#31
September 1, 2026#29
September 3, 2026
Searchable issue transcript
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Foothills Foothills Digest Digest foothills foothills Fall 2026 Display through 12/26 $10.95 What the Water What the Water Remembers Remembers
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Named a TOP 100 HOSPITAL in the Nation for Patient Experience in 2026! Our Other 2026 Honors Include Being Named a Best Hospital for: Obstetrics l Stroke Care l Bariatric Surgery l Minimally Invasive Surgery l Emergency Care l Knee & Hip Replacement l Orthopedics l Pa ti ent Safety
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On the Cover On the Cover McGalliard Falls in Valdese is one of McGalliard Falls in Valdese is one of the region's most-loved waterfalls. the region's most-loved waterfalls. Foothills Digest makes gift- giving easy. Foothills Digest offers gift subscriptions, t-shirts, travel mugs, art, puzzles and more. Foothillsdigest.com/gifts The gift that delivers four times a year. Publisher’s Disclaimer: Foothills Digest is published for informational and entertainment purposes. While every effort is made to provide accurate information, conditions, regulations, access points, prices and other details may change after publication. Outdoor recreation involves inherent risks, and readers are responsible for evaluating current conditions, their own abilities, appropriate equipment and applicable laws before participating. Opinions expressed are those of the individual writers or sources quoted and do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher. © 2026 Foothills Digest. All rights reserved.
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4 3838 Cleary Rd Laurel Springs, NC 28644 Issue #31 2026 Phone: 828.475.1323 E-mail editor@Foothillsdigest.com Website Foothillsdigest.com Stock by Adobe Stock Created using Adobe Suite Edited with the assistance of OpenAI PRINTED IN USA AT MONROE PRESS PARTNER COMPANY: ECKARD PHOTOGRAPHIC CARMEN ECKARD Editor-in-Chief Author JON ECKARD Photographer JOEY OSBORNE Partner SPECIAL THANKS Rena, Carter and Wyatt Hall Annie Achor CONTRIBUTOR Ben Sullivan Matt Ledbetter " Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light." -Joseph Pulitzer foothills Digest 3838 Cleary Rd Laurel Springs, NC 28644 Issue #32 2026 Phone: 828.475.1323 E-mail editor@foothillsdigest.com Website foothillsdigest.com Stock by Adobe Stock Created using Adobe Suite Edited with the assistance of OpenAI PRINTED IN USA AT MONROE PRESS PARTNER COMPANY: ECKARD PHOTOGRAPHIC CARMEN ECKARD Editor-in-Chief Author JON ECKARD Photographer JOEY OSBORNE Partner SPECIAL THANKS Rena, Carter & Wyatt Hall Annie Achor CONTRIBUTOR Ben Sullivan AD SPONSORS Rebecca Fredericks Erin Wolfhope Dawn Beasley " Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light." -Joseph Pulitzer
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5 Dear Readers, I have long felt that rivers know some of the best lessons life has to teach us. They do not fight their way forward. They persist. They keep moving, finding the next opening, returning to the same stone until even the landscape begins to change. Their persistence has shaped mountains, built communities and made our day-to-day lives possible. I believed in that idea strongly enough that we named our son River. When I think about the memories I am making with my own children, water always rises to the top. There is the Nantahala, where we laughed and paddled and got soaked together. There is the New River, where the day slowed down enough for everyone to notice the sky. There are creeks where my boys have crouched with nets and jars, looking for tiny moving things beneath rocks. And there are lake days, which, in our family, have become their own kind of language. My dad died recently, and that has made memory feel closer to the surface. When I think about what my children have of him, so much of it is tied to Lake Hickory: him taking us out on his boat, the sun on the water, the easy happiness of being together with nowhere urgent to go. You can still often find us scooting around Lake Hickory in our own vintage boat, a 1965 Dixie Boat made right here in the Foothills. It is small and old and wonderful, and I love that it carries our family across the same water that has carried so many other families and stories. That is where this issue began for me: with love, and with the feeling that water is always trying to teach us something. We set out to make an issue about the rivers and lakes of the Foothills because they are part of how people here live. They are where we cool off, learn courage, fish badly or well, paddle for the first time, return after hard seasons and teach our children to pay attention. The deeper we looked, the more we found: childhood, town history, dams, stocked trout, old roads under lakes, riverkeepers, drinking water, flooded valleys and questions about what comes next. Rivers keep going. Quietly, patiently, they shape everything around them. Somewhere in your own life, there is probably water, too. We made this issue for that. With gratitude, Carmen Eckard Editor-in-Chief
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5 Letter from the Editor 8 The Rivers 10 The River We Never See 14 The Rivers and Their Basins 17 The Riverkeepers 22 The Folks Who Open the Water 24 The New River: An Ancient Float 26 Creek Kids 28 Cold Water Country: The Watauga River 32 The Places Anglers Don’t Name 36 Trout Stocking 40 Before the First Cast 42 Chef Sullivan’s Appalachian Kitchen 44 The Yadkin River 48 Paddle the Upper Yadkin 52 The Catawba 56 The Catawba Chain 61 The Mill Beneath the Lake 62 The French Broad 66 Snot Otters, Hellbenders & Devil Dogs 68 The Broad River 70 What Held, What Failed 71 Water Heroes 72 Where the Mountains Let Go 80 The Forgotten Paddle Trail 82 Where the Water Runs Fast 87 The Road Above the Rivers 88 An Authentic Treasure Map 90 The Grizzly Foragers Find the Blue Ridge 92 Dixie: The Boats Built in Newton 94 What Kind of Water Day? 99 Water Days 100 Wildwater: A Grand Adventure 101 3 Bars, 3 Landscapes 102 What’s in Your Bag? 106 Dress for Success 108 Repair Before Replace 110 ENO’s Hammock Without the Trees 112 The Brewery & The Watershed 114 Sharks on Main Street 116 What the Rivers Left Behind 120 Rosemary’s Remembrances: The Yellow Scarf 125 The Rivers We Didn’t Dam 126 The Shared Glass 131 The Water Remembers Its Way Table Table y y Contents Contents Scan for information about our Advertisers. Foothills Digest is a proud sponsor of MerleFest, the Catawba Valley Pottery Festival and the Foothills Folk Art Festival.
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Before we knew the names of rivers, we knew what water felt like. We knew the shock of a cold creek around our ankles, the green-brown smell of lake water drying in our hair and the slap of wet flip-flops against a dock. We knew sunburned shoulders, mud between our toes and the sound of someone yelling, “Watch this!” before jumping from a rock, a rope swing, a low bridge or someplace their mother probably would not have approved. In the Foothills, water is one of the first ways many of us learn where we are. It might be the creek behind a grandmother’s house, shallow enough to cross in tennis shoes. It might be a farm pond, a public boat ramp, a roadside waterfall or a swimming hole everybody knows about but nobody wants described too clearly in a magazine. Sometimes it is a lake so familiar that we forget the wide blue surface was created by concrete, turbines, gates and decisions made long before we were born. Most of us come to water for joy. We arrive with coolers, towels, tackle boxes and sunscreen, often with children asking how much longer. We come for trout streams and pontoon rides, kayak launches and tubing trips, first swims and last casts. In July and August, when heat settles heavily into the valleys, the shade beside moving water can feel like mercy. These places hold some of our easiest memories: a grandfather tying a lure, teenagers sitting on a dock at dusk, a wet dog shaking beside the boat, a mother counting heads from a camp chair. Families return to the same bend or cove until the place becomes part of their history. Years later, they may forget what everyone wore or what they ate, but they remember the light on the water and who was there. Long before rivers powered mills or filled reservoirs, they were already doing the harder work of this region: taking the mountains apart. Rain entered cracks, creeks cut valleys and rivers carried sand, clay and stone toward the Atlantic and Gulf. There has never been a finished mountain. The rivers have been remaking them all along. Then we began remaking the rivers. We used them to power mills and move timber, soil, goods and people. Later, dams turned flowing rivers into managed systems that generate electricity, supply drinking water and support towns, industries and economies. Lake James, Lake Hickory, Lake Norman and Lake Wylie may feel as permanent as the mountains beside them, but each one occupies an older landscape of roads, farms, communities and river channels. The The Rivers Rivers
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The same water that carries a boat on Saturday may fill a kitchen glass on Monday. It receives rain from rooftops and parking lots, soil from bare banks and runoff from farms, streets and construction sites. It must serve homes, businesses, power plants, wildlife and growing towns, often all at once. A beautiful view across a lake can contain an enormous amount of machinery, labor and public responsibility. There is also a crowded world inside water that many of us pass without seeing. Mussels filter quietly in the streambed. Darters hold between stones. Crayfish disappear beneath ledges, trout gather in cold pockets and salamanders press themselves into wet shadows. Insects clinging to a rock may reveal more about a creek’s health than its appearance from a bridge. Clear water can be troubled. Muddy water can be recovering. The people who spend their lives beside rivers learn to notice the difference. Anglers recognize when a familiar pool has warmed or filled with silt. Paddling guides watch the sky upstream. Farmers notice shrinking flow. Dam operators study gauges and release schedules. Riverkeepers collect samples, restore banks and follow pollution back toward its source. Families remember when the lake was low, when the creek dried to stones, when the bridge washed away and when the fish returned. Helene sharpened that attention across Western North Carolina. Creeks crossed roads, rivers left their familiar channels and places that had seemed permanent were rearranged in hours. The storm revealed the scale of moving water in steep country, but destruction is only part of the story. These rivers remain places of work, play, wildlife, history and recovery. People have returned to their banks with fishing rods, kayaks, testing equipment, cleanup crews and children eager to get their feet wet again. A magazine about rivers, then, is really about the exchange between water and people. Rivers shaped the land before we were here, then influenced where towns grew, where roads could go, how industries developed and how families spent their summers. We shaped them in return. They connect a mill village to a marina, a hydro station to a heron, a storm drain to a swimming hole and an old road beneath a lake to the boat passing above it. This issue looks more closely at the water we already love: the cold creeks where trout hold, the reservoirs that carry our weekends, the fast rivers that test our nerve and the working systems that keep towns alive. We went looking for beauty, history, pleasure, danger, wildlife, memory and the difficult questions gathering around a growing region. We found them all in the water.
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The River We Never See The River We Never See T The Blue Ridge Snorkel Trail reveals the he Blue Ridge Snorkel Trail reveals the living world beneath our mountain waters living world beneath our mountain waters
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Most of us know rivers from above. We know the sound of them beside a trail, the cold shock of stepping in, the green-brown blur of water moving over stone. We know rivers as places to fish from, float on, wade across, photograph and picnic beside. We know the surface: the flash of sun, the white line of current, the slick rock, the place where the water drops suddenly and demands caution. But a river from underneath is another world. That is the simple, wonderful promise of the Blue Ridge Snorkel Trail. It is not exactly a trail in the way the name might suggest. There is no underwater path to follow, no roped course, no guide waiting with fins and a clipboard. Instead, the trail is a collection of public river and stream access points across the mountains where visitors are encouraged to put on a mask and snorkel, get low in clear water and notice what has been there all along. At each site, educational signs explain where you are, what you might see and how to snorkel without hurting yourself or the river. The official list includes mountain waters from Stone Mountain to Robbinsville, Cullowhee, Bryson City, Canton, Franklin, Andrews, Marion, Rosman, Marshall and even Damascus, Virginia. Sites can sometimes close because of storm damage or changing conditions, so this is one of those adventures where it is worth checking the official Blue Ridge Snorkel Trail website before setting out. At the Catawba River site along the Marion Greenway, the sign is enough to make a person stop before ever stepping into the water. It displays the Blue Ridge Snorkel Trail logo, safety notes, partner information and photographs of creatures found in that stretch of river: fieryblack shiner, greenhead shiner, eastern elliptio, bluehead chub, Piedmont darter, notched rainbow, brook floater, notchlip redhorse, seagreen darter and margined madtom. Some are bright and quick. Some are shelled and nearly still. Some look almost tropical in their colors, which is startling when standing beside a mountain river in wet shoes. That is part of the surprise. Snorkeling usually seems to belong somewhere else. Coral reefs. Palm trees. Warm turquoise water. Vacation. This is rhododendron leaves, river stones, sneakers on the bank and water cold enough to make anyone question their commitment to discovery. At first, it can feel a little ridiculous. There you are beside a cold mountain stream with a snorkel mask in your hand, trying to convince yourself this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do in the mountains. The strap catches your hair. The mouthpiece feels awkward. You kneel. You lean forward. You put your face in the river. The cold hits first. It is not the polite coolness of a swimming pool. It is mountain cold, immediate and clean, the kind that makes the whole body wake up at once. For a second, there is only the sound of breathing through the snorkel and the strange nearness of water pressing against the mask. Then the eyes adjust. What looked empty from above is not empty at all. The riverbed becomes a moving neighborhood. Pebbles turn into hiding places. Shadows become fish. Small bodies hold themselves impossibly still in the current, then flick away so quickly they seem to vanish. A crayfish backs under a rock with the offended dignity of something interrupted at home. In the wavering light, the whole stream seems alive with tiny decisions.
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The Clay Spencer Ironsmith Shop is exceptional, and many instructors and students come back year after year. That may be the real gift of river snorkeling. It changes the scale of attention. From above, a stream can become scenery. Underwater, it becomes a neighborhood. There are territories and hiding places, quick escapes and quiet corners, lives being lived in water most people have stepped through without ever really seeing. The Blue Ridge Snorkel Trail was developed by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, MountainTrue and Mainspring Conservation Trust, with support from partners including the Tennessee Valley Authority and the N.C. Chapter of the American Fisheries Society. The idea is simple: people are more likely to care for a river once they have looked closely at what lives there. The trail describes itself as a series of publicly accessible river and stream locations where people can safely snorkel and experience the underwater world. And the face of a mountain river is not blank. It is speckled and finned and shelled. It is crayfish claws, small fish flashing between stones, mussels holding their place in the riverbed, aquatic insects clinging where the current presses hardest and the quicksilver movement of things that have always known the river better than humans do. River snorkeling rewards patience. Kick too much and the view clouds over. Rush and everything disappears. Stay still and the fish begin moving again. A good river snorkel is not a thrill ride. It is quieter than that. Stranger. More intimate. The current moves past your ears. Your breath sounds mechanical and loud. Above, the ordinary world keeps going: birds, voices, distant traffic, people moving along the bank. Below, everything is softened and magnified. Stones glow. Fish appear and disappear. A leaf tumbles past like a message.
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Then you come up. Your face is cold. Your hair is wet. Your hands may be numb. Everyone begins trying to explain what they saw. A fish darted beneath a ledge. A mussel rested almost invisibly among the stones. A crayfish disappeared into a dark opening. Someone already wants to put the mask back on. The river, which only minutes before looked like water passing over rocks, now feels crowded with life. Once you have seen that crowded little world, the river never looks empty again. Most people have spent their lives looking at rivers from banks, bridges, boats, trails, picnic blankets and car windows while crossing on the way to somewhere else. The Blue Ridge Snorkel Trail offers a different invitation. It does not require much: a mask, a snorkel, sturdy footwear, safe water and the willingness to feel a little silly for a minute. For a few cold moments, let the surface stop being the whole story. The river you thought you knew has been carrying another world inside it all along. Blue Ridge Snorkel Trail Sites Little Tennessee River Queen Branch Preserve, Franklin Valley River Heritage Park, Andrews Catawba River Marion Greenway French Broad River Champion Park, Rosman Shelton Laurel Creek Laurel Community Center, Marshall Swannanoa River at Veterans Park Black Mountain East Prong Roaring River Stone Mountain State Park Cheoah River Joyce Kilmer Bridge, Robbinsville Tuckasegee River East LaPorte Park, Cullowhee Tuckasegee River Bryson City Island Park Pigeon River Canton Boat Ramp Mills River Snorkel Site Mills River
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The Rive R s and Thei R Basins A river basin is the land that drains into a particular river system. Every creek, spring, hollow, ditch, slope and ridgeline helps decide where water travels. Rain that falls on one side of a mountain may eventually flow toward one river, while rain falling just a few feet away on the other side of the divide may begin an entirely different journey. That is what this map shows: not county lines, town limits or roads, but the natural boundaries of western North Carolina’s water. A river basin is a kind of natural address. It tells us where our water begins, where it gathers, where it leaves us and who we are connected to downstream. Western North Carolina is shaped by several major river basins: 1. The New Rive R begins in the mountains of northwestern North Carolina and flows north, eventually leaving the state and joining larger river systems beyond our borders. It is one of the oldest rivers in North America and is known for gentle paddling, fishing, farms and mountain communities built along its banks. 2. The w a T auga Basi N gathers water from the High Country around places like Boone, Blowing Rock, Valle Crucis and Banner Elk. Its cold mountain streams support trout, recreation and communities that depend on clean headwater creeks. Like the New, the Watauga does not stay in North Carolina; it flows west into Tennessee. 3. The Yadkin–Pee d ee Basi N drains much of the eastern edge of the mountains and foothills before carrying water across North Carolina toward the coastal plain and into South Carolina. In our region, it gathers water from foothill creeks, farms, towns and reservoirs, connecting the Blue Ridge to a much larger river system. 4. The French Broad Basi N is one of the great mountain watersheds of western North Carolina. The river flows through places like Brevard, Hendersonville, Asheville and Madison County before entering Tennessee. It is a working and recreational river: paddled, fished, tubed, crossed, restored and deeply tied to the identity of the mountains. 5. The c a T awba Basi N is one of the most important working watersheds in the region. Beginning in the mountains, it flows through a chain of lakes including Lake James, Lake Rhodhiss, Lake Hickory, Lookout Shoals and Lake Norman. It supplies drinking water, power, recreation, industry and daily life for much of the western Piedmont. 6. The Li T t L e Te N nessee Basi N belongs to the far western mountains. Its waters flow through some of the most biologically rich river country in the Southeast, supporting cold streams, mountain communities, rare aquatic life, paddling, fishing and a long human history along the river.
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7. The Broad Rive R Basi N gathers water from the southern mountains and Foothills before flowing into South Carolina. It includes rivers and creeks that drain parts of Henderson, Rutherford, Polk and Cleveland counties, tying mountain slopes, foothill farms, small towns and paddle routes into one larger system. 8. The Hiwassee Basi N occupies part of the far western mountains and sends its water toward Tennessee. It is a basin of steep slopes, cold streams, mountain lakes and forested headwaters, with rivers that support fishing, paddling, wildlife and communities tucked into the southwestern corner of the state. 9. The s ava N nah Basi N touches only a small corner of Western North Carolina, but even that small piece matters. Water from this area eventually becomes part of the larger Savannah River system, flowing away from North Carolina and toward the Atlantic. It is a reminder that even a small headwater area can connect us to places far downstream. Together, these basins show that water does not follow the lines we draw on maps. It follows gravity, stone, soil and slope. To know your basin is to understand that every creek, lake, spring and muddy ditch is part of a much larger story — and that what happens upstream never stays there.
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Most of us think about the river when we have time to enjoy it. We think about paddling on a quiet morning, teaching a child to fish, cooling off on a hot afternoon or watching the sun settle across one of the Catawba lakes. We notice the beauty. We notice when the water is high enough to launch a boat or clear enough to see the bottom. There is another group of people who notice different things. They notice a creek that stays muddy long after the rain has ended. They notice a stretch of bank beginning to erode. They notice when a familiar swimming hole suddenly fails a bacteria test or when a storm has washed more than water into the river. They are the people who watch the water.
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18 Every Thursday morning during the recreation season, volunteers spread across the Catawba River basin carrying coolers, sample bottles and long sampling poles. They visit nearly 60 sites stretching from above Lake James through the Foothills and Piedmont to Lake Wateree in South Carolina. Some collect samples from popular swimming areas. Others gather water from public boat accesses and riverbanks. Volunteer runners then drive those coolers to one of Catawba Riverkeeper’s laboratories, where another team begins the careful process of finding out what the river has to say. For Brandon Jones, the Catawba Riverkeeper, this weekly ritual is only one part of a much larger job. Riverkeepers investigate pollution reports, restore damaged streams, organize cleanups, educate the public, work with landowners, businesses and local governments and advocate for healthier rivers long before problems become emergencies. They spend enough time on the water to recognize when something has changed. A river cannot speak for itself. It cannot tell a county commissioner that another development needs better stormwater controls. It cannot report a leaking sewer line or ask someone to stabilize an eroding bank. It cannot remind people that every storm drain eventually leads somewhere. So someone has to speak for the river. Across North Carolina and the country, Riverkeeper organizations serve as watchdogs for the waterways they protect. Some focus on a single river. Others, including Catawba Riverkeeper, work across an entire watershed, recognizing that every creek, tributary and stream eventually flows into something larger.
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One sample we watched Brandon collect came from the South Fork Catawba River. Looking at the brown water, he suspected it would likely fail for swimming. But experience is not evidence. “That’s why we sample,” he said. “It looks gross. But how gross is it? We’re going to quantify it.” Back at the laboratory, every sample begins with turbidity, a measurement of how cloudy the water has become. Muddy water is not automatically unsafe. Rivers in the American West often run brown with natural sediment, while North Carolina’s coastal blackwater rivers owe their dark color to tannins released from fallen leaves. Here in the Catawba basin, however, muddy water after a rain often tells another story. Stormwater washes across roads, parking lots, neighborhoods, farms and construction sites before flowing into nearby creeks. Along the way it picks up sediment, fertilizer, pet waste, agricultural runoff and other pollutants. Heavy rains can also overwhelm aging sewer systems, temporarily raising bacteria levels in nearby waterways. The laboratory’s second test looks for E. coli, an indicator of fecal contamination. A special reagent is mixed into each sample before it is sealed into a plastic tray divided into dozens of tiny wells. After incubating overnight, the trays are placed beneath ultraviolet light. Some wells remain dark. Others glow bright fluorescent green. That pattern tells Riverkeeper staff how much bacteria is present and whether a site meets recreational-water standards. The work is slow and methodical. Collecting the sample takes only a few minutes. Understanding it takes nearly a full day. Yet the results answer one of the questions people ask every summer: Is it safe to swim today? Many people assume a government agency routinely tests North Carolina’s lakes and rivers for recreation. In most freshwater locations, that simply isn’t true. Public swimming pools must be tested. North Carolina’s coastal beaches are monitored under a federal program because millions of people swim there each year. But most freshwater swimming areas have no comparable statewide testing requirement.
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20 “If you have a pool in the neighborhood, that pool has to be tested,” Jones said. “But the lake itself?” That gap is one reason Catawba Riverkeeper’s Swim Guide program exists. Around 580,000 people viewed its Swim Guide results last year. Before heading to the lake with children, planning a paddle or choosing a place to swim, people want reliable information rather than guesses based on how the water looks. The results are available to everyone. During recreation season, readers can check current conditions through Catawba Riverkeeper’s Swim Guide page or the Swim Guide website before heading to the water. Appearances, after all, can be deceiving. A failed test may be confined to a single cove or tributary after a storm. One section of a lake can have elevated bacteria while another remains perfectly safe. Likewise, crystal-clear water is not necessarily clean. The only reliable way to know is to test it. Watching the water extends well beyond the laboratory. Catawba Riverkeeper organizes cleanups throughout the basin, including paddling cleanups where volunteers remove trash from kayaks and canoes. Through grant-funded tactical cleanups, crews may spend six to eight hours cleaning a single mile of river because that stretch needs the attention. Each fall, hundreds of volunteers participate in Riversweep, removing tons of litter from waterways across the basin in a single day. The organization also restores damaged streambanks, plants native vegetation and works with communities to reduce erosion before it becomes a larger problem. Like most nonprofits, they accomplish all of this with limited resources. Their laboratory occupies a former boathouse that once housed a kayak rental operation. When an old hydroelectric system serving the property was dismantled, reconnecting to the electrical grid would have cost roughly $85,000. Instead, donated solar panels from another project and a group of determined volunteers transformed the building into a functioning off-grid workspace.
