Whiteside Mountain

Tuesday 16 May
With the promise of a better day today, we drove west, past Cashiers, into the Nantahala National Forest, to the trailhead for Whiteside Mountain. It was quite a stiff climb to the top, but as you can see, the views were amazing! There are peregrine falcons nesting on the cliffs, but we didn’t get to see any in flight today. We enjoyed more mountain Laurel and rhododendron along the way. We reluctantly tore ourselves away from the amazing views, and continued the loop which returned on the other side of the mountain, and descended a more gentle way down to the car park. After that we went off waterfall hunting again, culminating in Dry Falls shown in my extra collage. Why would a waterfall be called Dry Falls you may ask?! The answer is since the water falls over an overhang, you can follow the trail behind the falls, and stay (relatively) dry! As we were driving there, the skies had once again become cloudy, and we even had some rain showers, but we were fortunate, and as we arrived the sun came out again for a short while.