Virgin Falls

This waterfall is neat as hell. Because it emerges from a cave opening, rolls over a cliff face, and then vanishes immediately into the ground without producing a stream either from points above the falls, nor points below it. Where it finally emerges is anyone's guess. It is the centerpiece of the Virgin Falls Pocket Wilderness.

The hiking trails around this place are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen anywhere. And I even count Yellowstone and Grand Tetons in that. Why I have only been one time is a mystery. I really need to go back there. Another nice thing about the place is that the Hemlock wooly adelgid has only just arrived in the forests there and so the hemlocks are still alive. I'm not sure how much longer they will be living, so that's another reason for me to return.

Emerging from the cave.

Plummeting into the sinkhole to vanish into the earth.

The day I hiked in was during a horrid drought. One of the worst the South has seen in 100 years. The temperatures were in the mid-90s. But in that sinkhole it was as cool as a crisp Fall evening.

Some Waterfalls from 2007.

Not too much work on the novel today. Work was high pressure due to the retirement of our longest serving letter carrier at the station. Archie Smith is calling it quits after more than forty years working for the USPS. Yep, 40+ years. There was a huge going-away party for Archie which put us (appropriately) off schedule, thus making for a longer day and correspondingly tougher work. I had to walk a lot faster to try to make my normal leave time. But the celebration was the best one in a while. Our station is currently experiencing a high level of retirements since we have more than our share of employees who have more than thirty years of work in at USPS. We've seen quite a few retire this year with more scheduled to cash in their chips before December. It's sad to see them go (especially when I have to stay).

Here are some of the waterfalls Carole and I visited (or sometimes just me) in 2007.

This one, I assume, has no name. It's a falls located in the Tuckerman Ravine on Mount Washington in New Hampshire.

Also on Mount Washington just a short hike above the Joe Dodge Lodge.

I shot this one with the telephoto lens from the opposite side of the Blackwater Canyon in West Virginia. Notice all of the living hemlocks in this shot. I wonder if they're still alive?

This isn't really a natural waterfall. But this old footbridge on the Toe River below Mount Mitchell in North Carolina makes for a great swimming hole. We had a good time there in the summer of 2007.

I found this waterfall by accident when I took the wrong road and trail trying to find the Woody Ridge Trail in the Black Mountains of North Carolina. I think it's called White Oak Falls.

Probably one of the strangest waterfalls I've ever seen. It's called Virgin Falls and is located in the Virgin Falls Pocket Wilderness in Tennessee. The hike down into the valley was hot and muggy. This waterfall appears out of the mouth of a cave and drops down into a sinkhole and then vanishes into the earth again. The amazing thing about the sinkhole was that the temperature PLUMMETED when I hiked down into it. Which was a very refreshing relief from the heat through which I'd been hiking. This is the only waterfall I've ever seen that seems immune to drought. I visited this wilderness in the midst of one of the worst droughts in the past 200 years and while all of the other waterfalls in the area were either dry or nearly dry, this one was chugging away at its normal rate.

Burgess Falls in Tennessee. This waterfall was doing okay during the drought because it's partially fed by a dammed lake above it.

Another, lesser falls, in Burgess Falls State Park in Tennessee.

This is Twin Falls in Rock Island State Park. Although it's not advertised as such, this is an artificial waterfall created by an impounded lake on the other side of the ridge.

Another waterfall in Rock Island State Park.

Blackwater Falls in Blackwater Falls State Park in West Virginia. There have been efforts for years to turn this area and the gorge around it into a new National Park. However, the coal, timber, and gas industries in West Virginia have fought this effort relentlessly. This is why it's important to keep government stronger than corporations. Without government, the population of the USA is at the complete a total mercy of greedy, rapacious, jackass industrialists.

Fall Creek Falls in Tennessee. Again, in the midst of a hideous drought. This waterfall is normally a thundering sight. But the days we were there it was reduced to almost a slight mist filtering over the precipice.

I stitched this together from shots I took from the base of Falls Creek Falls. Technically, this is the single highest drop for a waterfall in the eastern USA. There are higher falls, yes, but none with a higher single unhindered drop.