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21 “It’s very jerry-rigged,” Jones said with a laugh. “But the building’s free, and we have so many boats and all our field equipment and all of our restoration gear. We just need the square footage. We’re making it work.” That attitude seems to define the organization. Whatever challenge appears—funding, flooding, pollution, invasive species, erosion or another storm—they simply get back to work. Most of us will never meet the volunteers who collected the sample from our favorite swimming area. We will never see the trays glowing beneath ultraviolet light or the hours spent entering data before results are posted online. We may never notice the streambank that no longer erodes because someone planted native shrubs there years ago, or the stretch of river that is cleaner because volunteers quietly filled another canoe with trash. We will simply enjoy a healthier river. Perhaps that is the greatest measure of their success. The people who watch the water are not trying to keep us away from it. They are making it possible for the rest of us to enjoy it with confidence. And every time we paddle a quiet cove, cast a fishing line into clear water or watch our children splash along the shore, we are benefiting from work that began long before we arrived— and from people who cared enough to keep watching. OUR VIEW North Carolina can do better. Families should not have to wonder whether a favorite swimming hole is safe simply because a nonprofit ran out of grant money. Recreational water testing should not depend entirely on annual fundraising, donations and volunteers. The information is too useful, and too many people depend on it. We believe North Carolina should establish reliable public funding for regular freshwater recreational-water testing. Riverkeeper organizations have already built volunteer networks, laboratories, sampling programs and public tools that make those results useful. Around 580,000 views of Catawba Riverkeeper’s Swim Guide results in a single year make it clear that people want this information. Stable funding could help ensure that weekly testing continues throughout the recreation season and that families can make informed decisions before putting children in the water. If you agree, use your voice. At Foothillsdigest.com/water, we are gathering resources to help: information about this issue, ways to find and contact your state representatives, organizations working to protect North Carolina’s waterways and practical ideas for getting involved. You do not have to know everything about water policy before you speak up. You just have to care what happens to the water where you live.
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The Folks Who Open the Water The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission Most days on the water begin with something deeply unromantic: a slab of concrete. You back the trailer down it. Drag the kayak across it. Stand at the end of it while somebody parks the truck. Maybe you complain that it is too crowded or slippery or that the person ahead of you has apparently never launched a boat before. What you probably do not think is: Who put this here? A lake can have 100 miles of shoreline and still be almost useless to the public if there is nowhere legal to reach it. A river may pass within sight of a road for miles without a safe place to park, unload a canoe or climb down the bank. Public water and publicly accessible water are not the same thing. Across North Carolina, one of the organizations working in that gap is the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. The name makes it easy to picture deer, bears and game wardens in the woods. But in Western North Carolina, an enormous amount of the Commission’s work follows water. It builds boating and fishing access areas, manages fisheries, operates hatcheries, studies aquatic wildlife, restores habitat, enforces boating laws and responds when an ordinary afternoon on the water becomes an emergency. Some of its most important work starts before anyone launches. A boating access area requires land, engineering, permits, parking, drainage, ramps or paddle launches and a plan for maintaining all of it. Many are created in partnership with local governments, utilities and landowners. Once they are open, somebody still has to keep the ramp usable, repair damaged facilities, maintain docks and piers and figure out what happens when a storm moves the shoreline somewhere it was not supposed to go. That concrete ramp may be the difference between a lake that belongs mostly to shoreline property owners and one a family with a borrowed canoe can actually use. The same is true of fishing access. A well-designed public site can give an older angler a level path to the water, provide a fishing pier for someone who cannot scramble down a bank and create a place where parents can take children without first knowing the secret path everybody else in town seems to know. Those places also give wildlife officers and rescue crews dependable points to reach the water when something goes wrong. In that sense, every public access is a small promise: you do not have to own waterfront property to belong here. Once you are on the water, the Commission’s work becomes harder to see. Fisheries biologists are constantly trying to understand what is happening beneath the surface. They sample fish populations, study reproduction and age, watch how species respond to changing habitat and use that information to help determine seasons, size limits, harvest limits and special regulations. Those signs posted beside trout streams—Hatchery Supported, Delayed Harvest, Wild Trout, Catch-and-Release—are the visible end of much larger management decisions. Each designation represents a different attempt to balance the fish living there with the way people want to fish. The fish coming from a hatchery are another part of that system. Trout do not simply appear in a mountain stream because somebody decided Tuesday was stocking day. They have already spent months being bred, hatched, raised, monitored and moved through a system designed to put the right fish into the right water. We follow that process from hatchery to stream on page 36. But managing fish is not simply about giving anglers more fish to catch. Biologists also have to know when a population is struggling, when habitat has changed and when a species needs more protection than harvest. They study water temperature, reproduction, movement and the other species sharing the same system. A river full of trout is not necessarily a healthy river if everything beneath them is disappearing. That is why some of the Commission’s aquatic work involves animals most people will never catch, and may never see at all: freshwater mussels, crayfish, small native fish and salamanders tucked beneath rocks. One of the strangest is the eastern hellbender, a giant aquatic salamander whose survival depends on cool, clean, well-oxygenated streams. Commission biologists have spent years locating populations and studying what happens to them when rivers change. After Helene, that work became even more important as entire streambeds were rearranged. We go looking for the hellbender on page 66.
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23 The Commission’s responsibility is really the whole living system around those animals. Forested streambanks shade cold water. Stable soil keeps sediment from burying spaces beneath rocks. Culverts can either allow aquatic animals to move upstream or turn a stream into disconnected pieces. A road project, eroding bank or poorly placed crossing may affect far more than the patch of ground where the work happens. Commission biologists and habitat specialists review projects that could affect streams and wetlands and recommend ways to reduce damage. They work on streambank restoration, habitat improvement and projects that reconnect waterways divided by barriers. They do not control every part of the river. Water quality, dams, wastewater, development and drinking-water systems involve other agencies, utilities and local governments. The Commission’s particular piece of the puzzle centers on fish and wildlife, their habitat and the people using those waters. Then a storm comes along and scrambles everybody’s plans. After a major flood, an access site that worked perfectly well the week before may be buried in mud, scoured out, blocked by debris or left beside a river channel that has changed shape. Parking areas wash. Banks collapse. Roads disappear. Stocking routes may no longer reach the places they once did. Commission staff inspect damaged access areas, close places that are unsafe, adjust routes and begin the less glamorous work of getting people back to the water. Helene made that work especially visible across Western North Carolina. Rivers that people knew intimately became unfamiliar. Access points disappeared. Hazards moved. Roads and bridges failed. Even experienced boaters could no longer assume that last year’s route was still this year’s river. That leads to another side of the Wildlife Commission most people encounter only when a blue light flashes across the water. Wildlife officers are state law-enforcement officers whose jurisdiction includes boats and waterways. They enforce boating laws, investigate accidents and help respond to emergencies. Specialized personnel participate in swift-water rescues and recoveries when someone is stranded, missing or in danger. Their job puts them at the uncomfortable intersection between recreation and consequence. Most trips end exactly as planned. The boat returns to the ramp. The fish goes into the cooler or back into the water. The children complain that they are hungry. Everybody piles into the truck wet and tired. Occasionally, someone does not come back. A current changes. A person falls from a boat. Weather arrives faster than expected. Alcohol and speed become a dangerous combination. Someone enters moving water without understanding what it can do. No agency can make wild water harmless. A ramp, regulation, life jacket requirement or patrol boat cannot replace judgment. Rivers rise. Debris moves. Lake conditions change. The same stretch of water can be forgiving one day and dangerous the next. What the Commission can do is build a safer way into that world and be there when something goes wrong. And that may be the easiest way to understand the scope of its work. Think about one ordinary Saturday. A family pulls into a free public access and parks. The ramp is there because someone secured and developed the site. The fishing regulations posted nearby came from years of studying what lives in the water. The trout upstream may have passed through a state hatchery. The mussels beneath the surface and salamanders under the rocks are part of ongoing biological work most visitors will never see. The bank beside the parking lot may have been stabilized after a flood. The wildlife officer passing in a patrol boat is watching for the problems everybody hopes will never happen. Then the family pushes away from shore, and the day feels entirely their own. The best public infrastructure disappears into the experience it makes possible. We notice the mountain reflected in the lake, the child holding up a first fish, the heron lifting from the bank or the quiet stretch of river ahead. We do not notice the ramp. But somebody had to open the water.
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24 The New The New River River An Ancient Float The New River carries deep time, but most of us meet it from a tube. Nobody arrives at the New River prepared for its age. They arrive with towels and coolers, river shoes rolling around in the car, children slick with sunscreen and teenagers pretending they are not excited. They bring snacks, sunglasses, dry bags and the hope that everyone will get along for a few hours. They arrive ready to float. Maybe that is the best way to meet an old river. The New does not announce itself with thunder. It waits in the valley, brown-green and shining, slipping past pasture and sycamore, carrying the mountains in particles too small to look like history. Then someone drops in a tube. A child climbs in backward. A father tries to tie three tubes together and immediately knots the rope. Someone loses a flip-flop. Someone forgets the paddle. A mother leans back, closes her eyes and lets the current take her weight. The river receives them all. That is the lovely thing about the New. It is ancient without being aloof. It has worked through this landscape for longer than our minds can comfortably hold, yet on a summer afternoon it is perfectly willing to carry a cooler full of juice boxes. The people in old artwork stepped into this water wearing very different clothes, but the impulse looks familiar. They came to cool off, gather together and feel the current around their legs. Generations later, we are still finding our way into the river. From a tube, deep time does not feel like a museum label. It feels like sunlight on your knees. It feels like the slow turn of the current when your tube spins backward and you stop fighting it. It feels like looking into the leaves while the river moves beneath you, patient as breath. The New is often called one of North America’s oldest rivers. Even without knowing the geology, the body seems to understand something about it. There is a settled feeling here. The river does not rush to impress you. It has already outlasted almost everything. So people slow down with it.
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25 Weekends fall into its rhythm: damp towels over porch railings, coffee in metal mugs, children asking how soon they can get back in the water. Afternoons belong to tubing, paddling and swimming. By evening, the air smells like charcoal, wet shoes, bug spray and woodsmoke. There are mountain rivers that roar, drop and dare you. On many of its family-friendly stretches, the New offers something gentler. It lets beginners find their balance. It lets children discover the pull of a current. It gives families a way to be outside together without turning the day into a test of bravery. For teenagers, it can feel like freedom. They drift ahead with friends, stretch their legs across their tubes and act as though the adults are impossibly far away when they are really just around the bend. For longtime residents, the river carries another kind of memory: swimming holes before they appeared on maps, summer days before shuttle vans and bends known through family stories rather than brochures. Some things have changed. The river still takes the same slow turns. It still gathers the afternoon light. It still slides past farms, trees and gravel bars. It still makes room for children, old-timers, first-timers, campers and the people who return every year without quite being able to explain why. The New is ancient, but a day on it does not have to feel solemn. Most people meet it with a tube, a cooler and somebody asking where the takeout is. That may be exactly right. People have been stepping into this river for generations. On a summer afternoon, we still do. FOR AN EASY TUBE-AND-SHUTTLE DAY: FOR AN EASY TUBE-AND-SHUTTLE DAY: Established outfitters near Jefferson, Crumpler, Todd and Boone offer rentals and shuttle service. Options include Zaloo’s Canoes, Riverside Canoe, New River Outfitters and High Mountain Expeditions. FOR A STATE PARK BASECAMP: FOR A STATE PARK BASECAMP: The U.S. 221 Access at New River State Park near Laurel Springs offers a visitor center, river access, trails, picnic areas and overnight camping, including full- hookup RV sites. FOR A PLANNED PADDLE: FOR A PLANNED PADDLE: Trips can be built around the park’s U.S. 221, Wagoner, Kings Creek and Elk Shoals access points. Check distances, water levels and shuttle logistics before launching. FOR A NO-FLOAT VISIT: FOR A NO-FLOAT VISIT: Spend the day at U.S. 221 or Elk Shoals. Bring lunch, walk a trail and sit beside the water. Not every river day requires a tube. The New River
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26 Creek Kids Give a child a net, a jar and a shallow creek, and suddenly the whole day has a purpose. The creek that adults step across without thinking becomes, to a child, a place worth studying. There are minnows to watch, rocks to turn, crawdads to argue with, mud to sink into and enough small movement along the edges to keep everyone busy for an afternoon. The best creek days do not require a grand plan. They require slow water, old shoes, a little patience and an adult willing to let the children get wet. Start simple. A small dip net, a clear plastic jar, a magnifying glass and a towel are plenty. Add water shoes or old sneakers, sunscreen, bug spray, a snack and a dry change of clothes if you are feeling organized. A field guide can be fun, but it is not required. Children are usually happy to begin with categories like “tiny fish,” “weird bug,” “very angry crawdad” and “something moved but I lost it.” Choose the right spot before anyone gets too excited. Look for shallow, slow-moving water where children can stand safely and adults can reach them quickly. Avoid creeks after heavy rain, when the water is high, cloudy or moving fast. Watch for slick rocks, sudden holes, broken glass, fishing line, sharp metal and places where the bank drops off. Bare feet may feel nostalgic, but old sneakers or water shoes are better. Once everyone is in, the main rule is gentleness. Creek creatures are not toys, and the creek is not a bucket to be emptied. Teach children to move slowly, keep their hands low and watch before they grab. If they turn over a rock, they should turn it carefully and put it back the way they found it. If they catch a crawdad, minnow or insect, they can admire it briefly in a jar of creek water, then return it to the same quiet place. The jar is for looking, not keeping. Wet hands are kinder than dry hands if a child must touch a small creature, and some things are better left alone completely. Salamanders, for example, are delicate. Mussels should not be moved. Fish do not need to be squeezed, chased or carried around proudly in a cup. A good creek day teaches children that every creature they find already belongs somewhere. That does not make the day less fun. It gives the fun a little structure. Children can search for minnows in the shallows, crawdads tucked under rock ledges, caddisfly cases made of sand and sticks, water striders dimpling the surface, snails on stones and salamanders in damp edges near the bank. They can compare rocks, float leaves, build tiny boats from bark, listen for frogs or sit still long enough to see the creek start moving again after their feet have stirred it up. The most important thing an adult can do is resist the urge to turn wonder into a lecture too quickly. Let the child notice first. Let them shout, “Come look at this!” Let them guess. Let them be wrong. Then, gently, help them connect what they are seeing to the larger lesson: this little branch is alive, and the way we treat it matters. That lesson can stay small. Pick up trash before you leave. Take fishing line out of the creek if you see it. Stay on durable paths when possible instead of trampling the bank. Do not pour out snacks, soap, sunscreen or anything else into the water. Leave rocks, plants and animals where they are. Make “put it back where it lives” part of the adventure from the beginning. The best creek days are made of wet socks, muddy knees and children crouched so seriously over a jar that you would think they had discovered a new planet. They are made of skipping rocks, cold hands, minnows flashing in sunlight and the proud announcement that somebody has found “the biggest crawdad in the world,” which is almost never true but always worth investigating. Sometimes all children need is a creek shallow enough to stand in, interesting enough to kneel beside and an adult who understands that muddy shoes are not really the problem. The gift of a creek kid summer is simple: children go looking for something tiny, and the world gets bigger.
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Cold Water Country Cold Water Country The Watauga River The first thing you notice about the Watauga is the temperature. Step into it near Valle Crucis, and the cold climbs quickly through your boots and around your ankles. The current slips over pale stones, gathers in shaded pools and breaks into riffles where water and air tumble together. On summer mornings, fog may still hang low over the river when the first anglers begin working their lines across it. This is trout water: cold, oxygen-rich and closely tied to the forests and slopes surrounding it. The Watauga gathers water from the High Country around Boone, Blowing Rock, Valle Crucis and Banner Elk before flowing west into Tennessee. Along the way, it passes farms, parks, roads, neighborhoods and small communities built close to its bends. In some places it moves gently through open valleys. Farther downstream, it narrows into a gorge and becomes serious whitewater. Around Valle Crucis, the river is best known for fishing. An angler studies places another visitor might pass without noticing: the seam where fast current slides beside slow water, the shade beneath an undercut bank, the quiet pocket behind a rock and the rings left by insects touching the surface. Trout hold where the conditions suit them. They need water cold enough to carry abundant oxygen, current that delivers food and places to shelter from predators and strong flow. Riffles help mix air into the river. Gravel gives aquatic insects and young fish room to live. Tree roots stabilize the banks, while leaves and branches shade the water through the hottest months. A healthy trout stream depends heavily on what happens along its edges. When streamside trees are removed, more sunlight reaches the water and raises its temperature. Bare soil washes into the current and settles between stones. A muddy footpath, cattle crossing, construction site or lawn cut to the riverbank may seem small on its own, but sediment and warmer runoff accumulate as they move downstream.
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29 The change may be only a few degrees or a thin layer of silt, but trout live within narrow limits. The mayflies, salamanders, crayfish and other small creatures sharing the river also depend on specific combinations of temperature, oxygen, shelter and flow. That sensitivity gives the Watauga much of its character. The river can appear clear and vigorous while remaining vulnerable to changes occurring upstream. Its cold water is not guaranteed simply because the mountains are high or the current is fast. It is maintained by intact banks, shaded tributaries, clean runoff and enough water moving through the system. The river is also part of ordinary life in the High Country. It runs beside farms, gathering places and roads people travel every day. Anglers arrive before breakfast. Families spread blankets in Valle Crucis Community Park. Children wade in the shallows. Paddlers follow the calmer upper sections through open valley scenery. Those uses can share the river when visitors understand where they are. Public access matters because much of the shoreline is privately owned. Fishing regulations vary by season and section. Rocks should remain in the streambed, where they shelter aquatic life. Banks should be entered carefully rather than trampled into mud. Paddlers must also know where the gentle river ends. The stretch through Valle Crucis can offer a scenic trip, but downstream the Watauga enters a dangerous gorge with Class IV and V whitewater. Casual paddlers, tubers and families should exit at Upper Watauga Gorge Access rather than continuing into water meant for experts. The Watauga’s appeal comes from that range. It can be a quiet fishing stream before breakfast, a place for children to cool their feet in the afternoon and, only a few miles away, one of the region’s most demanding whitewater rivers. Through all of those changes, the cold remains central. It determines what can live here, how anglers fish and why the forests and banks surrounding the river matter. The Watauga runs through the High Country with the bright, bracing clarity of a river shaped by elevation, shade and stone. Where good wine meets good company 200+ wines from around the world Tapas-style bites, shared slow Downtown Newton 828-469-6066 3littlebirdsnewton.com
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Watauga River For fly-fishing with easy public access: Start at Valle Crucis Community Park. The Watauga runs along the park’s northern edge, and this stretch is known for fly fishing. For the newest Valle Crucis river access: Use the Watauga River Access on N.C. 194 in Valle Crucis, located between Valle Crucis Community Park and Watauga Gorge Park. This access has parking and river frontage for fishing, tubing, canoeing and kayaking. It is a useful stop for people who want a more direct river access point than the park itself. For a gentle scenic paddle: Look at the section from Valle Crucis Access to Upper Watauga Gorge Access. This stretch moves through farmland and open valley scenery and is the calmer kind of Watauga experience. Plan your shuttle before you go, check water levels and know exactly where you are getting out. Where to stop — seriously: All boats and floats should exit at Upper Watauga Gorge Access unless you are an expert whitewater paddler. Downstream, the river changes character. The Watauga Gorge contains dangerous whitewater, including Class IV–V sections, and it is not a casual family float. For a conservation-minded visit: Go to Valle Crucis Community Park. Watch the water move over the stones. Look for insects. Notice the shade. Let children wade only where it is safe and teach them not to move river rocks, which shelter aquatic life.
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Before we went fishing with Bob Timberlake, we were given one unusual instruction: do not remember how to get there. Nobody blindfolded us or confiscated our phones. We simply followed Bob through a series of roads and turns, agreeing that we would not retrace them later. It was funny, but he was serious. Fly anglers divide the world into places they name freely and places they discuss through elaborate vagueness. They will recommend public water, delayed-harvest sections and rivers that can handle attention. Ask about a small wild-trout stream, though, and the answer becomes “up toward Boone,” “off one of those roads” or “a little creek I know.” Photographs are treated the same way. Bridges, signs and recognizable ridgelines are cropped out. The fish is shown clearly. The bend is not. That secrecy can seem ridiculous. Sometimes it is. A public river does not become private because someone found a good pool there first. Small streams, however, have limits. A narrow creek with a few roadside pull-offs can change quickly after becoming internet-famous. Cars multiply. Trails widen. Banks collapse. Trash appears. Fish are caught repeatedly, and landowners who once tolerated quiet access begin posting signs and closing gates. A place can change when its name starts traveling faster than its water. That was the understanding behind Bob’s request. We had not been given a destination to publish. We had been invited to share a fishing day. Once we reached the creek, the directions stopped mattering. Fly fishing reduces the world to what is immediately in front of you. Fast water meets slow. Foam traces the path food is likely to follow. A boulder creates a quiet pocket behind it. A pool that looks perfect produces nothing, while an ordinary patch of current somehow holds a trout. Casting is only part of the work. The fly must land lightly and move naturally. A good cast can still be ignored. A terrible one can somehow catch a fish. Trout are not consistent enough to protect anyone’s dignity. Guides help beginners shorten that learning curve. They teach people how to read water, cast around trees, approach a pool and release a trout without injuring it. The Places Anglers Don't Name The Places Anglers Don't Name F ly F ishing is part patience , part skill and part keeping a secret F ly F ishing is part patience , part skill and part keeping a secret
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The essential lessons are simple: wet your hands, keep the fish in the water, do not squeeze it, watch where you step, respect private property and carry out what you carried in. Much of good fishing is learning not to ruin the next person’s day—or the fish’s. Knowing a place does not create ownership. It creates a decision about what to do with the knowledge. Some waters are meant to be shared widely. Others are better passed from one person to another slowly. A beginner does not need a secret creek, an expensive rod or a vest containing the inventory of a small sporting-goods store. Public water, basic equipment and someone willing to explain a few things are enough. The secret place comes later, perhaps after the beginner understands why it is secret. By the end of our day with Bob, we could probably have found the road again. But that was never the test. The test was whether we understood that being shown a place did not automatically make it ours to distribute. So we remember the cold water, the cast, the trees and the ridiculous effort required to convince a trout to eat something made of thread and feathers. The road itself has become conveniently blurry. Bob Timberlake is a friend of Foothills Digest, and we felt so fortunate to be invited to fish with him. Some of his art features fly fishing, like his famous painting of Charles Kuralt fishing in another secret spot. At right, you'll see one of his fly paintings. He's fascinated by flies and has painted a great many of them. You can see them at his site bobtimberlake.com. Bob TImberlake and his guide
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TROUT STOCKING TROUT STOCKING There is a particular kind of excitement in the mountains when a white stocking truck eases down a gravel road and backs toward the water. People who know, know. They may lean against tailgates, check knots, pretend they are not watching too closely. Then the chute opens. Cold water rushes out first, and then the fish come in a flashing, living ribbon: silver sides, dark backs, pink rainbow bands, tails slapping water and stone. In a few seconds, a quiet pool becomes a promise. Trout stocking can look simple from the bank. A truck comes. Fish go in. Anglers show up. But behind that splash is a whole system: hatchery workers, biologists, carefully managed water temperatures, public access, mountain tourism and a long-standing bargain between people and cold water. North Carolina stocks trout for a few reasons, and the first is obvious: people love to catch them. Trout fishing is part sport, part tradition, part excuse to stand in some of the prettiest water in the state. In Western North Carolina, that means creeks under rhododendron, pocket water along steep roads, big river runs below bridges and town streams where a child can catch a fish without hiking three miles into a gorge. But stocking is not only about making fishing easier. It is about matching fish to water and pressure. Some mountain streams hold wild trout naturally and are managed differently. Others are cold and beautiful enough to hold trout for a season, but not productive enough to support heavy fishing pressure year after year. In those places, hatchery-raised trout create a public fishery where there might otherwise be little harvest opportunity. That is the idea behind North Carolina’s Hatchery Supported Trout Waters. These are streams and river sections where fish are stocked so anglers can catch and keep trout. They are the green-and-white sign waters, the places many families learn to trout fish and the places where opening days can feel almost like a small mountain holiday. Photos provided by the North Carolina Wildlife Commission.
