream from where we originally arrived at the creek.  The creek was full of Cascades and Small Waterfalls!  Here is what we found!

Cascades along Carson Creek

 Andy photographing some Cascades along Carson Creek

 Me in Carson creek

 Cascades along Carson Creek

Andy is in the top right of the photo to give a sense of scale

 Small Waterfall along Carson Creek

Cascades along Carson Creek

We did run into a large group of about a dozen young girls who were coming up from the Gwynn Valley Camp downstream.  They warned us that if we continued much further we would enter into the private property of the Gwynn Valley Camp.  The stream looked like it leveled out, so I believe we hit all the highlights.

This was definitely an awesome Waterfall Wandering Adventure!


The Complete set of photos is posted here:
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/582943605JRTBzj

When we returned to my truck, my low tire was now almost completely flat.  Fortunately between the three of us, we were able to figure out how to change over to the spare.  I am pretty sure we would not have impressed any NASCAR pit crews, but we got the job done and decided to head on for one more short adventure to close out the day!

Coming up tomorrow:  Sweet Thing!