Brian Coburn

Easy hike from the Blue Ridge Parkway. Note that the trail starts across from the north end of the parking lot on the west side of the road. Easy out and back. Floods in the area a few years back have greatly impacted the falls in that there are a lot of downed trees clogging the upper part of the falls.

Great trail right off the parkway with good parking, though it was pretty busy the day I went. We started by the restrooms at the North end of the parking lot, taking the stairs down to Second Falls and then taking the loop from there up to the Upper Falls and then back to the parking lot. The trail did get a little confusing in the muddy section towards the Upper Falls, but nothing leads you too far off track. Nice falls and a nice trail minus the muddy sections.

Gorgeous falls on both sides of the bridge. The only downside is that if you want to get down to the falls on either side of the bridge, you will have to do some scrambling, which unless you are comfortable and at easy with climbing over slippery rocks and scrambling down steep embankments, you might want to just get pictures from the road. There is a generous pullout on the north side of the bridge to park at.