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Delayed Harvest Trout Waters operate on a different rhythm. These streams are stocked too, but for much of the year the fish are protected under catch-and-release rules. Anglers use artificial lures and single hooks and the trout stay in the water to be caught again. A delayed-harvest stream can become a classroom, a playground and a practice field all at once. Beginners learn to read water. Fly anglers test patterns. Kids get a real chance. The trout themselves begin far from the moment of release. At North Carolina’s coldwater hatcheries, brook, brown and rainbow trout are hatched, fed, sorted, moved and grown in carefully managed water. Trout are demanding fish. They need cold, oxygen-rich water, and they do not tolerate sloppy conditions. In hatchery raceways, water keeps moving over them, much as it does in a stream. When they are ready, the trout are loaded into stocking trucks fitted with tanks, oxygen systems and chilled, clean water. The route is not random. Streams are stocked according to schedules, classifications, access points, road conditions, water conditions and the number of fish allocated for that water. Sometimes fish are released by chute. Sometimes they are carried by bucket. Sometimes workers use nets or containers to spread them through a section so every trout does not end up in one obvious hole below a bridge. That part matters, because the release is not just a spectacle. It is a handoff. The hatchery has done its work. The truck has done its work. The people in waders and boots have done theirs. Now the stream takes over. The fish arrive suddenly free, but not instantly at home. Some hold close to the release spot. Some drift downstream. Some tuck into the first soft seam they find. For a little while, you can still feel the truck in the water: the flash of new fish, the gathering of anglers, the sense that something has just happened. Then the river begins to absorb them. Over the next hours and days, the trout disappear into the logic of the stream. They find current breaks, shade, deeper pockets, undercut banks, bridge shadows, plunge pools and the slower water behind rocks. They spread out. They settle. They become harder to see. The stocking becomes less of an event and more of a season.
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That sudden change is the fun of stocking day. One moment, a pool is quiet. The next, it is alive with possibility. A child who has never caught a trout may suddenly have a chance. A grandfather may return to a roadside stream he has fished for decades. A visitor may stop at a country store, buy a license, ask about the water and become part of the small economy that trout season brings to mountain communities. Stocking day compresses months of work into a few noisy seconds. Before the chute opens, those trout have been hatched, fed, sorted, moved and monitored in cold hatchery water. Then someone has to load them, drive the mountain roads, stop at the right access points and get them into the stream safely. By the time an angler sees the first flash of silver, most of the work is already over. It also reminds us that public water is a shared thing. A stocked stream can feel generous, but it is not a free-for-all. It depends on workers doing hard, careful work. It depends on landowners and communities tolerating traffic and access. It depends on anglers knowing the rules. It depends on people not turning a good day into a reason someone posts a no-trespassing sign. The truck brings the trout, but people decide what kind of day follows. They can crowd the release and leave trash on the bank. Or they can give each other room, teach a child gently, thank the workers, read the signs and remember that a public fishery works best when people treat it like a privilege. The state raises the fish. The workers haul them into the mountains. The streams hold them for as long as conditions allow. The anglers get their chance. And sometimes, if you are lucky, you are standing there when the chute opens and the water comes alive.
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The Untouchables Even better than you remember... That’s because every pizza starts the right way: with a bag of flour, a ball of mozzarella and tomatoes ready to become the rich, house-made sauce that’s helped make Untouchables a local favorite for generations. At Untouchables, the food is only part of what keeps people coming back. It’s the kind of place where families gather around the table, kids grow up on their favorite pizza and the buffet makes it easy for everyone to find something they love. Family- owned and rooted in the community, Untouchables still feels like the kind of hometown restaurant people are always glad to come back to. (704) 483-9737 6020 NC 16 S Denver, NC untouchablespizza.com
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Before the first cast Trout fishing in Western North Carolina is not governed by one simple set of rules. The regulations depend on exactly where you are fishing, and sometimes the rules change from one stretch of a stream to another. The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission divides Public Mountain Trout Waters into several categories, each with its own rules. Those classifications are posted on signs along the water, and anglers should always check the designation before fishing. Hatchery Supported Trout Waters are stocked largely for harvest. During the open season, anglers may use natural bait or artificial lures. There is no minimum size and the daily limit is seven trout. These waters close each year during March and reopen on the first Saturday in April. Delayed Harvest Trout Waters have rules that change with the season. From October through early June, trout must be released and anglers may use only artificial lures with a single hook. Natural bait is not allowed. During the summer harvest season, bait may be used and anglers may keep up to seven trout per day. Because these rules change during the year, Delayed Harvest streams are especially important to check before fishing. Wild Trout Waters are open year-round but are managed to protect naturally reproducing trout populations. Anglers may use artificial lures only, with one single hook. The daily limit is four trout and each fish must be at least seven inches long.
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Catch-and-Release Trout Waters are exactly what the name suggests. Trout cannot be kept, and fishing is limited to artificial flies or lures with a single hook. There are also Special Regulation Trout Waters, where the rules are specific to that particular stream or section of stream. Always read the signs before fishing. That last point is the most important one: do not assume the rules are the same for an entire river. A stream can move from one classification to another within only a few miles. A section where bait and harvest are allowed may be followed upstream by water where only artificial lures are permitted or where every trout must be released. For the easiest answer, use the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission’s Fishing Areas and Trout Waters interactive map at ncwildlife.gov/FishingMap. Zoom in, click the section of stream you plan to fish and the map will show its classification. The Commission’s trout page at ncwildlife.gov/fishing/trout-fishing-north-carolina also includes current regulations, maps, stocking schedules and other trout-fishing information. Anglers age 16 and older generally need an appropriate North Carolina inland fishing license. Some designated mountain communities also participate in the Mountain Heritage Trout Waters program, which offers a short- term license specifically for fishing participating waters within those communities. The different classifications are not simply regulatory fine print. They are part of how North Carolina manages mountain streams for different purposes. Some waters are stocked to provide plenty of fish for anglers to take home. Others are managed to protect wild trout, improve habitat or give fish time to spread out and grow before harvest begins. Following the rules helps keep those fisheries healthy for the next angler who comes along. Regulations and stocking schedules can change, so check current Wildlife Commission information before heading out. The safest rule is simple: find your stream, check its classification and read the signs before you cast.
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42 Chef Sullivan’s Appalachian Kitchen
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43 Chef Benjamin Sullivan has deep roots in the mountains of North Carolina—his family has called these hills home since the early 1700s. With over twenty years of experience in professional kitchens, Sullivan blends Appalachian tradition with modern culinary finesse. A graduate of the inaugural class at Johnson & Wales Charlotte campus and now the Director of Culinary Operations for Cranford Hospitality, Ben brings both heritage and innovation to the table. In this series, Chef Sullivan shares seasonal recipes that celebrate the flavors of Western North Carolina with refined techniques and thoughtful updates. These aren’t just meals—they’re heirlooms passed down through generations, reimagined for today’s kitchens. As he puts it, “Sitting around a dinner table with recipes like these allows us not only to connect with our friends and family today, but with those generations that came before us who built what we have.” Corn Buttermilk Sauce Place corn and white wine in a small saucepan. Over low heat gently cook the corn until the wine is reduced by half. In a blender place corn, wine and all other ingredients, then puree until smooth. If desired you can pass the sauce through a strainer and allow it to cool. • Trout Fillet, butterflied and deboned Cut the butterflied trout into two fillets. Blot the skin and flesh dry with a paper towel, then season the flesh with salt and white pepper to taste. Set aside until ready to cook. • 1/2 C Medium Grain Rice (Carolina Gold is the best) • 1 C Water • 1/4 C Rice Flour (Regular flour is an OK substitute) • 2 pieces of bacon, chopped • 1 tbsp Chives • 1 egg • 1/2 C good white wine • 1/2 C corn • 1/2 C Buttermilk • 2 Tbsp Hard Cheese, grated (parmesan, cotija, whatever you have on hand) • 1/4 tsp Dry Mustard • 1/4 tsp Sugar • 1/4 tsp Salt • pinch White Pepper Trout Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the rice. Return to a boil, lower the heat and simmer covered for 15-20 minutes until the water is absorbed. Spread the cooked rice out and let it cool overnight. In a bowl the next day, mix the rice with all other ingredients thoroughly and shape into small patties. Heat a skillet over medium high heat and place a small amount of bacon in the pan. Place the formed patties in the skillet and brown them on both sides for 3-5 minutes per side. Remove from the pan and set aside. In the same skillet add a little more bacon grease if needed, and place the trout skin side down. Gently press down to ensure the entire skin surface contacts the skillet. Cook the trout for 5-6 minutes until the flesh is white and firm to the touch. Remove the trout and reserve the bacon fat for plating. • 1 C Okra • 1/2 C Cherry Tomatoes • 1/2 C Butter beans, cooked • 1 tbsp Neutral oil • 2 tsp Cajun Seasoning • 1/2 tsp Salt • 1/4 of a Pepper • 1/2 tsp Sumac (optional) • 1/2 Lemon, juiced • 1 Tbsp Garden Herbs Heat the broiler as you prepare the salad. Remove the cap from the okra and thinly slice it lengthwise. In a small bowl toss the okra with the oil and Cajun seasoning. Place the okra on a sheet pan in a single layer and place under the broiler; cook until the edges just begin to char. Remove pan; add tomatoes, beans, salt and pepper, stir gently and return to broiler for 3-5 minutes. Remove the pan; add sumac, herbs and lemon juice and gently turn to combine. To plate, place a rice cake on the plate, top with trout and salad, pour the buttermilk sauce over it and drizzle with bacon fat to garnish. Pottery by @mothandflamestudioarts. Rice Cakes Salad
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The Yadkin River - Beneath the Vines The Yadkin River carries a quieter story of fields, slopes, crossings and wine country Most visitors meet the Yadkin Valley from above. They see rows of grapes descending a hillside, tasting-room patios looking toward blue ridges and rural roads winding past barns, pastures and old farmhouses. The river itself may never come into view. Even when hidden, the Yadkin is part of what they have come to experience. It lies beneath the ridges and beyond the trees, shaping the low ground, feeding the valley and gathering water from the creeks that run through it. Long before vineyard signs appeared along these roads, the river and its tributaries helped determine where people planted, built and made their living. Wine country is only the newest expression of that landscape. The vineyards have brought new attention to the Yadkin Valley, along with tasting rooms, weddings, restaurants, inns and slow weekend drives. They have also given some farms a new future as traditional agriculture has become harder to sustain. But a vineyard is still a farm. The orderly rows and late-afternoon light can make the work look romantic. The reality includes frost, heat, disease, insects, machinery, pruning, mowing, harvesting and the constant study of weather. Beauty does not make the crop less vulnerable. Visitors see scenery. Growers see slope, drainage, moisture and risk. That difference is part of what gives the region its character. The Yadkin Valley has not been remade into a polished wine destination detached from the countryside around it. The wineries remain surrounded by hayfields, cattle fences, roadside produce, church cemeteries and houses where dogs sleep beneath the porch.
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A vineyard may sit just beyond a tobacco barn. A wedding lawn may overlook a working pasture. The road between tastings may include a tractor, a one-lane bridge and a view good enough to make everyone in the car go quiet. None of that interrupts the experience. It is the experience. The valley works best when visitors allow time for the places between destinations. Elkin, Dobson, Jonesville, Yadkinville, Mount Airy and Pilot Mountain each offer a different entrance into wine country, but the back roads connecting them often reveal the region more clearly than any single stop. This is not a place to rush through. Choose two vineyards rather than five. Eat in town. Stop at a farm stand. Walk beside the river before heading into the hills. Leave enough time to follow a road because it looks interesting. The landscape changes with the season. Summer fills the vines and fields with green. Autumn brings color to the ridges and harvest activity to the vineyards. Winter exposes the lines of the land: bare vines, old barns, creek bottoms and long folds of hills. Spring brings new growth and the threat of frost settling into the low places. The river belongs to every version of that landscape. The health of the Yadkin depends on what happens across the valley. Soil that washes from a field, runoff from a road and the loss of trees along a stream eventually reach the water. Protected banks, healthy roots and careful farming practices help keep both land and river intact. For the vineyards, stewardship is practical. The valley itself is part of what they offer. People come for the wine, but they also come for open views, quiet roads, old farms and a landscape that still feels rooted. That creates a real tension for the Yadkin Valley. The vineyards benefit from the rural landscape around them, but enough development could eventually change the thing visitors came to see. The best way to experience the valley is still slowly: a town, a back road, a farm stand, the river and a vineyard before dark. Even when the Yadkin stays out of sight, it is part of why the place looks and works the way it does.
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46 Yadkin River and Valley For a river-and-wine weekend: Base yourself around Elkin, Dobson, Jonesville or Yadkinville. This puts you close to river access, small-town food, scenic drives and vineyard country without turning the day into a long highway run. For an easy river walk: Start with the Yadkin River Greenway in Wilkesboro and North Wilkesboro. It gives families, walkers, cyclists and non-paddlers a way to experience the river without needing a boat. It is especially good for travelers who want a quiet river stop before heading toward wine country. For a paddle near Elkin: Look at the Yadkin River access points around Ronda, Crater Park and Burch Station. These are useful for planning a shorter paddle with a shuttle, especially for people who want to pair river time with lunch or a vineyard stop afterward. Check water levels, distance and shuttle availability before committing. For a Yadkin County river route: Yadkin/Shore Access, Donnaha, Huntsville and nearby access points connect travelers to the Yadkin River Trail through Yadkin County. This is a good option for people building a day around Yadkinville, Yadkin County vineyards, the Yadkin Cultural Arts Center or Yadkin Memorial Park at Lake Hampton. For wine country: The Surry County Wine Trail is one of the clearest ways to explore the Yadkin Valley wine region, with wineries around Elkin, Dobson, Mount Airy and Pilot Mountain. Shelton Vineyards in Dobson, Elkin Creek Vineyard, Grassy Creek Vineyard, Round Peak, Stony Knoll and Carolina Heritage are examples of stops that show the range of the region, from estate-style wineries to smaller farm-rooted places. Always check hours before going. For a slower, less scheduled day: Drive the back roads between Elkin, Yadkinville, Dobson and Pilot Mountain. Stop at a farm stand, walk a downtown block, cross the river slowly and leave room for the view. The Yadkin Valley is best when the day has some space in it. What to know before you go: Do the river before the wine, not after. Check river levels, weather, access rules and shuttle details before paddling. Wear a life jacket, respect private land and do not assume every pretty riverbank is public. For vineyards, confirm hours, reservations, food availability, pet rules and event schedules before driving out.
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Upper Yadkin Outfitters sits along NC 268, directly across from Blackstone Farm, where an old farmhouse, barn and tiny post office preserve a piece of the valley’s history. William Hester Shuford built the farmhouse in 1920 and 1921 using timber cut from the property. He operated a sawmill, planer, shingle mill and blacksmith shop, along with a gristmill farther up the creek. His wife, Harriet, served as postmaster, first sorting mail inside the house and later from the small Blackstone Post Office beside it. The post office closed in 1942, but the building remains. It is a fitting place to begin a day on the Upper Yadkin. This river once powered mills and helped determine where farms, roads and communities took shape. Now, the bright kayaks across the road offer a different way to experience the same landscape. Our trip was refreshingly fun. The river gave us long stretches of calm water where we could stop paddling, talk between boats and watch the wooded banks slide past. In those quieter sections, there was time to notice the dragonflies skimming the surface, the birds lifting from the shoreline and the way the river seemed to pull us farther from the road with every bend. We could drift for a while, then dip our paddles back in when we wanted to move a little faster or steer toward the smoother part of the channel. Then the sound of the water would change. We would hear the next rocky stretch before we reached it, and everyone would start sitting a little straighter. The current quickened, the river narrowed around rocks, and our guide moved ahead to show us the best route through. Sometimes the right line was obvious. Other times it meant making a quick turn, paddling harder than expected and trusting the boat to carry us through. Those faster sections were exhilarating without making the trip feel like serious whitewater. They gave us just enough uncertainty to make each one exciting. We had to pay attention, choose a path and paddle with some purpose, but the rush never lasted long enough to become intimidating. Before long, the river would flatten out again, the boats would spread apart and everyone would begin laughing about how they had made it through. Paddle the Upper Yadkin
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That changing pace is what makes this stretch so enjoyable. The calm sections give beginners time to settle in and get comfortable, while the shoals keep the trip from becoming one long, sleepy float. There is enough easy water to relax and look around, and enough movement to make the day feel like a real adventure. The Upper Yadkin also feels remarkably secluded. Trees lean over the channel, dragonflies skim the surface and birds rise from the banks as the kayaks approach. Roads and houses disappear quickly. From river level, the valley looks much closer to the place it was before cars began crossing it at highway speed. The surrounding Happy Valley area is filled with old farms, cemeteries and historic homes. Fort Defiance, the late-18th-century home of William Lenoir, stands nearby. The valley is also connected to the story of Laura Foster and Tom Dula, the murder case that eventually became the folk song “Tom Dooley.”
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From the water, that history makes sense. The Yadkin is not simply scenery running through the valley. It shaped the valley. The harder part is getting onto it. Kayaking a river requires both a put-in and a takeout. Unless you want to paddle back upstream, you also need two vehicles or someone willing to shuttle you. The Upper Yadkin is not overflowing with convenient public access points, which can make a seemingly simple outing complicated even for people who own their own boats. Upper Yadkin Outfitters handles that part. They provide the kayaks, equipment, route knowledge and shuttle service, removing the logistical problem that keeps many people from floating the river at all. Chad and Amanda Blevins first dreamed up the business while they were dating. They talked about creating an outfitter together and building a life centered around the river and the outdoors. Now they are living it, alongside their daughter, Kali.
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There are boats to haul, customers to help and river conditions to watch, but Chad and Amanda are plainly thrilled that the life they once imagined has become their everyday work. That happiness comes through in the photograph of the two of them together, and it came through during our time on the river, too. Chad guided our trip himself, leading us through a stretch he clearly knows well. He moved ahead when the current picked up, showing us the best route between the rocks and making sure everyone came through safely. In calmer water, he hung back and let the group spread out, talk and enjoy the float at its own pace. Nothing felt rushed or overly managed. It felt like spending the day with someone who genuinely loves the river and wants other people to understand why. By the time we reached the takeout, we were wet, tired and sorry the trip was over. The Upper Yadkin had given us peaceful stretches, a few genuine thrills and a view of the Foothills that cannot be seen from the road. It felt wild and secluded, yet Upper Yadkin Outfitters had made the whole experience remarkably easy. They handled the boats, the route and the complicated business of getting everyone back where they belonged. All we had to do was show up, take a paddle and head downstream. “The Upper Yadkin isn’t really on many people’s radar, but it should be,” Chad said. “We want to help change that.” We agree. Chad has guided everyone from six-year-olds to 75-year-old veterans who had never been in a kayak before, but the trip is not only for beginners. Experienced paddlers will find enough current, rocky shoals and changing water to have fun, too. The Upper Yadkin is approachable without being boring, beautiful without being crowded and deserving of far more attention than it gets.
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52 The Catawba: The River that Works and Blooms The Catawba has spent generations at work. Before dams widened it into lakes, the river cut valleys, fed bottomland and gave people water, fish, fertile soil and places to cross. Later, its current helped power mills and factories. Reservoirs supplied towns, turned turbines, cooled machinery and supported the industries that shaped much of the Foothills. The river’s work became part of ordinary life. Catawba water fills coffee pots, school fountains and washing machines. It runs through treatment plants, pipes, turbines and power stations before disappearing down drains or continuing toward the next lake. Mill whistles, shift changes, brick factories and communities built around industry all belong to its history. Those working reservoirs eventually became beloved places in their own right. Families arrived with sandwiches, towels and fishing rods. Children learned to swim. Teenagers learned to back boat trailers. Grandparents taught grandchildren to fish, dogs shook water across the seats and docks became places to watch evening settle over the lake. Then, in a few extraordinary stretches, the river flowers. Rocky shoals spider lilies grow where shallow current crosses broad shelves of exposed stone. Their roots hold against the moving water while white blossoms rise above it, clustered so thickly in places that the river appears to have bloomed. Paddlers move between the flowers as sunlight, foam and reflected petals travel downstream. The lilies need a particular kind of habitat: rocky shoals, steady current and the natural rhythm of rising and falling water. Those places were never common, and dams have made them scarcer by flooding shoals and changing the way water moves through the river. For a few weeks, the surviving stretches become the setting for one of the region’s most remarkable natural events. That makes the lilies part of the Catawba’s working story too. We have changed the river to serve towns, industries, power generation and recreation, but managing it also means protecting what remains. Fish need oxygen, temperature and habitat. Spider lilies need current moving over exposed rock at the right depth and time. A person might drink from the Catawba in the morning, cross it on the way to work and paddle through white flowers that afternoon. An angler encounters it through depth, shade, structure, weather and the old river channels that remain within the lakes. A greenway walker may know it through morning fog, a heron lifting from the bank or the cooler air beside the water at the end of a hot day. Public paths and access points bring the river into lives that are not built directly along its shore. The nurse making coffee before an early shift, the retiree walking beside the lake, the family fishing from a public pier and the paddler drifting through the lilies all depend on the same water. The Catawba helped build the Foothills, and its work continues every day. Yet for a brief season among the rocky shoals, one of the region’s hardest-working rivers also blooms.
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54 The Catawba River Joseph McDowell Historical Catawba Greenway — Marion This paved greenway follows the upper Catawba through Marion, with fishing piers, picnic areas, wildlife viewing and a canoe launch. It is an easy place to walk beside the young river or get close enough to appreciate how different it feels before the Catawba widens into Lake James. Catawba River Greenway — Morganton The Morganton greenway offers several miles of walking and biking beside the river, with access points at Greenlee Ford, Freedom Park and Catawba Meadows Park. It is one of the best places to enjoy the Catawba as part of everyday town life, although visitors should check current access because some sections remain under repair after Helene. Catawba River Trail at Riverwalk — Rock Hill, South Carolina Farther downstream, this 3.35-mile paved trail follows the river between Riverwalk and River Park. Walkers, runners and cyclists get long views of the Catawba, and a public canoe and kayak launch provides access to the water. The trail can flood after heavy rain, so check conditions before going. Landsford Canal State Park — Catawba, South Carolina This is the place to see the rocky shoals spider lilies. Shown below, the park protects the largest known stand of the flowers, which cover sections of the Catawba in white during their usual peak from mid-May through mid-June. Visitors can see them from an overlook reached by an easy trail or paddle through the shoals when river conditions and skill allow. The park also preserves remains of the nineteenth-century canal once built around this rocky stretch of river.
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The Catawba Chain Seven NC Lakes, one River Dams have divided the Catawba into a chain of reservoirs, but the lakes are far from interchangeable. The river begins its lake journey beneath the Blue Ridge, passes quiet coves and busy towns, widens into one of the state’s largest recreation regions and eventually crosses into South Carolina. Following the chain means watching the landscape—and the culture around the water—change mile by mile. Lake James (A) Where the Mountains Become Water Lake James spreads below the Blue Ridge where the Catawba and Linville rivers meet. Long ridges rise behind forested coves, and the water often feels clearer and cooler than it does farther downstream. This is the lake for broad mountain views, rocky swimming spots, wooded campsites and paddling into quiet coves. Trails around the shoreline make it just as appealing from land. Go for: Mountain scenery, swimming, camping, hiking, paddling and long lake days. access: Lake James State Park, Paddy’s Creek, the Catawba River Area, public boat ramps and the Fonta Flora State Trail. Lake Rhodhiss (B) The Lake Locals Keep Lake Rhodhiss sits quietly between Burke and Caldwell counties, narrow and wooded in places and noticeably less developed than the larger lakes downstream. Its pleasures are familiar ones: early fishing trips, fog over the water, a sheltered cove when the wind rises and the same shoreline viewed evening after evening. It feels less like a destination and more like a neighborhood lake. Go for: Fishing, paddling, quiet boating, morning fog and uncrowded water. access: Conley Creek is the most park-like option, with a boat ramp, fishing pier, restrooms and trails connected to Sawmills Veterans Park.
