Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Falling Water Creek

After delivering the pictures all safe and sound to Clarksville, I still had a few hours left of my day off to spend looking at waterfalls. And luckily that day, the waterfalls were absolutely roaring. This was after the recent snows had melted, and after about two inches of rain had fallen. There was water everywhere.

I drove up to Haw Creek Falls, but wasn't able to cross the low-water bridge into the campsite. That's because the low-water bridge was currently under a lot of high-water. I could see a few people were camping there still, and wondered how long they would have to wait until it was safe to get out. I've been to Haw Creek many times over the years, and I've never seen it with this much water before. 

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Further down the road is the old Hwy. 123 bridge over Big Piney Creek, which was built in 1931. I ran out in the rain to get a quick picture.

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Most of the mountains were covered by thick fog.

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I met up with my good friend Zack Andrews, who lives nearby and is always up for going to see waterfalls. We didn't have much time, so we decided to head over to Falling Water Creek. As the name suggests, Falling Water Creek is home to a good number of scenic waterfalls. And they were definitely running full-tilt that day. Here's the view of the popular Falling Water Falls:

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For a comparison, here's what it usually looks like:

Falling Water Falls

And a few more shots of the falling water at Falling Water Falls...

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There were still some icy spots along the road, but we were able to get around just fine. We stopped at an overlook, which provides a great view of the creek and the foggy mountains.

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And then we made it to Six Finger Falls:

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For a comparison, here's what it looks like when it's not at flood stage:

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The falls are named Six Finger Falls because if you were to look at it from above, it supposedly looks like a hand with six fingers. Here's one last shot from there:

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We drove down Falling Water Road all the way to the Richland Creek campground, and were kinda surprised we didn't see anyone there kayaking. It would have been the perfect day for it (even if the water would have been so cold!).

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