About Elk River Falls
Elk River Falls was a moderate-volume 40ft waterfall that we ended up going a little bit out-of-the-way to visit, especially considering that we had based ourselves mostly in Asheville and in Brevard.
That was because this waterfall was very close to North Carolina’s border with the far northeastern tip of Tennessee.
Much of the terrain around its very wide plunge pool was smooth rock.
Given how frigidly cold it was the Autumn morning that we showed up (it was 37F), we really didn’t do a whole lot more than take photos of it while keeping our faces and hands from going numb.
I’m not sure if this place would be a popular place to go swimming on a hot Summer’s day, but I could easily imagine such a scene.
As for timing our visit, the Elk River Falls and its basin was almost entirely in the morning shadow.
I’d imagine that had we showed up later, we might have been looking against the sun, which would’ve made photography difficult at best.
There was a long rock that protruded out into the large plunge pool, and it was from here that we took our photos while being careful not to fall into the plunge pool (thanks to the rock sloping on both its sides).
The walk from the parking area was merely 10 minutes or so long.
It started off by rejoining some road before quickly branching downhill towards the right leading to the Elk River (i.e. don’t go left).
There was access to the top of the falls, but the trail continued to descend towards that elongated rock where we could walk all the way to its end to look right at the falls (as you see pictured at the top of this page).
By the way, Elk River Falls also goes by the name Big Falls or Elk Falls.
Authorities
Elk River Falls resides in the Pisgah Game Lands near Banner Elk in Avery County, North Carolina. It is administered by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and the USDA Forest Service. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, visit their website or Facebook page.
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