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Lake Hickory (C) The Lake Woven into Daily Life Lake Hickory runs through the life of the city rather than sitting apart from it. Neighborhoods, public parks, marinas, bridges, restaurants and walking paths gather along its shoreline. People cross it on the way to work, fish after dinner, walk beside it in the morning and spend summer weekends on the same water they see every day. It feels lived-in, accessible and deeply local. Go for: Public parks, fishing, boating, waterfront dining and an easy lake day near town. access: City and county parks, public ramps, marinas and shoreline recreation areas around Hickory. Wittenburg Access is a favorite. Lookout Shoals Lake (D) The Bend in the River Most People Miss Between Hickory and Norman, the Catawba narrows and quiets again. Lookout Shoals follows the old river’s bends closely, with wooded banks, small inlets and stretches that feel more like a broad channel than open lake. It suits anglers, wildlife watchers and paddlers who prefer quieter water and less shoreline activity. Go for: Fishing, low-key paddling, wooded scenery and fewer crowds. access: Public access is limited, so choose your launch point before arriving. Try 4750 Lookout Dam Road. Lake Norman (E) The Lake That Became a Region Lake Norman is enormous enough to contain whole communities. Towns, highways, marinas, islands, neighborhoods, restaurants and businesses have grown around its many coves and miles of shoreline. The scale is part of the attraction: open water, sailboats, fast boats, broad sunsets and enough shoreline that one part of the lake can feel entirely different from another. Summer weekends can also be busy, loud and crowded. Go for: Big-water boating, sailing, fishing, beaches, waterfront dining and lake-centered towns. Access: Lake Norman State Park in Troutman has a swimming beach, boat ramp, kayak and paddleboard rentals, fishing, trails, picnic areas and about 17 miles of publicly accessible shoreline. Seasonal pass required for swimming. A B C F D E G
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Mountain Island Lake (F) The Protected Lake Mountain Island Lake is smaller, narrower and noticeably greener than Lake Norman. Because it serves as a major drinking-water reservoir, much of its shoreline remains wooded and less intensely developed. The quieter setting makes it appealing for paddling and fishing, particularly for people who want a calmer experience close to Charlotte. Go for: Paddling, fishing, wooded banks and quieter water near the city. ACCESS: Latta Nature Preserve is the best all-around public-access choice, with two canoe, kayak and paddleboard launches, a fishing dock, trails, picnic areas and natural shoreline. Lake Wylie (G) Where the River Crosses the State Line Lake Wylie spreads across the North Carolina–South Carolina line, connecting Charlotte’s southern edge with Fort Mill, Rock Hill and the town of Lake Wylie. Its shoreline mixes busy marinas, waterfront neighborhoods and popular recreation areas with broad stretches of open water and wooded banks. It feels metropolitan without losing the sense of traveling water. Go for: Boating, fishing, paddling, waterfront recreation and easy access from the Charlotte region. access: Try Ebenezer Park in Rock Hill. From Lake James to Lake Wylie, the Catawba travels from mountain coves to metropolitan lake country, changing in scale, pace and personality along the way. The seven reservoirs belong to one river, but each offers a distinctly different day on the water: camping beneath Blue Ridge ridges, fishing through morning fog, walking a city shoreline, paddling a quiet wooded bend, crossing the broad water of Norman or following the river toward South Carolina, where it flows into even more reservoirs. Taken together, they show how much variety can exist along a single river system. A person could spend years exploring the chain and still find another cove, trail, launch, fishing bank or shoreline town that feels entirely different from the one before it.
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COSMETIC, IMPLANT AND COMPREHENSIVE DENTISTRY (828) 328-5581 221 13th Ave Pl NW, Hickory 94% of people agree that a person's smile is the first thing they notice.
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The Mill Beneath the Lake From the surface of Lake Norman, there is little reason to imagine Long Island. Boats cross open water. Houses line coves that did not exist 65 years ago. Before the lake, the Catawba was narrower, faster and more visibly a river. Near the present Catawba-Iredell county line stood a cotton mill and the village that grew around it, both called Long Island. The village had a company store, post office and rows of white frame houses for mill workers and their families. When the mill closed in 1959, about 120 people worked there, representing 54 families. Many had grown up in the community. It is easy to tell Long Island as a story of a small town sacrificed when Duke Power flooded the valley. That is true, but incomplete. Long Island existed because of industry. The mill was established around 1852 where the Catawba could power its machinery. Workers came, houses followed and a community formed around textile production. The river was its engine. The mill provided work, but it also controlled much of village life. Employment, housing and shopping were tied to the company. An early account describes a widow and her children working 12-hour days, with much of their pay issued in due bills usable only at the company store. Conditions improved over time, but losing a job could still mean losing a home and the center of community life. Duke began acquiring property along this section of the Catawba in the late 1920s. Cowans Ford Dam would eventually create the largest reservoir on the river, covering more than 32,000 acres and supplying electricity, water and a new recreation economy. Long Island stood in the future lakebed. The mill closed October 3, 1959. Families had to find new jobs and homes. Company houses were offered free, but residents had to pay to move them beyond the flood area. For people who had just lost their income, a free house was not necessarily one they could keep. Some buildings were moved. Others were demolished. Machinery went to another textile plant, and the brick mill was torn down before the water arrived. Long Island did not disappear in one dramatic flood. Much of it had already been emptied, dismantled or carried away. By 1963, the valley had become Lake Norman. The reservoir powered a growing Piedmont and helped transform the northern Charlotte region. New communities formed along a shoreline created partly through the loss of older ones. The village itself had already harnessed the Catawba. Its dam and turbines turned moving water into industrial production. Duke replaced that system with another, far larger one. The same river that created Long Island eventually made it expendable. There is no intact ghost town waiting beneath Lake Norman. What remains are foundations, fragments and the landscape the village once depended on. A boat can cross the site today without anyone aboard knowing where the mill stood, where the road curved or which families lived nearby. The strongest image is not a town preserved underwater. It is a silent mill whistle, houses lifted from their foundations and families beginning again somewhere that was not quite home. The lake did not simply erase Long Island. It covered the choices that made the new landscape possible.
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The French BRoad the river in the middle of everything The French Broad begins near Rosman and moves north through farm country, small towns and mountain valleys before reaching Asheville. Along the way, it gathers the Davidson, Mills and Swannanoa rivers, along with everything rain carries from the surrounding watershed. By the time it reaches the city, the river has passed farms, roads, neighborhoods and industrial ground. It arrives carrying leaves, mud, storm runoff and the accumulated evidence of life upstream. That has always been part of the French Broad’s character. People have farmed beside it, crossed it, worked along it, polluted it, cleaned it up, floated it and built businesses near its banks. In Asheville, the river became one of the city’s busiest gathering places. On a summer afternoon, tubes drift beneath bridges while kayaks pass sycamores and old brick buildings. Dogs ride paddleboards. Friends lash coolers together with more optimism than skill. Along the banks, people walk greenways, visit studios, listen to music, eat, drink and sit in the grass beside the current. Few rivers in Western North Carolina bring town and water together so closely. A paddler can move from a wooded bend to a highway crossing, from birdsong to restaurant noise, without leaving the river. That closeness also placed homes, roads, businesses and public spaces directly in the path of flooding. The French Broad drains a large mountain watershed, and conditions can change quickly when heavy rain falls upstream. Tributaries rise, mud and debris enter the current and a familiar access point can disappear beneath the water before the weather has fully cleared in Asheville. Hurricane Helene demonstrated that danger on a scale few people had witnessed. In September 2024, the French Broad and its tributaries flooded riverfront neighborhoods, parks, greenways, industrial areas and businesses. In the River Arts District, water entered studios, galleries, workshops, restaurants and old warehouses that artists and business owners had spent years bringing back to life. The damage cut so deeply because the district had become one of Asheville’s most visible success stories. Old industrial buildings had found new uses. Trails and greenways had drawn people toward the river. Restaurants, breweries and creative spaces had turned a neglected corridor into a place where the city gathered.
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63 Then the river rose through it. Flood risk stopped being an abstract line on a map. It became mud on studio walls, twisted metal along the banks and whole sections of the riverfront made unrecognizable. Recovery has involved far more than clearing debris. Artists salvaged tools and returned to work. Business owners shoveled mud. Volunteers hauled wreckage. Crews repaired roads, parks and greenways. Outfitters studied altered channels and access points. Some places reopened, while others remained damaged or disappeared entirely. The work has also forced difficult decisions. Asheville and other river communities must consider where rebuilding makes sense, which areas should remain open, how warning systems and public access can improve and how closely future development should return to the water. Those questions extend beyond the city. Upstream, the French Broad passes farms, homes and roads where runoff quickly enters the watershed. Downstream, it moves through Marshall and Hot Springs before crossing into Tennessee. Every community receives water shaped by the places above it. The river itself changes along the way. Near its headwaters, it moves through quieter farmland and forest. Around Asheville, it becomes broad, busy and public. Farther north, the valley narrows and the current carries paddlers toward stronger whitewater and deeper mountain scenery. After Helene, people returned because the river remains part of daily life. Families came back to the banks. Anglers returned to the current. Kayaks appeared again at public launches. Herons stood in the shallows while crews worked nearby. The French Broad is still one of Western North Carolina’s great public spaces. It offers easy summer floats, serious whitewater, fishing, wildlife, greenways and river towns that each meet the water differently. Stand on a bridge in Asheville now, and the whole recent history is visible at once: old brick walls, repaired sections, flood marks, cranes, muddy banks, murals, traffic, weeds and kayaks moving through the middle of it. Since 1990 2613 N Center St, Hickory (828) 323-8477 kellyandcompanysalon.com Use this QR code to book your appointment! If your hair’s not ready, you’re not ready. Let Kelly’s finish the look.
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64 French Broad River For an easy float: Choose an established outfitter and a beginner-friendly section suited to current water levels. Outfitters can help with rentals, shuttles and choosing a route that matches your experience. For a quieter river day: Look upstream toward Rosman and Brevard, where the French Broad moves through farmland, forests and smaller communities. These upper stretches are well suited to relaxed paddling, fishing and watching wildlife. For Asheville’s riverfront: Explore open sections of the greenways, parks, studios, restaurants and breweries along the river. Recovery work continues in some areas, so confirm that your planned access point and destination are open. For the River Arts District: Walk or bike the riverfront and visit businesses that have reopened after Helene. The district offers one of the clearest views of how closely Asheville’s art, industrial history and public life are tied to the French Broad. For a river-town trip: Visit Marshall, where the river runs directly beside downtown, or continue to Hot Springs, where the Appalachian Trail crosses the river and the valley begins to feel narrower and wilder. For stronger water: Experienced paddlers can find more challenging sections downstream from Asheville and around the mountain towns farther north. Use local outfitters and current river information rather than relying on old route descriptions. For fishing: Look for established public access points and confirm the regulations for the exact stretch you plan to fish. Conditions, species and rules change as the river moves from its upper reaches toward Tennessee.
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65 Your perfect mountain home is waiting for you to find it. 828.230.8218 STEPHEN ROBINSON REALTY STEPHEN@ROGPIVOT.COM STEPHEN ROBINSON knows where to look.
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66 Snot Otters, Hellbenders, Devil Dogs & Alleghany Alligators Searching for Appalachia’s Giant Salamander after the Storm
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67 There are animals whose common names sound carefully chosen, and then there is the eastern hellbender. Across Appalachia, people have called it the snot otter, devil dog, grampus, mud dog and Allegheny alligator. The name “hellbender” goes back more than two centuries. Naturalist Benjamin Smith Barton recorded the name in the early 1800s and wrote that he had heard it used in western Virginia, including among enslaved communities along the Holston. Whatever its exact origin, the name stuck to an animal strange enough to deserve it. Whatever we call it, the hellbender is one of the great native animals of Appalachian rivers. In North Carolina, it is a protected species found only in mountain waters that drain west toward the Tennessee and Ohio river systems. It lives in a region with more salamander species than anywhere else on Earth. Some are small enough to disappear beneath a leaf. The hellbender is large enough to make people wonder whether they are looking at a salamander at all. Its head is broad and flat, its eyes are tiny and loose folds of skin run down its sides. Its mottled coloring lets it disappear against wet stones. Hellbenders spend their entire lives underwater, breathing mostly through their skin. Those wrinkles help them absorb oxygen, tying them closely to cold, moving, well-oxygenated water. Their presence suggests that important parts of the river are still working. For much of the day, a hellbender rests beneath a broad, flat rock. At night it hunts mostly crayfish. Despite old suspicions among anglers, it does not damage trout populations, although an opportunistic hellbender may scavenge a fish or help itself to an easy meal. Good trout water and good hellbender water often overlap because both depend on cool, clean streams. Their breeding lives unfold beneath the rocks, too. Near the end of summer, a male prepares a hollow beneath a large stone. Females may deposit hundreds of eggs inside, and the male guards them until they hatch. A hellbender rock may be a home, a nursery, or one of the only safe spaces in that stretch of river. Moving stones to build cairns, swimming holes, or tube chutes can change the current, trap sediment and destroy habitat. Since 2007, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission and its partners have searched streams, monitored known populations and studied the threats they face. Researchers sometimes snorkel and briefly capture animals for measurements and health checks. They also use environmental DNA, or eDNA, to detect traces left in the water. A positive sample cannot show whether a river holds one animal or a healthy breeding population, but it tells biologists where to look. That record became especially useful after Helene shifted boulders, buried shelter sites and rearranged riverbeds. In the Swannanoa River, 18 eDNA samples collected in spring 2025 were negative, although earlier testing had detected hellbenders there. A tributary in the same drainage still produced positive samples. Elsewhere, surveys across four drainages of the upper Nolichucky system found 79 hellbenders, along with eggs and other signs of breeding. Later testing detected hellbender DNA in seven of nine surveyed reaches of the Cane River. The results do not tell a simple story of survival or loss. Some populations may have disappeared from particular stretches. Others endured, and some were still breeding. Helene is only the newest threat hellbenders have faced. Sediment, development, dams, warmer water, pollution and careless disturbance have been shrinking their habitat for decades. Their future depends on rivers remaining clean, shaded and complicated enough to hold the hidden spaces they need. Most people who paddle, fish, or swim in a hellbender river will never see one. Its body settles into the streambed until animal and stone are almost indistinguishable. But somewhere beneath the current, an Allegheny alligator may be guarding a nest, a devil dog may be hunting crayfish in the dark and a snot otter may be breathing the river through every fold of its skin. A researcher checks the health of the hellbender shown here. If you find one, don’t handle it. Instead, report the sighting to Lori.Williams@ncwildlife.gov, ideally with the exact location or GPS coordinates and a photo or video. You can also call the N.C. Wildlife Helpline at 866- 318-2401 and provide the observation details.
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The Broad River Nowhere was Helene’s power more dramatically visible than along the upper Broad River system, where floodwater reshaped the channel and nearly erased Chimney Rock Village. In the narrow gorge, the river broke out of its banks, tore through roads and riverfront property, widened its corridor and turned a familiar mountain town into a place many people could barely recognize. Buildings disappeared. Pavement gave way. Ground that had seemed permanent proved negotiable. The geography helped make the destruction so severe. The upper Broad moves through steep slopes, narrow valleys and a confined corridor shared by the river, roads, businesses and homes. When extraordinary rain fell across saturated mountain ground, runoff reached the gorge quickly, carrying debris and giving the water few places to spread without colliding with what people had built. Residents and visitors watched a known landscape come apart. The river’s familiar line through Chimney Rock shifted, and water and debris spread across the village. A mountain river need not be enormous to become overwhelming. In steep country, enough rain can transform it with terrifying speed. The story since then has also been one of extraordinary reconstruction. Crews cleared debris, rebuilt roads, restored utilities, stabilized damaged ground and began returning the river to its former channel beside Main Street. Businesses needed access. Residents needed services. The town needed a functioning corridor if it was going to recover. Putting the river back carried symbolic weight as well. Helene had redrawn the relationship between Chimney Rock and the water by force. Reconstruction began drawing it again through engineering, heavy equipment and thousands of practical decisions about where roads, banks and buildings could safely stand.
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69 The work has been intense and hopeful, but guiding the river back into place should not be confused with conquering it. A rebuilt road cannot erase what the flood revealed. The town will recover, visitors will return and the valley will again fill with people coming to shop, eat, fish, paddle and admire the gorge. Everyone involved now carries a sharper understanding of what the river can do. More than a century before Helene, the flood of 1916 devastated the same mountain region. Contemporary accounts describe the Rocky Broad widening dramatically, carrying away buildings and bridges and changing course in places. The surviving record does not prove that the river followed precisely the same path through Chimney Rock in 1916 that it took during Helene, and the town itself was not built exactly as it is today. The resemblance remains unsettling. During both floods, water outran the assumptions people had made about the valley. Roads and bridges failed. Familiar features disappeared. The river occupied ground people had treated as settled. Helene was not a repetition of 1916 in every detail, but the older flood changes how the recent destruction should be understood. The river’s movement was shocking, but not without precedent. This valley has been rearranged by water before. That history matters as Chimney Rock rebuilds. Flood maps, engineering standards and modern warning systems are essential, but so is the record left by earlier storms. The channel a river claims during an extreme flood may reveal something that decades of calmer weather allow a community to forget. Chimney Rock is rebuilding because mountain towns are not easily surrendered. Roads are returning, businesses are reopening and the river through downtown has been guided back toward the channel it occupied before Helene. The work is practical, difficult and deeply hopeful. It also carries the knowledge of 1916 and 2024: this valley has been redrawn by water before, and any future built beside the Broad must begin by remembering that. Chimney Rock Village Walk beside the Rocky Broad, visit local shops and see the ongoing recovery. Chimney Rock State Park Climb above the gorge for sweeping views of the river, cliffs and Lake Lure. Lake Lure The lake, beach and many local businesses are welcoming visitors again for boating, swimming and mountain weekends. Broad River Paddle Trail Below the dam, paddlers can follow more than 50 miles of river through Rutherford and Cleveland counties. Check conditions before launching.
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Helene tested more than rivers. It tested dams, culverts, bridges, gauges, roads, warning systems and emergency plans across Western North Carolina. Some systems worked as intended. Some bought time. Others were overwhelmed by water far beyond what they had been designed to carry. Along the Catawba-Wateree system, operators monitored forecasts, inflows and lake levels while moving water through hydroelectric stations, gates and spillways. The reservoirs were not built as enormous flood-control basins, but they held and slowed some water as the storm moved through the watershed. Farther west, Tennessee Valley Authority reservoirs also stored floodwater. Douglas Dam on the French Broad reduced downstream crests by retaining part of the incoming flow. That did not prevent flooding, but it changed how much water arrived downstream and when. Lake Lure showed how complicated the word “held” can be. Water overtopped portions of the dam area, embankments washed and roads and utilities were badly damaged, but officials later reported that the dam itself remained intact. Spillway gates, alerts and evacuations helped protect people below it. Many failures happened far from the largest rivers. Creeks crossed roads. Ditches overflowed. Culverts clogged with trees, mud and debris. Water cut beneath pavement and around bridge supports. A road could look intact while the ground beneath it was disappearing. These smaller structures are easy to overlook until they stop working. A culvert carrying a branch beneath a road may be the most important piece of flood infrastructure in a neighborhood. Information mattered too. River gauges recorded the rise. Forecasts identified threatened basins. Emergency managers sent alerts, deputies closed bridges and rescue crews moved people away from low ground. In some places, those systems provided enough warning to act. Elsewhere, communications failed, roads disappeared or the water rose too quickly. A warning is less useful when the only safe route has already washed away. Then there was the human system. Neighbors knocked on doors. People with tractors cleared roads. Jon boats moved through flooded communities. Residents guided rescuers toward homes beyond damaged bridges and remembered which roads, hollows and low places usually flooded first. There is no clean way to divide Helene into systems that succeeded and systems that failed. A dam may hold while the road beside it washes away. A gauge may record the danger while the warning never reaches everyone. A culvert may perform exactly as designed and still be too small for the storm that arrives. Infrastructure cannot defeat a flood. It can be maintained, improved and planned around the limits the storm exposed. Better drainage, stronger bridges, reliable gauges, clearer warnings and emergency plans that account for roads disappearing can all reduce harm. The goal is not to stop water from being powerful. It is to give it safer routes, give officials better information and give people more time to get out of the way. What Held, What Failed Helene's impact in wnc
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Water Heroes Catawba Riverkeeper Protects and restores the Catawba- Wateree through science, water testing, education, advocacy and investigation. Yadkin Riverkeeper Protects the Yadkin-Pee Dee River and its lakes through monitoring, education, advocacy and action against pollution. RiverLink Protects the French Broad watershed through stream restoration, stormwater projects, education and public river access. MountainTrue Protects rivers through Riverkeepers, water monitoring, pollution enforcement, restoration, cleanups and advocacy. New River Conservancy Protects the New River through restoration, conservation, cleanups and work to reduce erosion. Environmental Quality Institute Provides the science behind WNC's water protection, monitoring more than 200 stream and lake sites across 17 mountain counties. Haywood Waterways Association Maintains water quality throughout Haywood's Pigeon River watershed through monitoring, restoration and education. Mills River Partnership Brings farmers, residents and agencies together to protect the Mills River watershed. Chattooga Conservancy Protects the Wild and Scenic Chattooga watershed through scientific monitoring, restoration, advocacy and stewardship. Watershed Association of Tuckasegee River Monitors & protects the Tuckasegee River watershed, including E. coli testing, turbidity monitoring and streambank restoration. Lake James Environmental Association Has protected Lake James since 1973, with extensive long-term water-quality monitoring, research, education and advocacy. Asheville GreenWorks Keeps litter and plastics out of mountain waterways through StreamKeepers, Trash Trout and river cleanups. Mainspring Conservation Trust Conserves land and restores streams and aquatic habitat across the Little Tennessee, Tuckasegee and Hiwassee watersheds. Blue Ridge Conservancy Permanently protects High Country forests, wetlands and headwater streams feeding several major river systems. Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy Protects mountain forests, farms and headwaters through land conservation across the Southern Appalachians. Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina Protects land, streams and headwaters across the Catawba, Broad and Yadkin river basins. Conserving Carolina Protects and restores rivers, streams, wetlands and floodplains throughout the southern mountains and Foothills. Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust Protects forests, wetlands and headwaters on the Highlands-Cashiers Plateau and surrounding mountain watersheds. Waterfall Keepers of North Carolina Protects waterfalls and their watersheds in NC through cleanups, stewardship, education and advocacy. American Whitewater Protects free-flowing rivers, healthy flows and public access, with extensive conservation work on western NC waterways. Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians The Natural Resources Department protects Cherokee waters through Tribal standards and conservation of aquatic habitats. North Carolina Trout Unlimited Local chapters conserve and restore western NC's coldwater streams, trout habitat and surrounding watersheds. Clean Water for North Carolina Helps communities protect drinking water, fight pollution and advocate for stronger water protections across the state. Catawba Nation EPD The Environmental Protections Division monitors and protects the Catawba River while managing water on Catawba lands. We wish that we could highlight every organization in WNC that works to keep our water healthy and safe, but we don't have room. These are a few of our favorites. Visit Foothillsdigest.com/water to learn more about these organizations and find ways to help.
