I had not been out with a full pack in forever so I did this little 5.2 mile loop in the SNP today with my full pack as a warm up for my FlipFlop LASH next weekend. If you are ever in the SNP and have a few hours I highly recommend it. The creek and the falls are beautiful. The trail head is in the South River Picnic Area just a couple of miles north on the SkyLine Drive from the Swift Run Gap entrance (Rt 33). It's about 1.5 miles to the overlook at the top of the falls and about another 1.3 to the bottom. The walk back is a fire road to the AT souhbound back to the parking lot. I stopped for a lot of pictures and a break at the bottom, total time 2 hrs and 15 minutes. (There is a small flat spot near the bottom of the falls big enough for a couple of backpacking sized tents shhhhh.......)

TrafficJam wrote:

socks wrote:

Jim any idea what those pink flowering trees pictured are?

They are Redbuds.

The blooms really were a lot prettier than what that picture shows.

Took the oldest grandson out to Loft Mountain for the weekend for a hike to South River Falls and to try out my new shelter set up. He liked the falls and we had a great campfire dinner and sunset on the AT. And I really like my new set up. Lots of room under the tarp and inside the net tent that I made. Tarp is a 1.5 Canopy from Bear Paw Wilderness, they make a 1 and a 2 but also do special requests. I wanted something big enough that I could leave the side up in the rain and not get splashed on.