Bradley Falls
In the morning we awoke to sleet, freezing rain, and all around awesome weather for climbing. Taking this as an exploring rest day, we decided to pack up, drink a lot of coffee and go to a new area, none of us had been too. However, first I took in the sights of the Apple Belt of NC.
Miles of Orchards and Juicing facilities dotted the landscape, also were a good bit of migrant housing facilities. The other memorable views were 2 giant cow statues.
Eventually we found the trailhead to Bradley Falls, which was a muddy pull off for about 8 cars. The area was covered in about 4-6 inches of snow, but the trail was packed down pretty good. 5 mins into the hike, we were greeted by the large stream crossing. We easily skipped across the icy boulders to the other side. Slick snow and muddy paths wound round the trails to the cliff line above the falls. We pushed further on down the path to the overlook area to get a good view of the cove.
While sitting and watching the falls a good junk of icy came tearing down into the base. I managed to grab a beforeand after shot. This probably equated to about couple hundred pounds of ice.
We decided to see if we could make to it to the base. After some dead ends and walking back and forth we found a relatively dry gully with a super long fixed line. (This wasn’t list on any of the approach info that I scrounged). Eventually we made it to the base of the River-Wall and were directly facing the bottom of the falls. The spot seemed like an ideal place to check out in the summer. Slipping and slide up the north-facing snow gullies now, we explored the cliff lines, for rumored routes. There seem to be some nice rough gems to check out in the future.
We eventually found the proper fix line into the area, it was icy and snowy, but we push up and through regardless. The falls definitely seem like a neat crag to go checkout when you want some exploration and adventure.