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72 Where the Where the Mountains Mountains Let Go Let Go 7 Waterfalls Worth a Day Trip 7 Waterfalls Worth a Day Trip & 15 Regional Falls Worth Finding & 15 Regional Falls Worth Finding
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McGalliard Falls McGalliard Falls
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Some waterfalls are pleasant stops, and others shape the whole day. The difference is not always height or volume. A modest fall reached through a beautiful gorge can be more memorable than a much larger one beside a highway. The walk matters. The surrounding forest matters. So does the moment when the sound becomes loud enough to tell you that the waterfall is close, although the trees are still hiding it. Western North Carolina and northeastern Tennessee offer nearly every version of the experience. Water squeezes through narrow rock channels at Linville Falls, separates into dozens of white ribbons at Catawba Falls and fights its way through a field of boulders at Hebron Falls. Some trails begin near busy mountain towns. Others enter wilderness where the only useful facilities are the ones you remembered to carry with you. These seven are the waterfalls we would build a trip around. Each offers more than a quick photograph and a return to the car. At the end, we have included a guide to 15 waterfalls across the region, including easier roadside cascades and smaller falls that can be paired with another adventure. Waterfall access can change quickly after storms, flooding and construction. Several regional trails are still affected by Hurricane Helene, so check the official land manager’s current notices before leaving home. Linville Falls Linville Falls is dramatic because the entire landscape participates. The Linville River leaves the high slopes near Grandfather Mountain, gathers itself above the falls and enters a narrow stone channel where the water seems to twist out of sight. It then drops into one of the deepest and most rugged gorges in the eastern United States. The waterfall is impressive, but the cliffs, dark pools and immense forested ravine turn it into something much larger than a single drop of water. The trail system traditionally offers several perspectives, and each one explains a different part of what the river is doing. From the upper viewpoint, visitors can watch the water slide toward the narrow opening in the rock. Farther along, the lower falls appear within the walls of the gorge, and the river can be followed downstream as it begins a descent of nearly 2,000 feet. It is worth seeing from more than one overlook whenever trail conditions allow; Linville Falls reveals itself gradually rather than giving everything away from one platform. Some trails and viewpoints in the Linville Falls area currently remain closed because of Hurricane Helene damage. The open portions still provide a Linville FallsLinville Falls
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worthwhile experience, but visitors should consult the National Park Service’s current trail map before deciding which route to take. Swimming and climbing on the rocks are prohibited, with good reason: the river accelerates through narrow channels, and the gorge leaves almost no room for error. Glen Burney and Glen Marie Falls The Glen Burney Trail begins close enough to the shops and sidewalks of Blowing Rock that it is easy to underestimate. Within a few minutes, New Year’s Creek draws the trail away from town and down into Johns River Gorge. The forest closes in, old stonework appears beside the path and the sound of falling water grows steadily stronger. The first major reward is Glen Burney Falls, where the creek spreads across a broad, broken rock face. Farther down the trail, Glen Marie Falls feels more private and remote, even though the rooftops and traffic of town are not terribly far away. The contrast is one of the trip’s pleasures. You begin in a busy mountain village and end in a steep green hollow where water, rock and rhododendron occupy nearly everything you can see. The trail descends roughly 600 feet before reaching the base of Glen Marie Falls. That creates a satisfying journey into the gorge, followed by a serious climb back out. The return is where many visitors discover that a waterfall trail beginning downtown is still a mountain trail. Good shoes and water matter, especially when the path is wet. Taken together, Glen Burney and Glen Marie offer enough scenery and effort to feel like a complete outing rather than two attractions conveniently placed along the same creek. Hebron Falls Hebron Falls, also known as Boone Fork Falls, does not form one clean white curtain. Boone Fork reaches a mass of enormous boulders and breaks apart, sending water around, beneath and between them. Small channels disappear into dark openings and emerge several feet away. In high water, the whole boulder field seems to move. That complicated shape makes Hebron one of the region’s most interesting waterfalls to watch. There is no single perfect angle because the action is happening everywhere. One section may resemble a miniature gorge, while another looks like a chute built between rocks the size of small buildings. The falls feel less like an object placed in the forest and more like an ongoing argument between the creek and the mountain. Hebron Falls sits along the Boone Fork Trail in Julian Price Memorial Park. The complete 5.5-mile loop crosses meadows, shaded woods, streams and rhododendron thickets, making the surrounding hike nearly as important as the waterfall. Visitors who do not want the full loop can hike to the falls and return, but the route is still rocky and requires care. Parking should be confined to the designated Price Park area rather than the narrow roads nearby. Elk River Falls Elk River Falls provides one of the region’s biggest rewards for one of its shortest approaches. The river remains broad until it reaches a blunt ledge, then drops approximately 65 feet into a large, dark pool. The shape is simple and forceful. Water goes over the edge in one heavy sheet, and the resulting roar fills the small basin below. The Forest Service describes the approach as a half-mile rocky walkway, with the trip to the falls taking many visitors about 15 minutes. That accessibility has made Elk River Falls extremely popular, particularly during warm weather. It also means people sometimes arrive without the caution they might bring to a longer wilderness hike. This waterfall has been the site of deaths and catastrophic injuries, including paralysis, after visitors jumped from the top or climbed near the brink. The pool may look calm beyond the falling water, but the hydraulic forces beneath a large plunge are difficult to judge from shore. The best experience here is uncomplicated: take the short walk, find a safe place to sit and allow the waterfall to provide the excitement. The recreation area is open, but it is undeveloped and has no restrooms or potable water.
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Catawba Falls Catawba Falls shows the river at the beginning of its long journey through Western North Carolina and the Piedmont. Near Old Fort, the young Catawba is still descending the eastern face of the Blue Ridge. It spreads across ledges, divides into smaller channels and gathers again, creating a waterfall that seems to occupy an entire section of mountainside. This is a very different Catawba from the broad river and chain of lakes it becomes farther downstream. Here, it is steep, rocky and fast, still being shaped by the mountains around it. The falls offer a chance to see the river before dams, reservoirs and wide floodplains change its character, when gravity is still doing most of the work. The trail also passes remnants of a 1920s hydropower system that once supplied electricity to Old Fort. Those ruins add another layer to the experience. The water has always been beautiful here, but it has also been useful, harnessed and incorporated into the life of the community below. Major trail improvements have completely changed how visitors can reach the upper portion of the falls. The completed route includes 580 stairs, three overlooks and a 60-foot observation tower, followed by a ridge trail that creates a 3.5-mile loop. The quarter-mile climb between the lower and upper falls is roughly equivalent to climbing a 30-story building, so the word “stairs” should not be mistaken for “easy.” Visitors can still enjoy the lower waterfall without committing to the entire ascent. The full loop is currently open, although the upper viewing platform and Wildflower Trail remain closed while repairs continue. Even with those limitations, Catawba Falls is one of the region’s most complete waterfall destinations: a substantial cascade, a good forest walk, visible history and a choice between a moderate visit and a much harder climb.
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Hickory Nut Falls Hickory Nut Falls descends 404 feet from the cliffs above Chimney Rock, making it one of the tallest waterfalls in the eastern United States. Its height gives it a very different personality from Elk River Falls or Linville Falls. Instead of striking the ground with concentrated force, the water stretches into a long white ribbon, and wind can move the lower portion as it falls. The volume changes considerably with rainfall. During a wet period, the waterfall is commanding and visible across the gorge. In drier weather, it becomes more delicate, almost like mist being drawn down the rock face. Either version benefits from the scale of the surrounding cliffs. Standing at the base and looking upward is the only way to appreciate how far the water has traveled. The Hickory Nut Falls Trail is a moderate 1.4-mile round trip through mature forest. The path includes rolling sections, rocky ground and a short set of stairs near the base, but it is manageable for many families. Because the trail is inside the Chimney Rock attraction, admission is required and the waterfall trail closes earlier than the rest of the park. It is an easy destination to combine with the overlooks above Chimney Rock, although the waterfall deserves enough time to be more than the final item checked off before leaving. TrasHcan Falls This one is better known by its roadside nickname: Trashcan Falls. Its official name is Laurel Creek Falls, and it sits just off U.S. 321 near Boone. Laurel Creek drops through a narrow, rocky channel before spilling into a deep pool that has long made the falls a popular swimming hole. To reach it, set your GPS to the Laurel Creek Falls Parking Area. Just past the parking lot, look across the road for a well-worn path descending into the woods. The trail is not marked, but years of foot traffic have made it easy to recognize. The walk is short, and the sound of rushing water quickly leads the way. The path and rocks around the falls can be extremely slick, especially after rain. Visitors should move carefully and avoid trusting wet stone, even where it appears flat. Trashcan Falls is not a quiet wilderness destination, but its easy access, clear pool and lively rush of water make it one of the area’s most recognizable roadside waterfalls. trashcan falls trashcan falls
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15 Waterfalls Worth Finding Not every waterfall needs to occupy the whole day. Some are short walks that pair naturally with a mountain town, scenic drive or longer hike nearby. Others are smaller or more seasonal than the destination falls, but distinctive enough to deserve a place on the regional list. Silvervale Falls — Caldwell County This tall, narrow cascade descends almost directly beside Waterfalls Road and is one of the easiest substantial waterfalls to visit near Lenoir. Turn from U.S. 321 onto Waterfalls Road and continue about 1.75 miles from the Blowing Rock end; the falls and a small pull-off will be on the left. Walker Hollow Falls — Globe Walker Hollow Falls is a remote roadside cascade hidden in the forest near the Globe community. From Globe Baptist Church, take Anthony Creek Road north for about 3.1 miles; the road becomes gravel before reaching the falls on the right. McGalliard Falls — Valdese McGalliard Creek drops beside a historic grist mill in a developed town park with overlooks, picnic facilities and restrooms. Set your GPS for McGalliard Falls Park at 1400 Falls Road NW; the easiest overlook is behind the picnic shelter, while another path leads toward the mill and base. The Cascades at E.B. Jeffress Park — Blue Ridge Parkway Falls Creek slides steeply down the mountainside below E.B. Jeffress Park, with two platforms providing views along the descent. Park at the Cascades Overlook at Blue Ridge Parkway Milepost 271.9 and follow the one-mile loop. Green Mountain Creek Falls — Near Blowing Rock Green Mountain Creek falls above and below U.S. 221, creating an attractive roadside stop that is especially worthwhile after rain. From the junction of U.S. 221 and the Blue Ridge Parkway near Grandfather Mountain, drive north on U.S. 221 for about 7.3 miles and use one of the small pull-offs beside the road. Moravian Falls — Near Wilkesboro This waterfall is on private property but can be seen clearly from the public road. From the U.S. 421 and N.C. 16 junction in Wilkesboro, travel south, turn onto N.C. 18 and then onto Falls Road; the waterfall appears on the left. Crab Orchard Falls — Valle Crucis Crab Orchard Falls spreads through a boulder- filled forest above the Valle Crucis Conference Center and is reached by a moderate loop trail. Enter at 146 Skiles Way, bear left at the fork and follow the signs for waterfall parking behind the conference center. McGalliard Falls McGalliard Falls
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Otter Falls — Seven Devils Otter Falls tumbles through a cool, high-elevation forest reached by a color-coded trail system that descends toward an observation deck. Park at 825 Skyland Drive in Seven Devils and follow the posted trail signs toward the falls. Waterfalls Park — Newland Several cascades drop through this small roadside park, with the lower water visible from the parking area and a short, steep path climbing beside the upper tiers. The park is on Cranberry Street in Newland, directly across from the Dollar General. Upper Creek Falls — Pisgah National Forest Upper Creek includes a main sliding waterfall, smaller cascades and rocky pools along a rugged loop trail. From the Blue Ridge Parkway junction with N.C. 181, drive south for about 5.8 miles to the signed gravel entrance on the left. Thorps Creek Falls — Mortimer Thorps Creek Falls is a small forest waterfall reached by a short walk from Mortimer Campground in the Wilson Creek area. Drive to the campground at 8410 Edgemont Road in Collettsville and follow the Thorps Creek Trail from the back loop for about one-quarter mile. Tom’s Creek Falls — Near Marion A gentle, well-graded trail leads to a viewing deck beneath this tall waterfall spreading across a broad rock face. From the U.S. 221 and U.S. 70 junction northwest of Marion, travel north on U.S. 221, turn left onto Huskins Branch Road and continue about 1.2 miles to the parking area on the right. Carter Falls — Near Elkin Big Elkin Creek travels across a long field of broken rock before making its final drop at Carter Falls. Park at the signed trailhead at 921 Pleasant Ridge Road and follow the moderate half-mile trail downhill through the forest. Widow’s Creek Falls — Stone Mountain State Park Widow’s Creek slides down a broad stretch of exposed rock near the park road, making it much easier to reach than the park’s longer waterfall hikes. Enter Stone Mountain State Park and park in the pull-off immediately after crossing the bridge over Widow’s Creek; a short path follows the creek upstream. Shacktown Falls — Near Yadkinville Shacktown Falls is a low but broad Foothills waterfall that can be seen from the parking area or approached by a short path. Take U.S. 421 Exit 253, follow Old Stage Road, turn onto Styers Mill Road and look for the gravel parking area on the left just before the creek. The best waterfall days often begin simply: a roadside pull-off, a short trail or the sound of water beyond the trees. Choose a waterfall that fits your time and energy, wear shoes made for mud and wet rock and check access before leaving home. Then linger. Feel the spray, watch the light shift and listen beyond the roar. In these mountains, another waterfall is usually closer than you think.
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80 The Forgotten Paddle Trail Lake James You may have paddled the Upper Catawba River Paddle Trail without knowing it. People launch near Marion, explore Lake James, visit Valdese Lakeside Park or spend an afternoon on Lake Hickory. Each feels like a separate destination, but all are part of the same 82-mile route. The trail begins at Greenlee Park west of Marion and follows the Catawba east to Lookout Shoals near Statesville, passing through Lake James, Lake Rhodhiss and Lake Hickory. Its 33 marked locations include launches, river accesses, portages and side routes. By 2004, the Western Piedmont Council of Governments had mapped those places as one connected trail. The idea was simple: rather than treating each lake or stretch of river separately, paddlers could follow the Catawba from one numbered stop to the next. A 2017 state grant helped pay for signs, kiosks and updated maps. Some signs remain, but the trail itself has faded from public view even as its individual sections have become more popular. People still paddle the river near Marion. Lake James remains a major boating destination. Valdese Lakeside Park draws visitors to Lake Rhodhiss, and the parks around Lake Hickory stay busy. The water is being used. The trail’s name is what has been forgotten. Today, towns, counties, agencies and community groups maintain individual accesses, but no single organization appears to oversee the full route. Some stops are easy to find and well promoted. Others have little more than an aging sign. That leaves one of North Carolina’s longest paddle trails hiding in plain sight. The trail is worth rediscovering because the Catawba changes so dramatically along the way. Near Marion, it is a smaller river with moving water, wooded banks and mountain views. Farther east, it widens into lakes, passes beneath bridges and spreads around towns, parks and dams. Some sections feel remote. Others cross open water or require a portage. No one needs to paddle all 82 miles at once. The trail works best as a series of smaller trips between nearby stops. The map above brings all 33 locations back together, with names, coordinates and brief descriptions. Some are easy public launches. Others require more planning. You can find more information about the trail at Foothillsdigest.com/UCRPT. The Upper Catawba River Paddle Trail never truly disappeared. People have been paddling pieces of it all along. Most simply did not know they were on it.
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81 1. Greenlee Park — 35.689922, -82.050486 — River launch · Mountain-river start 2. Phillips Landing — 35.707656, -82.033650 — River launch · Quiet rural stretch 3. Black Bear Access — 35.748186, -81.966940 — River/lake launch · River opens wide 4. Hidden Cove Access — 35.730100, -81.890910 — Lake launch · Sheltered lake water 5. Canal Bridge Access — 35.733537, -81.886381 — Lake launch · Easy lake access 6. Long Arm Paddle Campsites — 35.748540, -81.851500 — Paddle-in camping · Overnight adventure 7. Linville River Access — 35.792284, -81.865716 — Spur launch · Mountain-water detour 8. Bridgewater Dam Portage — 35.742000, -81.843000 — Dam portage · First major carry 9. Bridgewater Access — 35.740270, -81.835030 — River launch · Below-dam restart 10. Watermill Road — 35.743771, -81.772441 — River launch · Low-key local access 11. Morganton Weir — 35.738502, -81.732017 — River access · Urban riverfront 12. Morganton Weir Dam Portage — 35.739871, -81.729688 — Weir portage · Short carry 13. Greenlee Ford — 35.740853, -81.717968 — River launch · Foothills river water 14. River Village — 35.747091, -81.706037 — River launch · Neighborhood access 15. Rocky Ford — 35.772230, -81.691189 — River access · Classic rocky river 16. John’s River — 35.793163, -81.676864 — Spur access · Tributary exploration 17. Huffman Bridge — 35.789574, -81.619653 — River/lake access · Water widens 18. Valdese Lakeside Park — 35.774120, -81.546513 — Park and launch · Easy recreation 19. Castle Bridge — 35.781818, -81.524949 — Lake access · Broad-water scenery 20. Connelly Creek — 35.784041, -81.484686 — Creek/lake access · Sheltered cove 21. Lakeside Park, Granite Falls — 35.786480, -81.440664 — Park and launch · Convenient lake stop 22. Rhodhiss — 35.771500, -81.442400 — Dam-side access · End-of-lake stop 23. Rhodhiss Portage — 35.771300, -81.438000 — Dam portage · Major route break 24. Rotary-Geitner Park — 35.764588, -81.369526 — Park and launch · Hickory riverfront 25. Glenn Hilton Park — 35.760938, -81.357366 — Spur park access · Wooded city escape 26. Gunpowder Access — 35.793744, -81.374661 — Spur access · Tucked-away cove 27. Lovelady Access — 35.795785, -81.349567 — Lake launch · Local lake access 28. Wittenburg Boating Access Area — 35.805289, -81.313232 — Boat/canoe launch · Open reservoir water 29. Dusty Ridge Boating Access Area — 35.814927, -81.230176 — Boat launch · Quiet lake edge 30. Oxford Access Area — 35.818450, -81.195617 — Dam-side access · Upper-lake staging 31. Oxford Dam Portage — 35.821500, -81.193100 — Dam portage · Final major carry 32. Riverbend Park — 35.820160, -81.188013 — Park and launch · Below-dam restart 33. Lookout Shoals Access — 35.757726, -81.097289 — Final access · Trail terminus Rhodhiss Lake Lake Hickory
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82 Where the Water Runs Fast Cold, rocky, beautiful places where joy and good sense belong together
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83 Not all water is meant to be eased into. Some water comes at you cold and fast. It splashes over the raft, knocks your knees against river rock, pulls laughter out of your throat before you are ready for it. It is the water people talk about on the ride home: the rapid that soaked everyone, the rock they did not see coming, the gorge that made them feel small, the guide who knew exactly when to yell, “Paddle.” This is mountain water with a pulse. In the far western corner of North Carolina, rivers do not simply pass through the landscape. They drop through it. They gather in shaded coves, cut through rock, curl around boulders, disappear into gorges and carry the cold force of high places downhill. These are the rivers of first whitewater trips, serious paddling days, trout water, family floats, release schedules, outfitters, helmets, wetsuits, nerves and stories. Some are friendly enough for beginners with a guide. Some are better for learning slowly. Some are not beginner rivers at all. The trick is knowing which kind of water you are looking at before you get in. Nantahala River The River That Makes You Scream Laugh The Nantahala is a classic first whitewater story. People arrive nervous, especially the ones pretending not to be. They adjust helmets, hold paddles awkwardly, listen to the safety talk and quietly wonder whether this was a good idea. Then the raft pushes off, the first cold splash hits and dignity disappears. That is the magic of the Nantahala. It turns fear into laughter. The water is famously cold, clear and lively, but the experience is accessible enough that many families treat it like a mountain rite of passage. Children come off the river feeling braver than when they started. Parents come off soaked and ridiculous. Guides become temporary heroes. Everyone remembers the rapid that got them. The Nantahala is not the biggest river in the world, but it knows how to make people feel alive. Best for guided rafting, families with older children, first-time whitewater and groups that want adventure without being thrown into the deep end. Go with a reputable outfitter, listen to your guide and dress for cold water even in summer. Tuckasegee River The River That Lets You Learn The Tuckasegee has a different kind of charm. It is not trying to scare everyone in the boat. It is friendlier than that, at least on the right stretch and the right day. The Tuck is the river where many people learn to read current, bump over shoals, cast into moving water or understand that even a gentle-looking river has a mind of its own. It runs through towns, farms, bridges, fishing holes and mountain views that feel more lived-in than remote. The Tuckasegee is not only an adventure river. It is a community river, used by anglers, families, students, paddlers and people who simply like being near moving water. Like many mountain rivers, it changes with releases and weather. A good day on the Tuck can feel easy and generous. A high-water day can feel entirely different. That is the lesson it offers: moving water does not have to be extreme to deserve attention.
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Best for beginner-friendly paddling where appropriate, family floats, trout fishing and a gentler moving-water experience. Cheoah River The River for People Who Mean It The Cheoah is not a casual invitation. It is a serious whitewater river, the kind people plan around, talk about carefully and approach only when they have the skill to be there. It does not have the easy, first-timer feeling of the Nantahala. It has a sharper edge. When the Cheoah is running, it reminds people that some rivers are not made for everybody every day. They require preparation, experience, timing and humility. For skilled paddlers, that is the draw. For everyone else, the best way to appreciate it may be from a safe distance, with the understanding that beauty does not always mean access. Some rivers welcome beginners. The Cheoah tests people who already know what they are doing. Best for experienced whitewater paddlers and serious river watchers. Do not treat the Cheoah as a beginner river. Hiwassee River The River That Slips Toward Tennessee The Hiwassee feels like a western doorway. It rises in the mountains, gathers water from the far corner of North Carolina and moves west toward Tennessee. Around Murphy, Hayesville and the surrounding valleys, it belongs to a landscape of old roads, lake water, forested slopes, farms, Cherokee history and quiet places that do not always announce themselves loudly. This is not the showiest river in the mountains. Its pleasures are quieter. The Hiwassee and its neighboring waters, including the Valley and Nottely, remind us that fast water is not only about guided rafting and big rapids. Sometimes it is about a river system that shapes a whole region: where towns settled, where roads followed valleys, where lakes formed behind dams, where people fish, paddle, camp and watch the weather. It is water that feels both tucked away and important, the kind of river you may not fully notice until you realize how much of the place has been arranged around it. Best for scenic exploring, fishing, lake-and-river trips, quiet paddling where appropriate and far- Western North Carolina travel. Chattooga River The Wild Border River The Chattooga begins quietly enough in the North Carolina mountains, but it does not stay small in the imagination. By the time people speak of the Chattooga, they often speak with a certain awe. It is one of the great wild whitewater rivers of the Southeast, a river of gorges, boulders, cold drops, forested banks and stories that belong as much to Georgia and South Carolina as to North Carolina. The Chattooga is not a casual float. It feels older and wilder than that. It is the kind of river that makes people understand why some places are protected, why guides matter, why skill matters and why a beautiful river should never be confused with a harmless one. There are stretches for guided adventure, stretches for serious paddlers and stretches best admired by people who know enough not to overestimate themselves. The Chattooga does not need to be softened. It asks to be taken seriously. Best for guided whitewater trips, experienced paddlers, gorge scenery and people who want a serious river experience. Fast Water, Good Sense Before you go, check weather, water levels, dam releases, access rules, closures and local conditions. Use outfitters when appropriate. Wear a properly fitted life jacket on moving water. Avoid rivers after heavy rain. Never swim near dams, strainers or water you do not understand. Best first whitewater: Nantahala Best learning river: Tuckasegee Best serious whitewater: Cheoah Best quiet river country: Hiwassee Best wild-border adventure: Chattooga Fast water gives us some of the best stories of summer. It just asks that we come prepared enough to tell them afterward.
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87 The Blue Ridge Parkway is famous for mountains, but water has just as much to do with the shape of the road. For most of its 469 miles, the Parkway is not following rivers the way so many old mountain roads do. Instead, it travels the crests, ridges and high valleys of five major mountain ranges. That puts it close to the beginnings of river systems, where rainfall gathers into seeps, branches and creeks before heading downhill toward much larger rivers. In fact, the Parkway sits at the headwaters of major river systems across the Southern Appalachians, repeatedly carrying travelers across watershed boundaries. A drive along the Parkway can move you from one enormous system of moving water to another, even when there is no river in sight. A ridgeline is often a watershed boundary. Rain falling on one side runs downhill in one direction while rain falling only a few feet away on the other side may eventually join an entirely different river. Along the Parkway, those little streams below the overlooks become the rivers that define the Southern Appalachians. Occasionally, though, the road comes all the way down to meet them. In Virginia, the Parkway reaches the James River at Milepost 63.7, one of the lowest places on the entire route, at roughly 600 feet above sea level. From there the road climbs back into the mountains. Farther south, it crosses the Roanoke River at Milepost 114.7. In North Carolina, the relationship becomes especially familiar. At Linville Falls, around Milepost 316, the Linville River drops out of the high country near Grandfather Mountain and begins a nearly 2,000-foot descent through Linville Gorge. The Parkway crosses the river near the falls, giving travelers one of their closest looks at the transition from mountain stream to powerful river. Near Asheville, the Parkway reaches another major river system. At the French Broad River, around Milepost 393, the road has come down from the high ridges around Craggy Gardens before beginning another long climb toward Mount Pisgah and the high country beyond. The French Broad Overlook at Milepost 393.8 looks across the river valley. But some of the Parkway’s most important connections to water are less obvious. Between Mileposts 355 and 370, for example, travelers skirt the Asheville watershed, where mountain streams feed the North Fork Reservoir. That reservoir is the primary drinking-water source for nearly 125,000 customers. The protected forests visible from the Parkway are doing more than creating a beautiful view: they are helping protect the water supply below. Water is also responsible for many of the Parkway’s best-known stops. Linville Falls, Crabtree Falls, Falling Water Cascades and dozens of smaller creeks and cascades exist because water is constantly working its way from those high ridges toward the valleys. So while the Parkway may look like a road built to show us mountains, it also offers a remarkably good way to understand the rivers beneath them. From the high overlooks, we are often looking down into watersheds. At the gaps, we cross from one drainage to another. Along the slopes, tiny headwater streams appear beside the road and disappear into the forest. Then, every so often, the Parkway drops from the ridge and meets the river those little streams have become. The mountains determine where the water goes. The Parkway gives us 469 miles from which to watch it happen. The Road The Road Above the Above the Rivers Rivers
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Long before California became synonymous with gold, North Carolina was where America’s first gold rush began. In 1799, twelve-year-old Conrad Reed picked up a heavy yellow rock while fishing in Little Meadow Creek in Cabarrus County. His family used it as a doorstop for years before learning that it was a seventeen-pound gold nugget. That discovery set off decades of digging, tunneling and panning across the Piedmont and into the Foothills. Before miners rushed west, North Carolina produced more gold than any other state in the country. Look at a map of the state’s known gold deposits, and it begins to resemble a treasure map. Dots and markings spread across the central part of North Carolina, following a broad belt from the Virginia line toward South Carolina. Some represent famous mines. Others mark smaller discoveries, old prospects or places where gold appeared in stream sediment. Together, they show that the Reed discovery was hardly an isolated stroke of luck. Gold runs through a large section of the state’s geology, and the rivers have spent thousands of years uncovering it. Every hard rain wears away another thin layer of soil. Floodwater breaks loose gravel and carries it downhill. Creeks cut into hillsides, expose old rock and move tiny pieces of gold away from the veins where they formed. The mines may be quiet now, but that process has never stopped. Gold is extraordinarily heavy, nearly twenty times heavier than water. A current can move it, especially during a flood, but it does not travel as easily as sand or ordinary gravel. When the water slows, gold drops. Over time, flakes collect in predictable places: inside bends, behind large rocks, beneath waterfalls, below riffles and inside cracks in exposed bedrock. An Authentic Treasure Map
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That is where the map and the river meet. A marked deposit may tell you that gold exists somewhere in the surrounding ground, but the water tells you where it may have gone. Follow a creek downhill from an old mine or known gold-bearing area and the stream becomes part of the search. Each bend, ledge and gravel bar is another place where the river may have sorted its load and left the heaviest pieces behind. There is no guarantee that every marked location will produce gold. Some deposits are buried deep underground. Some were worked heavily more than a century ago. Some sit on private land where prospecting is not allowed. Rivers change course, dams alter currents and floods rearrange gravel bars overnight. Still, the map changes the way you look at the landscape. A creek beside the road is no longer just a creek. It may be draining a hillside where miners once followed a narrow vein of quartz. A quiet bend below an old mill might have caught heavy material through generations of floods. A patch of black sand in the bottom of a pan may be evidence that the river has already done much of the sorting for you. Many will find only a few bright specks, small enough to disappear when the pan tilts. A few bright specks can be enough to keep a person searching. The reward is not measured only by weight. You are reading the land. The map gives you clues. The river shows you where to look. The pan reveals what the water has carried there. More than two centuries after Conrad Reed reached into Little Meadow Creek, North Carolina’s gold is still moving downstream, one storm and one gravel bar at a time. Somewhere beneath the water, caught in a crack or resting behind a stone, another tiny piece of the state’s first gold rush may still be waiting.
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The Grizzly Foragers Find the Blue Ridge The creek bed was dry, but Arthur and Sybbie were still looking for life. With their parents, John and Christina, they searched beneath rocks and along the cool edges of the old channel on Grandfather Mountain. The water had disappeared from sight, but the damp places it left behind were still holding something remarkable: a Yonahlossee salamander (Plethodon yonahlossee). For a family that has built its life around noticing what other people walk past, it was a fitting North Carolina discovery. Back home in Northumberland, England, the four are known as The Grizzly Forager Family, followed by more than 600,000 people who watch them hunt mushrooms, identify wild plants, cook what they gather and, most importantly, explore the outdoors together. This summer they came to North Carolina for the Grandfather Presents series at Grandfather Mountain, bringing their particular kind of curiosity into a forest that felt both familiar and completely new. “The sheer diversity of the forest and the abundance of life here” surprised John most. He recognized some old friends among the plants and fungi, but much of what surrounded them was new. “It was like learning how to identify all over again — in a really good way!” he said. “I was so excited to head out into the woods every day.” There was plenty to find. Sybbie discovered a cep, or King Bolete (Boletus edulis), one of the family’s favorite mushrooms, and the delicate white fingers of White Worm Coral (Clavaria fragilis). Arthur found a Hemlock Reishi (Ganoderma tsugae) and, on his first day on Grandfather Mountain, the ghostly white Eastern Destroying Angel (Amanita bisporigera), one of the deadliest mushrooms in North America. For John, the abundance extended well beyond fungi. Photo by John Patrick Reid Shahabeddin
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“The wildlife is also spectacular,” he said, remembering “beautiful birds, reptiles, insects, amphibians and mammals seemingly everywhere.” Even the scale of the landscape astonished him. “The U.S. is blessed with vast swathes of wilderness that seem to stretch for hundreds of miles. We don’t have that kind of green space in the U.K.” Arthur had his own list of discoveries, and mushrooms did not take first place. “My favorite find was a dead Eastern Copperhead,” he said. He had hoped to see a living one in the forest, but even getting a close look at the dead snake was, in Arthur’s estimation, “absolutely cool.” Then there was the Cinnabar Red Chanterelle, a North American species he had never encountered at home. That one mattered because chanterelles are his favorite mushrooms. But North Carolina offered another discovery that apparently rivaled all of them. “Perhaps my favorite ‘find’ was hushpuppies,” Arthur admitted. “They were absolutely delicious!” That mixture of serious knowledge and sheer delight is a large part of the Grizzly Foragers’ charm. Their walks are not simply searches for edible things. A mushroom leads to questions about a forest. A snake becomes an anatomy lesson. A salamander hiding where a creek once ran becomes evidence that the influence of water remains long after the visible water is gone. The family shared that way of looking during a hands-on Grandfather Mountain field course, where Arthur, Sybbie and John led participants in search of oak galls — curious growths created when tiny wasps interact with oak tissue. Once gathered, the galls can be transformed into traditional iron gall ink, linking an afternoon in the woods to centuries of history. For Sybbie, though, the treasures of North Carolina required less explanation. Asked what single wild thing she would take home to England if she could, she had trouble choosing. “A Yonahlossee salamander or a chipmunk!” she said. “They were both so cute!” Then she added one more souvenir, technically outside the rules. “A non-wild thing I would take home is Nana-puddin!” That is the Grizzly Foragers in miniature. They know the Latin names, but they can get just as excited about a chipmunk or a bowl of banana pudding. The fun is in finding things together. On Grandfather Mountain, even a creek bed with no water running through it still had something to reveal. You just had to know to look. You can follow The Grizzly Forager on Facebook, find John’s book, The Grizzly Forager’s Guide to Family Foraging or download the family’s Gathered foraging app. More information about the Grandfather Presents series is available through Grandfather Mountain. Hemlock Reishi GANODERMA TSUGAE Eastern Destroying Angel AMANITA BISPORIGERA Yonahlossee Salamander PLETHODON YONAHLOSSEE Cinnabar Red Chanterelle CANTHARELLUS CINNABARINUS White Worm Coral Mushroom CLAVARIA FRAGILIS Hush Puppy CROQUETTUS APPALACHIENSIS
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THE BOATS BUILT IN NEW TON THE BOATS BUILT IN NEW TON Before the company had a name, Melvin Little and Charles Clifton “Cliff” Bollinger were building wooden racing boats in Newton and hauling them up and down the Eastern Seaboard. In the early 1950s, they would take a newly built boat to a race, compete in it, often sell it afterward, then return home and build another in time for the next event. They became familiar faces on the racing circuit, particularly to competitors from farther north. “The boats originally didn’t have a trade name. They developed a reputation on the racing circuit, and people from up North would say, ‘Here come the boys from Dixie.’ Eventually, they adopted Dixie as the name.” — Jill Little Huter, Melvin Little’s daughter Once the name stuck, one of their wooden racing models became known as the Dixie Flash. What had begun as two Newton men building boats for weekend races gradually grew into Dixie Boat Works, one of Catawba County’s more unusual manufacturers. The business began as a hobby connected to Bollinger & Deal Texaco. An early Dixie Flash still bears the words “Sold at Bollinger & Deal,” preserving that modest beginning in painted lettering. The company’s original location was on North Main Street in Newton, and in 1955 it moved to a larger facility on what is now Northwest Boulevard. The earliest models were made of wood, but fiberglass was changing the boating industry and Dixie changed with it. What began with two racers building boats for themselves grew into a manufacturer willing to follow new materials, motors and customers. Dixie went on to build fishing boats, runabouts, jon boats and family recreational boats that were practical, affordable and distinctive enough to be remembered. These were boats made for real weekends on Carolina lakes: fishing rods along the side, a cooler under the seat, a tow rope on the floor and somebody checking the motor one more time before pushing away from the dock. What made Dixie unusual was where it was built: inland North Carolina, in a county better known for furniture, textiles, farms and factories. But the Catawba River and its growing chain of lakes were creating demand for boats, motors, docks, marinas and people who knew how to build and repair all of them. Lake Hickory, Rhodhiss, Lookout Shoals and, eventually, Lake Norman gave families new places to fish, ski and spend long summer afternoons. Dixie Boat Works grew alongside that changing relationship with the water. Melvin Little’s life seems to have followed anything that moved. He was interested in boats, racing, skiing, fishing, rafting, airplanes and photography. Dixie gave those interests a place to meet in a business built around water, speed and mechanical ingenuity. Its influence reached beyond the Newton factory. Griffin “Dip” Kale worked at Dixie before becoming involved with Lake Norman Marina. His wife, Elsie, was Melvin’s sister, tying the marina’s history directly to the family and business that had helped establish the region’s early boating culture. As Mark Kale later put it, “It was the Dixie boat that started it all.” Photos courtesy of Jill Little Huter
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93 Vintage Dixies still inspire a particular kind of affection. They appear in restoration groups, classified listings and old family photographs, often described the way people talk about classic trucks and cars: sturdy, distinctive and worth saving. For boats built to be used hard on ordinary weekends, a surprising number have survived long enough to become reminders of the industry that produced them. Jason Feimster puts it plainly: “The vintage look of a Dixie will turn heads without breaking the bank.” Part of the appeal is that there simply are not many boats like them left. A restored Dixie looks like something from another era, but it is also unmistakably local. It came from a Newton factory, built by people learning and adapting as recreational boating took hold across the Catawba lakes. Bringing one back is more than nostalgia. It puts a piece of local manufacturing history on the same water it was built to travel. The company’s name carries a different weight today than it did when the boats were being built. It came from the language of its time and from the reputation Cliff and Melvin developed as Southern racers traveling north. A company launching now might choose another name, but that does not make the history less worth preserving. The Catawba River did more than give people a place to boat. It helped create the market that allowed people in Newton to build the boats themselves. A Dixie on the lake is proof that boating history was being made here, too, by local people who raced what they built, sold it, came home and started again.
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94 Most water guides start with the activity: kayaking, fishing, swimming, tubing, hiking. But that is not really how most of us plan a day outside. We start with a feeling. Sometimes we want the kids to get wet and tired without anyone getting in over their head. Sometimes we want a little adrenaline, but not the kind that ends with a rescue squad. Sometimes we want a lake chair, a cooler and permission to do absolutely nothing. Other days, we want to cast a line, follow a river trail, find a waterfall or get just far enough from the road to feel like we have gone somewhere. The water matters, but so does the mood. A quiet lake and a fast river can both make a perfect day, just not the same kind of day. The best choice depends on who is going, how much effort everyone wants to make and whether the goal is adventure, ease, scenery, fishing, swimming or simply getting outside. So instead of starting with the activity, start with the kind of day you want to have. Here is a better way to choose. What Kind What Kind of Water of Water Day? Day?
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95 "I want to take kids somewhere easy." Start with places that have public access, parking, bathrooms, marked trails and water that does not demand too much of anybody. New River State Park: Gentle moving water, established accesses and plenty of room for a first family float. See the New River, page 24. Lake James State Park: Choose Paddy’s Creek for a swim beach, trails, paddling and the kind of park where a family can settle in for the whole day. See the Catawba Chain, page 56. Lake Norman State Park: A bigger, busier lake day with a swimming beach, paddling, fishing, trails and good facilities. See page 57. Valdese Lakeside Park + McGalliard Falls Park: Pair lake views and greenway time with an easy waterfall stop and picnic. See McGalliard Falls, page 74. Catawba River Greenway + Hickory Riverwalk: Good choices when you want the water beside you instead of beneath you: paved paths, fishing, bikes, strollers and easy family logistics. See pages 54 and 57.
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"I want to be a little scared but safe." This is where hiring a guide is part of the fun. Nantahala River: The region’s classic first-whitewater trip: cold, splashy and exciting without requiring expert-level skills when you go with a reputable outfitter. See Fast Water, page 82, and our Wildwater trip, page 100. Pigeon River: Choose the Lower Pigeon for the gentler family experience and the Upper Pigeon when everyone wants more action. Let the outfitter match your group to the right trip. French Broad River: Guided rafting gives you the excitement; tubing offers a much lazier version of the same river. See the French Broad, page 62. Wear what the outfitter tells you to wear, listen during the safety talk and do not assume experience on one river automatically prepares you for another.
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97 $900 "I want to fish." Watauga River: Start around Valle Crucis for accessible trout water in a beautiful setting. See page 30. Wilson Creek: Cold mountain water, good trout fishing and dramatic scenery. It gets busy, so park legally and know the regulations before casting. Linville River: A much rougher choice for experienced anglers willing to deal with difficult access, steep terrain and primitive trails. Catawba tailraces: Excellent fishing can occur below area dams, but generation changes water levels quickly. Always check Duke Energy’s scheduled releases. Lake James: Go for mountain scenery and a mix of trout and bass. See page 56. Lake Hickory + Lake Rhodhiss: Two convenient local choices for fishing without turning the outing into a road trip. See pages 56-57. Lake Norman: Big water, abundant coves, docks and public boat access. See page 57. New River: A slower, scenic fishing day with excellent smallmouth water. See page 24. Davidson River: One of Western North Carolina’s best-known trout streams, with easy access near Brevard and plenty of water for both newer and experienced anglers. Before fishing anywhere, check current N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission regulations for the exact water you plan to visit. Trout designations, tackle rules, seasons and harvest limits can vary by stream and section.
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98 "I want to float and not think." New River: Probably the easiest answer. Pick an established section, arrange the shuttle and let the river do most of the work. See page 24. French Broad River: For a more social float, choose an established tubing route with an outfitter handling the logistics. See page 64. Broad River Paddle Trail: A good Foothills option as access continues to improve, but check current conditions and do not assume every paddle-trail section is a lazy float. See page 69. Upper Catawba River Paddle Trail: An 82-mile trail with 33 marked locations, useful for choosing individual sections rather than tackling the whole thing at once. See page 80. "I want to walk beside water." Hickory Riverwalk: An easy Lake Hickory walk with long water views and the overwater bridge. See page 57. Catawba River Greenway: Paved riverfront walking and biking with fishing piers, picnic areas and places to get close to the Catawba. See page 54. Valdese Lakeside Park to McGalliard Falls: A particularly good combination if you want lake, creek, greenway and waterfall in one outing. See page 78. Catawba Falls: A real hike rather than a casual stroll, with stairs, overlooks and a dramatic payoff near Old Fort. Go to look at the water, not climb around in it. See page 76.
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99 Water Days A paddleboard is the best choice when you want a peaceful paddle on calm water, a little exercise and a great view beneath the surface. A kayak is the best choice when you want an easy-to-control, versatile craft for exploring lakes, coves and gentle rivers. A canoe is the best choice when you need room for family, dogs, fishing gear, camping equipment or everything you want to bring along. A tube is the best choice when you want to relax and let the current carry you down a warm, gentle and familiar river. A river board is the best choice when you are a strong swimmer looking for an up-close, high-energy whitewater adventure with the proper gear and guidance.
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WILDWATER- A Grand Adventure The train stopped beside the Nantahala, and suddenly the river we had been watching all morning was ours to enter. Until then, we had seen it through the windows, flashing between rocks and trees as the train followed it through the gorge. The kids pointed out rapids and bends, watching the water appear and disappear beneath the green. It was beautiful from a distance, but the best part began when we climbed off the train, met our Wildwater guide and realized we were about to raft the same river. Helmets went on. Paddles were handed out. There was a safety talk, some nervous laughter and the usual family discussion about who was sitting where. Then we pushed away from the bank and into water cold enough to get everyone’s full attention. The Nantahala is lively without feeling impossible, which made it a great river for our family. The raft bumped through waves, spun around rocks and took on sharp splashes of mountain water. At first, the kids were quiet and watchful. A few rapids later, their laughter had taken over. Our guide kept the trip organized without making the river feel tame. He told us when to paddle, when to stop and how to work together through the current. We never forgot that the river was stronger than we were, but we never felt dropped into something beyond us. The train ride had shown us the shape of the gorge. The raft let us feel it. Water that had looked peaceful through the window became cold, noisy and physical once it was coming over the sides of the boat. The rocks seemed larger from river level, and the forest rose steeply above us. By the end, we were soaked, tired and delighted. We also tried Wildwater’s canopy tour, moving through the forest from platform to platform. The zipline felt fast in places and peaceful in others, especially when the trees opened and the mountains appeared beyond them. Once again, the best part was watching the kids become more confident. The first crossing required some nerve. By the last, they were leaning into it. Wildwater hosted us in one of the yurts afterward. We were tired, damp, hungry and happy, sorting through wet clothes and replaying the best moments while the river moved somewhere nearby in the dark. The trip gave us three views of the same mountain landscape: through a train window, from a raft and from high in the trees. It was a genuine family adventure, full of cold water, nervous beginnings and the pleasure of watching everyone become a little braver.
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Before Sparta Candle Co. became a TikTok sensation, we were telling readers about the small Alleghany County business making unusually beautiful soaps and candles in downtown Sparta. Then the internet discovered it. Videos went viral, orders poured in and the company grew into something far larger than a local favorite. Today, Sparta Candle Co. is a genuine tourism draw. People make the trip to Sparta specifically to visit the shop, often building the rest of their day around being there. That kind of success matters in a small mountain town. A business that began with handmade products has become one of the reasons new visitors discover Sparta at all. Its three water-themed soaps are especially good examples of what the company does well. New River combines amber, cardamom and citrus. It is warmer than you might expect from something named for a river, with a bright citrus edge and a spicy note underneath. The orange-and-gold bar feels right for the New: sunny, lively and a little wild. Little River is cooler and quieter. Bergamot, lavender and sandalwood give it a clean, woodsy scent, and tiny handcrafted river rocks made from soap are embedded in the bar. It looks a little like a shallow streambed, with smooth stones showing through the surface. Carolina leaves the mountains altogether. Sea salt, mint and juniper make it crisp and fresh, while small soap shells sit on top, sometimes with a starfish among them. It feels less like a perfume interpretation of the coast and more like something you might bring home from a beach trip. None of the three smells literally like a river or beach, which is probably why they work. New River is bright and warm, Little River cooler and woodsy, Carolina clean and salty. The place names are there, but the soaps do not try too hard to explain themselves. They are also more than pretty bars sitting beside a sink. They lather well, leave skin soft and never feel harsh or overpowering. New River is my personal favorite, and I mean that literally: I do not use any other soap. Sparta Candle Co. caught on quickly, and once you see the bars in person, that makes perfect sense. Editor's Note: This story is not sponsored. I love this soap so much that I wanted you all to know about it. 3 bars, 3 bars, 3 Landscapes 3 Landscapes
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w what's in hat's in your bag? your bag? A well-packed river bag can make the difference between an easy day on the water and one that becomes uncomfortable the moment something gets wet, lost or forgotten. The goal is not to haul half the house to the river. It is to protect the important things, keep necessities within reach and make the end of the day considerably less messy. Start with the bag itself. A Watershed Chattooga™ Duffel is a strong choice for anything that absolutely must stay dry. Unlike a traditional roll-top dry bag, the Chattooga uses Watershed’s ZipDry® closure, which seals more like a heavy-duty freezer bag than a folded sack. The duffel is fully waterproof and submersible, with welded seams and durable, coated nylon designed for the abuse that comes with boats, rocky banks, wet docks and long hours in the sun. At 22 liters, it is large enough to hold the important supplies for a day trip without becoming an enormous bag that swallows everything placed inside it. The wide opening makes it easier to find what you need, while compression straps help keep the load compact. Multiple attachment points allow the bag to be secured inside a canoe, kayak or raft rather than sliding from one side of the boat to the other. The closure takes a little more effort than an ordinary roll-top, but that is part of the appeal. Once it is properly sealed, phones, wallets, dry clothes, first-aid supplies and car keys feel genuinely protected. There is also something particularly satisfying about pressing the closure shut and knowing the things inside are not merely shielded from spray. They are sealed away from the water. It is still useful to bring a second bag. SealLine Discovery Dry Bags are popular for good reason: they are simple, dependable and available in enough sizes to hold anything from a few personal items to a larger load of family gear. They are made with sturdy 330-denier fabric, fully welded seams and a DrySeal roll-top closure. Sizes range from 5 to 50 liters, making it easy to choose one for towels and snacks or a larger version for the gear of an entire family.
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Using two bags prevents the main duffel from becoming a deep waterproof hole full of loose granola bars, sunscreen and wet socks. Reserve the Watershed bag for valuables and anything that must remain completely dry. Use the SealLine bag for bulkier supplies or the things people will reach for repeatedly throughout the day. Inside the main bag, pack a complete change of clothes, a towel and a pair of dry socks for the trip home. A dry shirt and socks may not seem important while everyone is still splashing around, but they become much more appealing once the sun drops, the wind picks up or the air conditioning starts blowing in the car. Farm to Feet’s Blue Ridge Light Targeted Cushion socks are a good choice for that ride home. They are made in Mount Airy and provide extra cushioning around the heel and ankle. After several hours in wet shoes or sandals, putting on a genuinely comfortable pair of dry socks feels like a small luxury. A PackTowl Changing Poncho can take the place of an ordinary towel while solving another familiar river- day problem: where is everyone supposed to change? The lightweight, quick-drying fabric absorbs three times its weight in water, while the hooded poncho provides enough coverage to remove a swimsuit, wetsuit or muddy clothing underneath it. That means nobody has to get naked beside a parking lot, boat ramp or crowded swimming hole. It is especially helpful for children, teenagers and anyone who has attempted to change clothes while clutching a towel that seems determined to fall open at the worst possible moment. The poncho can be used to dry off, then worn as a private changing space. It packs down easily and dries much faster than a thick beach towel, making it one of the most useful things to add to a family water bag. A fully charged phone belongs in the bag too. Protect it in a waterproof pouch and keep it somewhere easy to reach rather than buried beneath everyone’s clothes. Phones are important safety equipment. They can provide downloaded maps, GPS directions, changing weather information and emergency communication. Location-sharing features can help family members keep track of one another and location data may assist rescuers if someone becomes lost or separated from the group.
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Phones can also add another layer of interest to the day. Identification apps can help determine which fish, plants, birds, insects or animal tracks have been spotted along the way. Download the apps and any needed maps before leaving home, since many of the best river places have unreliable cell service. If you're on a motorized boat, you'll love the app Wavve, which helps you safely navigate. If you're on a smaller boat, PaddleWays is excellent for helping you discover new places to paddle. A small portable charger is worth adding, especially when the phone will be used throughout the day for navigation, photography, identification apps or location tracking. Keep the charger and cables together in a small pouch instead of allowing them to disappear into the bottom of the bag. Add sunscreen, picaridin bug spray, drinking water and enough snacks to get everyone through the outing. Picaridin works well around rivers because it protects against mosquitoes and ticks without the strong smell or oily feel associated with some other repellents. Keep both the sunscreen and bug spray near the top of the bag. They are much more likely to be reapplied when nobody has to unload everything to find them. A first-aid kit should always be within reach. The Coleman 72-Piece First Aid Kit is compact enough to keep in a river bag while still covering the ordinary mishaps of a day outside: cuts, scraped knees, splinters, stings and blisters. Add any personal medications, allergy supplies or other items required by the people in the group. Keep keys, wallets and other small essentials together in their own waterproof pouch. Even inside a sealed dry bag, it helps to contain the little things. Nobody wants to empty the entire contents of a bag onto the riverbank while searching for one car key. River rocks can be slick, lake bottoms uneven and creek beds full of sharp or unexpected objects. Shoes should fit securely enough that moving water cannot pull them off. A spare pair of lightweight sandals or slip-on shoes will also make the drive home more comfortable.
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design - installations- gallery 215a 1st Avenue SW Hickory NC 28602 wednesday thursday friday 10 - 5 fanjoylabrenz.com Bring a couple of ordinary trash bags as well. One can hold wet clothes and muddy shoes after everyone changes. The other can collect snack wrappers, regular garbage and any litter picked up along the river. Keeping wet gear and trash separate prevents the dry bags from becoming damp, gritty messes by the end of the day. With two waterproof bags, give each one a clear purpose. Keep phones, wallets, first-aid supplies, electronics and the most important dry clothes in the Watershed duffel. Use the SealLine bag for towels, snacks, sunscreen, spare shoes and anything that will be pulled out repeatedly. The system does not have to be complicated. It simply needs to ensure that dry clothes are still dry when they are needed, safety supplies can be found quickly and nobody has to unpack the whole river day onto the ground to locate a granola bar. A good river bag is not about being prepared for every possible disaster. It is about removing the small frustrations that can ruin an otherwise wonderful day: the soaked phone, the missing sunscreen, the cold ride home, the muddy clothes piled on top of everything else. Pack the things that keep people safe, dry and comfortable, give each bag a purpose and then forget about the gear once you reach the water. Editor's Note: Some companies provided products for testing, while others were purchased by Foothills Digest. We included only products that performed well in our own testing.
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A good day on the water can involve blazing sun, cool wind, sudden rain, biting insects, wet boat seats, muddy banks and at least one person getting splashed far more than expected. Clothing may not be exciting, but it has an enormous effect on how long everyone stays comfortable. The first question is simple: Are you planning to get wet? For swimming, tubing and other activities where getting soaked is part of the experience, choose clothing that dries quickly and remains comfortable when damp. Polyester and nylon absorb far less water than cotton and usually dry quickly in sun or moving air. Many outdoor shirts, shorts and pants combine these fibers with a little stretch, making them comfortable for paddling, climbing over rocks or getting in and out of a boat. Lightweight merino wool is useful when the weather is cool or changeable. It does not dry as quickly as a thin synthetic fabric, but it continues to insulate when damp and is less likely to develop an odor. Cotton, on the other hand, holds water. A wet cotton T-shirt may be tolerable on a hot afternoon, but it can become cold and heavy when the temperature drops or the wind picks up. For days when you would prefer to stay dry, a genuinely waterproof outer layer is worth the space. Water-resistant clothing can handle a brief shower or light spray; waterproof clothing is designed for sustained rain. Look for sealed seams, secure closures and an adjustable hood. Length matters, too. A short jacket may keep your upper body dry while sending runoff onto your pants. Breathability is equally important. A jacket that blocks rain but traps heat and moisture can leave you nearly as wet from the inside. A good shell allows some body heat and moisture vapor to escape while still blocking rain and wind. Sun protection should also be part of the decision. Lightweight long sleeves and pants can be more comfortable than repeatedly applying sunscreen during a day on open water. UPF-rated fabrics provide measurable protection and help cover areas easily forgotten. Add a hat, sunglasses and water-friendly shoes that stay securely on your feet. Throughout the process of making this magazine, we have been lucky enough to product-test clothing from several outdoor brands. A few pieces proved especially useful. Easy Sun Protection The Nash Sun Hoody by Flylow makes full coverage feel practical even in summer. Its lightweight stretch knit dries quickly, breathes well and provides UPF 50+ protection without feeling stiff or overly technical. Dress for Dress for Success Success
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The fit leaves room to move, and the generous hood with drawstrings adds coverage for the neck, ears and face when the sun is relentless. A kangaroo pocket makes it useful off the water, too. The fabric also includes an antimicrobial treatment intended to reduce odor, a welcome feature when a river day turns into a full weekend outdoors. A Smarter Way to Stop Mosquitoes MPT uses a tightly engineered fabric that physically prevents mosquitoes from biting through it. Because the protection comes from the weave rather than a chemical coating, it cannot wash out or gradually lose strength. We particularly liked the Wilder Zip-Off Pants, bottom left, which combine mosquito protection with wind and water resistance and UPF 40+ sun protection. The removable legs provide coverage during cool mornings and buggy evenings, then convert into shorts when the day heats up. They work well for paddling, fishing, hiking or spending time along the shoreline. Tested Under a Waterfall The ThruDark Renegade Parka, at left, is made for days when staying dry is essential. The long waterproof shell uses three- layer Pertex Shield fabric, taped seams and a fishtail hem for extra coverage in the back. We decided a light rain would not be much of a test, so our model stood directly beneath a waterfall for ten minutes. When he stepped out, he was completely dry everywhere the parka had covered him. The longer cut protects more of the body than an ordinary rain jacket, while the hood, cuffs and adjustable fit help keep water from finding its way inside. It is a protective shell rather than an insulated winter coat, leaving room for warmer layers underneath. Wearing What You Care About Sometimes we choose clothing for the statement it makes. The Landmark Project creates clothing and accessories inspired by public lands, wildlife and conservation, right. We love the familiar Smokey Bear artwork and the Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute collection. The designs may feel nostalgic, but the message remains relevant: pack out wrappers, collect discarded fishing line and leave the riverbank cleaner than you found it. The bandanas may be our favorite pieces. They can serve as a head covering, neck wrap, sweat cloth, makeshift towel or accessory tied to a dry bag. The Appalachian Animals Bandana is especially charming, with regional wildlife including hellbenders and black bears. The best outdoor clothing keeps us dry, protects us from the sun and insects, and makes changing weather easier to manage. Sometimes it also reminds us why these rivers, forests and wild places are worth protecting. Editor's Note: Some companies provided products for testing, while others were purchased by Foothills Digest. We included only products that performed well in our own testing.
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At Foothills Digest, we talk often about living a little more like our grannies did. They patched torn coats, replaced broken zippers, resoled shoes and kept useful things useful until there was truly nothing left to save. Rainy Pass Repair, tucked inside The Industrial Commons in Morganton, has turned that old wisdom into a highly specialized modern business. The company repairs the outdoor gear people depend on: fishing waders, waterproof jackets, tents, sleeping bags, backpacks and nearly any other soft good that can fit beneath a sewing machine. Some pieces arrive with obvious damage—a tear, a melted section, a broken buckle or a failed zipper. Others come with a much less helpful diagnosis: It leaks. That is when the detective work begins. Waders can be inflated and tested to reveal holes too small for the eye to find. Waterproof garments may be examined under pressure to determine whether moisture is entering through the fabric, a damaged seam or a scatter of tiny punctures left by briars, hooks and ordinary hard use. Once the problem is located, the repairer may have to take apart a portion of the garment, remove the damaged material, rebuild the section and apply specialized seam tape behind the stitching to make it waterproof again. “You can’t just take your item to the tailor and have that done,” we were told during our visit. Rainy Pass is one of only two repair facilities in the United States certified to perform Gore-Tex repairs. The company has operated from its original Seattle location since 1986 and opened its Morganton shop in early 2023. Between the two facilities, employees repair gear sent by customers across the country and overseas. Some of that gear arrives directly from individual owners. Much of it comes through the roughly 35 outdoor brands and warranty programs that work with Rainy Pass. When a covered jacket develops a zipper problem or a pair of waders begins leaking, the manufacturer may send it to Morganton for evaluation rather than immediately replacing it. Rainy Pass can determine whether the failure came from normal wear, accidental damage or a manufacturing problem, and whether the item can reasonably be returned to use. That distinction matters. Seeing a particular brand frequently in the repair queue does not necessarily mean the gear was poorly made. Sometimes it means the opposite: the item has lasted long enough to wear out, its owner has used it heavily and the company behind it has invested in a warranty program that makes repair worthwhile. People become attached to outdoor gear for good reason. A jacket may have crossed mountaintops, weathered storms or traveled for years behind the seat of a truck. A pair of waders may have been through hundreds of cold mornings on the river. A sleeping bag may have gone on every family camping trip for a decade. None of those things becomes useless simply because one part fails. Repair also keeps complicated synthetic materials out of landfills. When an item truly reaches the end of its usable life, the Rainy Pass team salvages zippers, buckles, fabric and other components that may help repair another piece of gear. Remaining Gore-Tex scraps can be sent to a nearby materials recycling program, where the fibers may find a second use in lower-grade products such as automotive insulation.
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The Morganton facility also washes sleeping bags and other outdoor gear, reapplies durable water- repellent treatments and performs waterproof testing for manufacturers. It operates as both a repair shop and an independent set of experienced eyes. The sewing itself is a different discipline from ordinary production work. On a factory line, workers assemble new pieces in a planned sequence. Repairers begin with a finished garment and a problem. They have to figure out how it was built, what can be taken apart safely and how to put it back together without creating another weak spot. “You’re having to deconstruct and then reconstruct,” the Rainy Pass team explained. “You’re not just building from the ground up.” Five skilled sewers currently work among the eight employees at the Morganton location. Their presence inside The Industrial Commons connects Rainy Pass to a larger effort to preserve and rebuild the region’s textile knowledge. Sewing classes and workforce programs operate within the complex, and one young Rainy Pass intern learned to sew there shortly after graduating from high school. In a region where generations of textile expertise were scattered by mill closures and overseas production, passing those skills along matters. The local connection is still taking shape. Although Rainy Pass has now been in Morganton for several years, much of its work arrives through national warranty programs and mail-order customers. Many people in Western North Carolina still do not realize that one of the country’s most specialized outdoor-gear repair shops is operating in their own backyard. Local customers can mail items directly to Rainy Pass or leave them at Foothills Gear Garage, which serves as a walk-in drop-off partner. Good outdoor gear is expensive, and the best pieces tend to earn their keep. A jacket, sleeping bag or pair of waders that has already served you well may still have years left in it when a zipper breaks, a seam leaks or the fabric tears. Rainy Pass exists for exactly that kind of problem. Before replacing a piece of gear you already trust, see whether it can be repaired.
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110 ENO's Hammock Without the Trees We have loved ENO for years. The Asheville-based company helped make hammocks a familiar part of camping trips, river days and lazy afternoons across North Carolina. Until now, though, bringing one along always came with the same small gamble: would there actually be two trees in the right place? ENO sent us its new hammock chair and portable base to try earlier this summer, and we expected to like it. We did not expect to use it this much. The surprise has been how often it comes out even when there are perfectly good trees nearby. Instead of hunting for the right spacing, moving away from everyone else or settling for whatever view the trees happen to allow, the chair can go exactly where you want it. That might be an open riverbank, beside a campsite, near a dock or in the sunny patch where the view is best. We have moved it into the shade when the afternoon got hot, turned it toward the sunset and set it close enough to keep an eye on kids near the water. The base is easy enough to carry and assemble that it does not feel like one more complicated piece of outdoor equipment. Once it is standing, the chair gives you the same suspended, slightly cocooned comfort that made ENO hammocks so appealing in the first place, only without depending on the landscape to cooperate.
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111 MAKE YOUR MOUNTAIN MEMORIES JACKSON COUNTY GREEN ENERGY PARK & DILLSBORO CREATIVE ARTS CENTER Don’t just visit the mountains. Make something here. Discover one of Western North Carolina’s most unique creative destinations. Tour our studios, watch artists at work, or roll up your sleeves and make something of your own. Experience glassblowing, blacksmithing, lampworking, ceramics, jewelry, and other hands-on arts through classes and workshops for visitors and makers of all experience levels. TOUR • CREATE • CONNECT STUDIO TOURS • HANDS- ON CLASSES • WORKSHOPS • DEMONSTRATIONS Our class offerings change throughout the year. Visit JCGEP.org for the current schedule. MORNING MAKERS’ CLUB Every Wednesday • 9 AM–12 PM Explore working studios, meet regional artists, and discover how renewable energy captured from a former landfill helps power the creative process. Dillsboro, North Carolina JCGEP.org • 828-631-0271 ART & COMMUNITY THROUGH SUSTAINABILITY And somehow, having the stand has made us use our hammocks more too. That may be the part we did not anticipate. When hanging a hammock requires finding the right trees, it can become something you only bother with on certain trips. When the setup works almost anywhere, it becomes part of the regular gear pile. We have reached for ours all summer. That flexibility is especially useful on water days. After paddling, swimming, carrying coolers and hauling wet gear around, having a comfortable place to land is awfully nice. It is even better when that place can be wherever everyone else already is. We did not need another reason to love a North Carolina outdoor company we already admired. Still, solving the no-tree problem turned out to be a very good one.
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112 The The Brewery Brewery & & The The Watershed Watershed At Lookout Brewing Company in Black Mountain, one of the best-selling beers has a name that fits this issue almost too well: Watershed. It is an American lager, light and crisp, made with Pilsen malt, flaked rice and Carapils from Asheville’s Riverbend Malt House. John Garcia’s explanation for the name is less philosophical than you might expect. Watershed was the name of a soccer team he once played for. But the name grew into something larger. “On the surface, there isn't a big philosophy behind the name,” Garcia says, “but ultimately our location deems it crucial to so many aspects of our daily lives.” Beer is mostly water. The rest—the malt, hops and yeast—gets more attention, but without good water there is no good beer. When Garcia was planning Lookout, which opened in 2013, he says water was one of the variables he considered from the beginning. “We believe that our ‘terroir’ has a bit of magic,” he says, borrowing the wine-world word for the way a place leaves its fingerprints on what is produced there. “We feel that it gives us a strong foundation for our craft beverages.” That sense of place runs through the rest of the ingredient list, too. Lookout has brewed hundreds of beers over the years, experimenting with everything from dark lagers to saisons and hop-heavy styles. Garcia has sourced ingredients from France, Belgium and Canada, but increasingly he has found some of what he wants much closer to home. Riverbend Malt House in Asheville has become an important supplier, as has Carolina Malt. During hop season, Lookout has even brewed with fresh hops grown at Hops to Brew Farm in Old Fort and Hop’n Blueberry Farm in Black Mountain, sometimes getting them into the kettle within minutes of harvest. Garcia says the local ingredients have earned their place on quality, not just geography. “The freshness of the ingredients and the quality of those ingredients has repeatedly signalled that we should be using these local grains,” he says. Smaller maltsters, he believes, can offer an attention to detail that gives Lookout a chance to make beers that are genuinely “From Here.” “We want our niche to be that we offer a glimpse of what our region can grow, create, cultivate and nurture,” Garcia says.
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113 Then Hurricane Helene came through the Swannanoa Valley, and water became something else entirely. The day after the storm, Garcia and his oldest daughter went to the brewery to check on the building. The power was out. The water was off. But inside, Lookout had holding tanks filled with clean water and inventory that was still cold. Friends and regulars began pulling into the parking lot. Garcia filled jugs with drinking water. They handed out beer. Then a friend realized the shrimp in his freezer were going to spoil and suggested shrimp and grits. That started a conversation about everybody else’s freezers. Soon, grills were firing up. The crowd grew each day. “The taproom turned into a ‘general store’ and our parking lot turned into a six-grill restaurant,” Garcia says. “We fed everybody who needed some food.” People brought supplies. Staff organized. The front of the brewery became a place to exchange news and find people. There were hugs and tears, music and laughter. Lookout had spent more than a decade learning how to host people. Suddenly, that was a form of disaster response. “Lookout has always felt like our town’s living room,” Garcia says. During those weeks, it became exactly that on a larger scale. The experience did not make him romanticize the destruction. Garcia is careful to separate the extraordinary community response from the catastrophic losses that caused it. But he also remembers those days as some of the most meaningful of his life. “We saw the best of our community,” he says. Eventually the power returned. The water came back on. Lookout went back to brewing. And Watershed remained on the tap list, where it is still one of the brewery's staples. Its label carries a topographic map of a local reservoir. And the name now seems particularly at home here. A watershed isn't the water itself. It is the land connected by where that water goes — high ground and low, forests and streets, farms and towns, upstream and downstream. For Lookout, some of those connections can be found in a glass: nearby grain, locally grown hops, water and the work of people who live here. “Beer is only 5–10% ‘not water,’” Garcia says. The rest is the thing every brewery—and every community—depends on. At Lookout, Watershed started as the name of a soccer team. Thirteen years into the brewery’s life, it means a little more now.
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114 There are plenty of things you expect to find in downtown Hendersonville: restaurants, galleries, old storefronts, people wandering Main Street with ice cream cones. Sharks are not particularly high on the list. But at 511 N. Main Street, behind an otherwise ordinary storefront, there is an aquarium. The Aquarium & Shark Lab by Team ECCO is a wonderfully unlikely Western North Carolina institution, bringing coral reefs, tropical fish, stingrays, turtles, eels and sharks into the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Team ECCO describes it as North Carolina’s first public inland aquarium, and it remains the only public aquarium in Western North Carolina. At the center of it is Brenda J. “BJ” Ramer, founder and executive director of Team ECCO. The organization began in 2001 not as an aquarium, but as an educational effort devoted to helping students understand the ocean. Over time, that work grew into a permanent home where the ocean could come to them. That distinction matters. This is not a miniature version of one of the enormous coastal aquariums, built around spectacle and giant viewing windows. Team ECCO is an education center first. Its official mission centers on education, enrichment and exploration, mixing science with history, math and culture. Students and interns are not simply visitors here. They help research, care for animals and learn the day-to-day work behind keeping marine ecosystems alive. The aquarium says it operates the only immersive marine-science internship program for high school and college students in Western North Carolina. That makes the location even more interesting. A young person growing up in Henderson County may live hundreds of miles from a coral reef, but here they can stand a few feet from a shark. They can study how an eel moves, watch the behavior of reef fish and begin to understand that an aquarium is not simply a collection of beautiful animals. Every tank is a small system that has to work. Water chemistry matters. Temperature matters. Food, filtration, animal behavior and the relationships among species all matter. And suddenly marine science does not seem quite so far away. Sharks on Main Street
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115 The aquarium houses more than a dozen marine displays with tropical fish and other ocean life, along with its shark-focused exhibits. The animals have included seahorses, lionfish, puffers, eels, rays and bamboo sharks. Team ECCO is also recognized as a North Carolina Environmental Education Site and a fish-education site for REEF, the Reef Environmental Education Foundation. For a while, one animal made this little Hendersonville aquarium famous far beyond the mountains. Charlotte, a round stingray, became an international news story in 2024 when what appeared to be an unexpected pregnancy drew enormous attention to Team ECCO. Her story ultimately took a sad turn when the aquarium announced that she was suffering from a rare reproductive illness, and she died that June. But for several strange months, reporters and scientists around the world were talking about a stingray living on Main Street in Hendersonville. The attention was extraordinary, but the quieter work may say more about what Team ECCO actually is. On an ordinary day, there are no television crews. There are tanks to maintain, animals to feed and students with questions. There are children getting their first close look at creatures they may have known only from books and screens. There are young interns discovering that working with wildlife is equal parts wonder, science and responsibility. That may be the aquarium’s greatest trick. It puts an ocean where no ocean should be. Walk out the front door and you are back in downtown Hendersonville, surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains, roughly 300 miles from North Carolina’s coast. But for a little while, behind that Main Street storefront, there are sharks in the mountains.
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What the Rivers Left Behind Across North Carolina, clay appears in red, white, gray, blue and nearly every shade between. Beneath some of the state’s oldest pottery traditions lies an even older story of rock, water and time. Spread across a table, the clays of North Carolina hardly look as though they came from the same state. One is the rust red of a freshly cut Piedmont bank. Another is pale enough to resemble flour. There are clays in mustard, brown, soft gray and even blue, though fire may transform them again. We think of clay as one thing. It is not. Every deposit comes from its own mixture of rock, minerals, weather and time. Some clay forms in place as the underlying rock slowly breaks down. Some is carried downhill by rain and streams, then deposited where water slows. Rivers cut into the land, rearrange floodplains and expose layers that might otherwise remain buried. Eventually, someone recognizes what the water has revealed. Steve Blankenbeker is unusually good at that. Blankenbeker is a materials engineer specializing in ceramics who develops materials for Taylor Clay Products and Brick Company in Salisbury. He also works with Takuro Shibata at STARworks to locate, analyze and develop North Carolina clay sources for working potters. Artists bring him unremarkable-looking pieces of earth, and he helps determine whether they might hold something extraordinary. He jokingly calls himself the “clay miner to the stars.” The description is not entirely a joke. He has worked with prominent artists, including Theaster Gates, and recently collaborated with mountain potter Josh Copus on a community brickmaking project. When I asked Blankenbeker about clay for an issue devoted to rivers, he directed my attention back toward the landscape. Near Candler, he and Copus have been studying a clay deposit along the edge of a river valley. West of Morganton, potters Matt Hallyburton and Kim Ellington have been digging another remarkable deposit within a broad valley landscape. Both appear near areas marked on modern maps as 100-year floodplains. Most of us look at those lines and see where water might go. Blankenbeker also sees where water has been. At the end of the last ice age, he explains, some broad river valleys may have held large areas of slow-moving or pooled water. The smallest particles settled along their quieter edges, gradually forming deposits of fine clay. The modern river may now occupy a much narrower channel, but the clay remains beneath forests, fields and terraces. Clay Landscapes by Josh Copus. Raw Catawba Clay.
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The land remembers old water even when we do not. That makes the deposits near Candler and Morganton more than convenient sources of material. They are remnants of landscapes that no longer exist in quite the same form, lifted from the ground and turned by living potters into new work. This relationship between clay, place and human hands stretches back thousands of years in North Carolina. Long before European settlers arrived, the Catawba people gathered clay from their homeland along the Catawba River. Catawba potters built vessels entirely by hand, polished them with river stones and other tools, and fired them in open flames. The tradition survived disease, displacement, the loss of ancestral lands and sustained pressure against Catawba culture. Knowledge of the clayholes, forms and firing methods continued through Catawba families. Today, potters still gather clay from traditional sources and carry forward one of the oldest Indigenous ceramic traditions in the eastern United States. Centuries later, another pottery tradition developed within the broader Catawba Valley. European American potters found clay suitable for strong, wheel-thrown stoneware and used it to make the crocks, churns, jars and face jugs that became icons of North Carolina craftsmanship. Someone had to know which bank to cut into, which layer to follow and which clay was worth carrying home. A potter learned how the material behaved in the hand and what happened when it entered the fire. That knowledge was passed forward until geology became culture. The same thing happened in Seagrove, though its clay tells a different story. The Seagrove pottery region lies within the Deep River watershed of the Cape Fear River Basin. Its clay did not come from one simple ancient riverbed. Potters found iron-rich red earth, gray clay from creek bottoms and deposits created as old Piedmont rock weathered in place. Native people were making pottery there thousands of years before European settlement. Later potters found abundant clay, forests capable of supplying wood for kilns and communities where the work could be passed from one generation to another. Seagrove became Seagrove because the clay was there, but also because people stayed long enough to understand it. A good deposit alone does not create a pottery tradition. Someone must dig it, remove the roots and stones, add water and risk a firing. Someone must discover that one clay shrinks too much but makes a beautiful glaze, or that another must be blended before it can hold its shape. Eventually, technical knowledge becomes family knowledge and community knowledge. The geology of a place begins appearing in the things its people make.
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Modern commercial clay is processed and engineered for consistency. It arrives in a plastic bag ready to use. Wild clay asks more of the potter. Two layers taken from the same bank may behave very differently. The material may contain sand, iron, stones or other minerals that do not fully reveal themselves until they meet the kiln. That unpredictability is also part of its beauty. A pot made from local clay does not simply represent a place. The place is physically present within it. Its color may come from iron in the ground. A rough mark may be a mineral that survived both the weathering of rock and the heat of the firing. The finished vessel carries the decisions of the artist, but it also carries the limits, history and possibilities of the land itself. Blankenbeker works at the meeting point between science and this older, intuitive knowledge. He can analyze the mineral content of a clay and explain why it shrinks, warps or changes color. He also listens when a potter says a material feels unusually alive on the wheel. He reads laboratory results, but he also reads floodplain maps, creek bottoms, road cuts and the shape of the land. Near Candler and Morganton, those shapes are leading potters back toward the edges of ancient water. The deposits are not museum pieces or remnants of a vanished craft. They are being dug and worked now, becoming bricks, vessels and new experiments in the hands of contemporary artists. Clay belongs in a river issue because it can outlast the water that deposited it. Water rarely holds still long enough for us to keep it. It passes beneath a bridge, around a bend and out of sight, continually reshaping the land even when the changes are too slow for us to notice.
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Clay is what can remain after the water moves on. It settles where current slows, gathers along old channels and floodplains and waits beneath fields, forests and creek banks long after the river itself has shifted elsewhere. Sometimes it sits unnoticed for centuries until erosion, construction or a curious potter exposes it again. Then an ordinary patch of earth becomes material. The clay is dug, cleaned, mixed and tested. It passes from the landscape into human hands, where it may become a brick, a storage jar, a face jug, a bowl or something entirely new. Firing changes it permanently, but it does not erase where it came from. Iron still influences its color. Sand and minerals still affect its surface. The geology remains part of the finished object. Across North Carolina, potters have been learning those differences for thousands of years. They found red clay, gray clay, white clay and blue. They learned which deposits could hold their shape, which needed to be blended and which would survive the heat of a firing. Over generations, that knowledge became part of the culture of entire communities. A finished pot can therefore hold several histories at once: the rock that weathered into clay, the water that moved or exposed it, the person who recognized its potential and the tradition that taught that person what to do with it. What begins as geology becomes material, and material becomes something that can be carried, used and handed down. The rivers kept moving, cutting new channels and leaving old ones behind. The potters remembered where to dig.
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I reckon I’m getting old. That’s why I’ve decided to write all this down. I was writing my Last Will and Testament (not that I have much money to leave folks) but I realized the things I really wanted to leave to people, well they won’t hardly know what they are, so I figure I need to tell ‘em. I’m full of stories, but people are too busy for that these days. Anyway, I don’t even think I’m good at tellin’ tales, so I guess I feel better about writing them down and tucking them away. I suppose everybody collects stuff over the years, but I’ve tried to only hang onto the things that’s real beautiful to me, or make me remember something I love to remember. I’m gonna write about what each one of these things make me remember, and I might ramble, but darlings, my memory rambles these days, so it is what it is. I have kept this yellow scarf for more than fifty years, though yellow has never done a thing for me. It is bright and bossy, about the color of mustard dried around the lid of the jar. Five letters are stitched across it—UFBDA— and there is a little brown stain on one corner that may be coffee or gravy. I have washed it more than once, but the spot has stayed put. I reckon it has earned the right. UFBDA stood for the Upper French Broad Defense Association, which is too much name for one little scarf. Most people called us the dam fighters. Somebody called us the casserole lobby, and I always liked that better. There are worse things to be known for than showing up with supper when your neighbors are in trouble. The first casserole I carried to the North and South Mills River Community Center was chicken and rice. I put peas in it, which Earl considered a personal attack. “You know I don’t care for peas,” he said. I told him he could eat around them. “They’re mixed through the whole thing.” “Then you’ll get plenty of practice.” That was in 1967, not so very long after Earl and I left Henry River. I have already told you about Mary and Boyce and Sheriff Oaks, and I do not care to make those memories get up and perform every time company comes. It is enough to say I arrived in Mills River with a baby growing inside me and a great deal of guilt riding along. Earl found work near Hendersonville, and we rented a little house with running water and a proper bathroom. I meant to tend my child, keep my house and mind my own business. The women of Mills River did not allow it. One brought pound cake before our boxes were unpacked. Another brought beans and cornbread after Mary was born. Miss Ruth arrived with stewed apples, explained which families were related and which ones were feuding, then invited us to the community center. I said we probably could not make it. “I’ll see you there around six,” she said, and that settled that. The community center was a little cinder-block building off South Mills River Road. One family had given the land. Other people gave money and labor. The women held bake sales, and the men built the thing themselves because the church did not have a kitchen or enough room for wedding receptions and covered-dish suppers. They also wanted somewhere the young people could square-dance. The church was willing to help with many things, but it drew the line at dancing. The first night we went, somebody was playing fiddle and children were running between the chairs. Somebody took Mary from my arms before I had both feet through the door. “That’s Earl’s wife,” one person said. “That’s the new baby,” said another. Then somebody pointed toward my dish. “That’s the chicken casserole.” I suppose that was my introduction. By the end of the night, the dish was scraped nearly clean. Three peas remained stuck in one corner, and Earl pointed at them as though they proved something. Later, somebody pulled us onto the floor. The last time I had danced with Earl was before Henry River, before the gunshots and everything that followed, and I had forgotten what it felt like to have his hand against my back. He stepped on my toe. I complained, but I laughed. That is the first thing I remember about Mills River. Not the farms or the church or even the river. I remember laughing while Earl stepped on my foot. I first heard about the dam inside that same building. At first, I thought it was only talk. People were forever saying the government might build something somewhere—a road, a factory, a lake. Such plans seemed to live in newspapers and government offices, not in places where people actually lived. Then Miss Ruth pointed toward the floor. “They mean to put us under it.” I asked her, “Under what?” “The water,” she said. The Tennessee Valley Authority had a plan to build fourteen dams across the upper French Broad country. They said the dams would control floods, improve the water and bring recreation and economic advancement. Economic advancement was a phrase we heard often. It generally meant somebody had plans for your property. Hundreds of families would have to move. Farms, roads, houses, churches and community buildings would disappear, and Mills River was supposed to be Rosemary's Remembrances Rosemary is fictional but the events she describes are not. You can read three more of her stories at FoothillsDigest.com/Rosemary. T he Y ellow S carf
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among the first places flooded. I asked Earl whether the water would reach our house. “I don’t believe so,” he said. That comforted me for about three seconds. Then I understood what I had asked. It was an ugly thing to feel relieved because the water would stop at somebody else’s door. Not everybody opposed the plan. Some thought a lake might bring tourists and money. Some were willing to sell and start over. Others had lived on their farms for five or six generations. They could point toward a field and tell you who cleared it, who planted the apple tree and which child nearly drowned at the old river crossing. The TVA colored its future lakes blue on the maps. The maps did not show any of that. Jere Brittain had grown up where the North and South forks of Mills River came together. He had gone away to school and returned with his wife, Joanne, and their children around the same time Earl and I arrived. The difference was that Jere was coming home, and I was trying to escape mine. “Mills River’s my place,” he told me once. “I can feel it in my bones.” I understood what he meant, though I did not know whether I had such a place anymore. Jere did not pretend the river was harmless. One of his earliest memories was the flood of 1941, when the water spread across the valley until Mills River looked like a lake. That mattered because people supporting the dams sometimes talked as though anyone who opposed them did not understand floods. The people of Mills River understood water very well. They knew what the river gave them, and they knew what it could take. The community center became the heart of the fight. The room people had built for wedding cakes and square dances filled up with folding chairs, government maps and worried families. The TVA sent men to explain why the dam would be good for us. They stood near the fireplace and talked about flood control, recreation and development with the calm confidence of people who believed the matter was already decided. They had a number for everything. Jere asked whether their figures included families who had lived on the same land for generations. Somebody asked what value they had put on the church. Another asked about the graveyard. The TVA men did not have much of an answer. I sat near the back with my hands folded over my pocketbook, and on the way home, Earl glanced at me. “You were quiet.” “I generally am,” I said. He gave me a look. Earl knew better. After Henry River, I had promised myself I would stop meddling. I had gone to Sheriff Oaks because I thought a lawman could make things right. Then Sheriff Oaks was dead, Boyce was in prison and Mary had to live with everything that followed. People told me I had done the right thing, but the right thing had not felt right afterward. So I attended the meetings and said nothing. But once you know a place has been marked for drowning, you begin noticing all the things that cannot swim. I noticed the church steeple above the trees and old women visiting graves after Sunday services. I noticed barns, gardens, porches and children standing barefoot in the river. I noticed the community center. The map showed blue water where all of it had been.
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A map can make destruction look clean. My meddling began with a stack of envelopes. Joanne Brittain asked whether I could help address a few. I said I could stay half an hour and stayed nearly three. After that came telephone calls, petitions and church notices. Somebody had to tell people when the next meeting was. Somebody had to carry papers to folks who did not drive. Somebody had to bring food when meetings lasted through supper. I made chicken and rice. Sometimes I left out the peas. The little opposition groups from Mills River and the other threatened valleys eventually joined together as the Upper French Broad Defense Association. One of the women worked in textiles and made bright yellow scarves with UFBDA stitched across them. When Jere handed me mine, I held it up and said, “That is loud.” “That’s the point,” he answered. Earl watched me tie it around my neck. “You won’t be hard to find.” “That’s the point,” I told him. In 1971, the TVA was finally made to hold a public hearing in Asheville. It lasted three days. The TVA arranged for people supporting the dams to speak first, while the reporters and cameras were most likely to be there. They meant for the news to show a room full of approval. Then the cameras turned toward the audience, and nearly everybody was wearing yellow. The room was hot, crowded and noisy. Folks brought food because three days is a long time to fight the federal government without sandwiches. At one point, a TVA man leaned toward the microphone and asked, “Ladies and gentlemen, can you hear me in the back?” “Talk louder,” I hollered. I had not planned to say it. It just came out. People laughed and clapped, and Earl turned his head and looked at me as though he had brought the wrong wife to Asheville. “What?” I whispered. He shook his head, but he was smiling. Farmers spoke. Teachers spoke. Preachers quoted Scripture. People sang songs and read poems. Some had never spoken before a crowd and never would again. I had not planned to speak. Jere was saying it better than I could. But sometime during those three days, I wrote my name on the list. When they called me, my knees shook so badly I thought everybody could see. I carried a folded paper to the microphone, but the words I had written looked as though they belonged to somebody else. “My name is Rosemary,” I said. “My husband and I rent in Mills River, so I don’t own any of the land you mean to take.” Then I looked back at all those yellow scarves. “But these people fed us when my baby was born. Their children play with mine. You keep telling us what the dam is worth. You have not told us what they are worth.” I lost my place, so I folded the paper. “I used to believe minding my own business kept trouble away,” I said. “It don’t.” The room was quiet. “We can hear you,” I told the TVA men. “I hope you can hear us.” That was all. I returned to my chair before I could spoil it by saying more, and Earl took my hand. The TVA did not abandon the dams because of me. It took years of meetings, petitions, letters and elections. People changed their minds. County governments changed. In November 1972, the TVA announced it was giving up because it no longer had enough local support. What the TVA wanted, the TVA did not get. I do not remember a grand celebration. The fight had divided neighbors, and we still had to sit beside one another at church and meet in the grocery store. Mostly, everybody was tired. But we had a supper at the community center. I brought chicken and rice. No peas that time. For more than fifty years, I kept the yellow scarf as proof that we had done the right thing. The community center remained standing. People held birthday parties and wedding receptions there. Farms stayed in families. The church did not become a steeple beneath a lake. The dead stayed where their people had buried them. The old building eventually became home to the Mills River Partnership, where people worked to protect the same river the TVA had once planned to control by putting the community under it. I always liked the neatness of that. Then Hurricane Helene came. Water tore houses apart. Roads vanished. Bridges moved. Whole communities seemed to have been picked up, shaken and put back down wrong. Afterward, I took the yellow scarf from my drawer. For the first time in fifty years, it did not feel like proof of anything. The TVA had said the dams would control floods. I had not forgotten that. I had only spent half a century being glad they never got the chance. Maybe the dams would have taken some of Helene’s fury. I expect they would have. Maybe the river would not have risen quite so high. Maybe fewer houses downstream would have broken apart. Maybe some roads and bridges would have stayed where people built them. I do not know. Being old has not made me as wise as I expected. Mostly, it has given me more time to question things I once believed I had settled. Then I remember that dams do not stop water without putting it somewhere. Maybe they would have saved one family’s house in 2024 by covering another family’s house in 1972. Maybe they would have protected land downstream by taking Mills River before the storm ever came. For more than fifty years, people lived in the valleys the TVA meant to flood. They raised babies and buried parents. They planted gardens, married at the church and danced at the community center. They listened to the river making music over the rocks. Those years counted. After Helene, people inside the community center helped families along the river. The building the neighbors had raised with donated land, bake-sale money and their own hands was still doing what they built it to do: giving the community somewhere to gather when they needed one another. I do not reckon that settles the question. Rivers are too complicated for that, and so are people. Maybe the dams would have taken some of Helene’s fury, but they would have taken Mills River first. Learn about this history in the following article.
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The Rivers We Didn't Dam The people in Rosemary’s story were real. So were the yellow scarves, the Upper French Broad Defense Association and the packed 1971 public hearing shown on this page. Even the moment when someone in the crowd yelled “Talk louder” actually happened. Jere and Joanne Brittain were among the people who helped organize opposition to the Tennessee Valley Authority’s enormous plan for the upper French Broad watershed. The proposal called for 14 dams, about 54 miles of river channelization and the flooding of thousands of acres. Hundreds of families could have been displaced. The TVA argued that the project would provide flood control, recreation and economic development. Opponents did not deny that flooding was a real problem. People in Mills River had lived through major floods themselves. Their argument was that controlling the river carried costs that were being treated too casually. The documents reproduced here are real UFBDA campaign materials, and the photograph is real as well. Because the original image has been damaged over the years, we used modern technology to carefully restore and enhance it while preserving the people and scene it records. The proposed TVA map shown here is also real. It shows both the areas that would have been flooded by the reservoirs and the areas the project was intended to protect from future flooding. Together, these materials show the argument as people saw it at the time. The UFBDA pieces were created to persuade, and they made no attempt to hide that purpose. Their questions were blunt: What were hundreds of homes and functioning communities worth? What about farms, churches, wildlife and family land? How much control should the TVA have over North Carolina’s rivers and streams? TVA maps could turn a valley into a clean shape filled with blue. The dam fighters tried to put everything inside that shape back into the conversation. Their movement grew to roughly 1,500 members. At the Asheville hearing in 1971, so many people wanted to speak that the meeting continued for three days. Opponents wore bright yellow UFBDA scarves so their numbers would be obvious in the room and in photographs. In November 1972, the TVA withdrew the proposal. The victory came during a larger change in how Americans thought about rivers. The federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act had been passed in 1968, recognizing that some free-flowing rivers should be preserved because of their natural, recreational, historic and cultural value. North Carolina followed with its own Natural and Scenic Rivers Act in 1971. Those laws did not declare every dam wrong. They established something more important: leaving a river largely as it was could itself serve a public purpose. Today, protected North Carolina waters including the New River, Chattooga, Horsepasture and Wilson Creek can feel permanent. We paddle them, fish them and photograph them as though they were always destined to remain that way. They weren’t. Old planning maps contain other possible versions of Western North Carolina: reservoirs that were never filled, rivers that were never straightened and communities that never disappeared underwater. The people in that photograph were looking at one of those possible futures and decided what already existed was worth defending. Why Tell This Story Now? The argument is different today, but the feeling is familiar. Across political lines, people are asking hard questions about data centers, development and how much water growing communities should commit to new uses. That history matters now because the dam fight was about more than engineering. It was about what a community valued, what it was willing to lose and whether the people living with the consequences had a meaningful voice. Those questions did not end in 1972. Water decisions are still decisions about homes, businesses, farms, public resources and the future a community wants for itself. The details change. The responsibility to pay attention does not.
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The The Shared Shared Glass Glass
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Most people do not think about drinking water until something interrupts it. They notice when the pressure drops, when a boil-water notice arrives, when the bill increases or when the town asks residents to stop watering lawns. On ordinary days, a person turns the faucet and expects clean water to appear. Before that water reaches the kitchen sink, it has a geography. In the Foothills and mountains, drinking water may come from a river, reservoir, protected watershed, groundwater well or another utility that sells treated water in bulk. It reaches homes through intakes, treatment plants, pumps, tanks, pipes and pressure systems maintained by people most customers will never meet. That system has limits at every step. A river may contain plenty of water while the treatment plant cannot process much more. A treatment plant may have capacity while pumps, storage tanks or distribution lines become the bottleneck. A community can have water available on an average day and far less room to spare during drought, extreme heat, equipment failure or a period of unusually high demand. Every new development enters that system. A subdivision, factory, hospital expansion, restaurant district, nursery, hotel or data center may be visible long before the infrastructure required to serve it. Water capacity lives in engineering reports, treatment limits, storage tanks, aging pipes, permits, debt and the question every growing community eventually must answer: Can the system supply what is coming? For towns that have watched mills close, storefronts empty and young people leave for larger cities, growth can feel like oxygen. It means jobs, tax revenue, customers, homes and reasons for families to stay. Those benefits matter. But every promise of growth carries a water cost. New lines may have to be installed. Pumps and tanks may need to be expanded. Treatment plants may require upgrades. Wastewater capacity must also keep pace. Someone must pay for the construction, operation and maintenance that turn a proposed project into dependable service. And the effect is cumulative. A single project may fit comfortably within existing capacity. So might the next one. The more difficult question is what happens when homes, industry, hospitals, schools, businesses and large new users are all drawing from the same system at once. Communities have to plan not only for what exists today, but for what has already been approved and what they hope to attract tomorrow. Residents understandably want growth to pay for itself. They also want affordable water bills, reliable infrastructure and enough capacity to withstand drought and equipment failure. Those goals do not always fit neatly together. The tension becomes most visible during dry weather. When restrictions begin, water stops feeling like an unlimited private convenience. Odd-numbered addresses may water on certain days and even-numbered addresses on others. Filling pools, washing cars or irrigating lawns may be limited. Residents begin asking why they are being told to conserve while another project is being approved. Those are fair questions. A homeowner may lose flowers or a lawn. A nursery can lose an entire crop. Farmers watch ponds fall, wells slow and irrigation costs rise while young trees, vegetables, berries, livestock and greenhouse plants continue needing water. Businesses around lakes face another version of the problem. Low water can close ramps, strand docks, expose hazards and shorten the season for marinas, guides, campgrounds, restaurants, mechanics and vacation rentals. Industry has always depended on water as well. Mills needed it. Furniture factories, hospitals, schools, power plants, food processors, concrete plants, laundries and manufacturers still do. Water demand is also not simply a question of how many gallons are used in a year. When those gallons are needed matters. A system may handle ordinary demand comfortably but struggle during the hottest weeks of summer, when households, businesses and agriculture are all using more water and the source itself may be under stress. Average use can tell one story while peak demand tells another. What feels newer is the size of some proposed projects and the public’s growing insistence on seeing the numbers, particularly when the project is a data center. The cloud may sound weightless, but the buildings are not. They require land, electricity, roads, stormwater systems, water, sewer service, backup systems and public trust.
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Saying that a project “uses water” is no longer enough. How much will it use on an ordinary day? How much during the hottest or driest period? Does it require drinking-quality water, or could reclaimed water be used? How much returns to the system? How much evaporates? What happens during drought restrictions? Can service to a large customer be reduced before households are asked to conserve? Those distinctions matter because two projects with the same headline water demand may affect a community very differently. Water that is used and returned nearby is not the same as water that leaves the basin or is lost to evaporation. Demand that can be reduced during drought is different from demand that must continue regardless of conditions. Infrastructure built and paid for by a new customer creates a different public bargain than infrastructure whose cost eventually reaches existing ratepayers. A company may say its modern system uses less water than older facilities. That may be true. A town may decide the jobs and tax base justify the demand. That may also be true. Neither answer replaces the math. Trust grows when residents can see the numbers, understand the assumptions and know who will verify the promises after a project is built. It also helps when those numbers are presented in ways ordinary people can understand: average use, peak use, drought use, how much returns, what infrastructure is required and what happens if projections are wrong. Charlotte’s request for additional Catawba water shows why those questions matter. Charlotte Water is currently allowed to transfer up to 33 million gallons a day from the Catawba River Basin into the Rocky River Basin, which is part of the Yadkin-Pee Dee system. The utility has begun seeking an increase to 63 million gallons a day to meet projected demand. An interbasin transfer does not mean water is simply scooped from Lake Norman and poured into another river. Water is withdrawn, treated, used, collected, treated again and discharged. Some returns to its original basin. Some does not. The transfer amount represents water taken from one river basin and not returned to it. The public question is straightforward even when the engineering is not: how much Catawba water can be committed elsewhere before the towns, farms, businesses, lakes, fisheries and families already depending on it begin to feel the loss? For now, the state has slowed the process. A moratorium on most large new or expanded interbasin transfers, originally scheduled to expire in March 2027, has been extended through August 2028. Supporters of Charlotte’s request argue that the delay could make it harder to serve a rapidly growing region. Opponents say the pause gives the Catawba Basin needed time before more water is promised beyond its boundaries. Both positions begin with the same reality: water supply is now part of every serious conversation about growth. A river basin includes far more than the blue line shown on a map. It includes creeks, springs, wetlands, reservoirs, groundwater, storm drains, farm ponds, wastewater plants, intakes and discharge pipes. Development changes how water moves across that landscape. Pavement speeds runoff. Heat increases evaporation. A heavy storm may fill a reservoir without restoring groundwater depleted during a long dry period. The system also contains water we never see. Some is stored underground. Some sits in tanks on hilltops. Some is moving through pipes beneath streets. Some is being treated for reuse. Some is leaking from infrastructure before it ever reaches a customer. Every gallon has a route, and every community has a different amount of room between ordinary demand and the point where the system becomes strained. Utilities already track production, demand, storage, leaks, treatment capacity and water quality. State agencies require planning. Drought conditions and lake
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129 levels are monitored. But collecting numbers is not the same as making them understandable. A report may be technically public while remaining nearly invisible to the people affected by it. A meeting may be open while taking place when most working families cannot attend. A development may satisfy permitting requirements and still leave residents uncertain about what was promised. And uncertainty creates suspicion quickly when the subject is something as basic as water. Public participation does not have to mean opposing growth. It can mean asking what the growth requires before commitments are made. It can mean asking whether assumptions still hold when circumstances change, whether promised conservation measures are being followed and whether the community is being left enough margin for the next drought, the next industry or the next generation of homes. The question is not whether communities should grow. It is whether growth is being planned around the water actually available. That requires asking the important questions early: Where will the water come from? How much will be withdrawn? How much will return? Does the project need drinking- quality water? What infrastructure must be built, and who will pay for it? What happens when homes, farms, businesses, recreation, wildlife and industry all need the same supply? The same gallon cannot cool a server, fill a glass, irrigate a crop, support a fishery, turn a turbine, maintain a lake level and remain stored for drought at the same time. That does not mean the region is out of water. It means decisions about growth must be based on the water actually available, the infrastructure required to deliver it and the amount that will return afterward. Water belongs to systems larger than any one project and timeframes longer than any one budget year. The choices made now will determine how much flexibility communities have later, particularly when growth and drought arrive at the same time. Counting on water should mean counting it clearly enough that the public understands the bargain before it is made. Use Your Voice Water decisions are PUBLIC DECISIONS. You do not have to be an engineer, hydrologist or elected official to have a legitimate interest in what happens to the water your community depends on. At Foothillsdigest.com/ water , we’ll keep a growing collection of resources for people who want to get involved: how to find and contact your representatives, where to follow water and development decisions, organizations working to protect North Carolina waterways, opportunities to volunteer and practical ways to make your voice heard. Learn the issue. Ask questions. Show up. Speak clearly. The people making decisions need to hear from the people who will live with them.
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131 We have spent generations shaping water to suit our needs. We dammed rivers, made power, supplied towns, softened floods and created lakes where people swim, fish, paddle and build their lives. Much of that was progress. Much of it became beloved. But water has a longer memory than we do. It was shaping this region long before we learned to manage it. Rivers decided where towns could grow, roads could cross and mills could run. Families knew where the trout held, which branches dried in August and where springs rose cold from the ground. They knew which fields flooded first and which stones appeared when the river ran low. Eventually, much of what people once learned by watching the water became something we measured. We built gauges and treatment plants. We drew flood maps, tested bacteria, counted fish and calculated how much water could move through a dam or leave one basin for another. Those things matter. They make communities safer. But numbers have never told the whole story. Helene delivered that lesson in its hardest form. Rivers rose into towns, but destruction also came through smaller water: the creek through the door, the overwhelmed culvert, the saturated hillside, the road that disappeared between morning and dark. In places people had known all their lives, water found paths that had been there long before anyone thought to map them. Water can be held. It can be redirected, measured, stored and released. It cannot be mastered. And still, we returned. We cleared debris, rebuilt ramps, tested drinking water and watched the gauges more closely. People put businesses back together beside rivers that had just torn them apart. Anglers returned to streams. Children went back into creeks. Boats appeared again at the launches. We know what water can do and we keep coming back to it. Maybe that is because living near water has always required a certain kind of memory. People remember where the creek used to run, where the bank gives way after heavy rain, where a spring stays cold in August, or how high the river reached during a flood long before they were born. Some of that knowledge is written down. Much of it is carried from one person to another simply because somebody paid attention. The landscape carries its own record too. Old channels remain beneath fields and reservoirs. Floodplains wait beside rivers that may stay quiet for decades. Clay settles where water once slowed. Roads and towns change, but the shape of the land still influences where water goes when enough of it arrives. But the water remembers a landscape older than ours. It was here before the roads, before the mills, before the dams and before anyone thought to draw a county line across its path. It followed valleys before we named them, gathered in hollows before we built there and carried yesterday downstream without ever stopping there. Long after our plans have changed and our buildings have disappeared, the water will still be finding the low ground, gathering in the hollows, slipping over stone and moving toward something larger. We learned to hold the water. The water remembered its way. The Water Remembers Its Way