We finished our planned hike for the day early so armed with some information off the Internet and coordinates for a geocache we went in search of Laughing Falls. This falls is reached by traveling .7 miles north of the intersection of highways 276, 64, and 280 then .1 miles on OLD NC 280, then .7 miles on SR1361. We did a little guessing since there was no sign for SR1361 and parked near the closed gate.
We saw two things at once. There were a group of five or six butterflies just beyond the gate for the driveway we would follow. The second was that we would have to walk across a low water bridge. basically that means that the creek flows right across the road but is shallow enough for a car to drive through it. Mitch was able to cross on rocks at the side but I walked across and got my feet wet.
There is no real trail to this falls but it is only about a quarter mile walk. We continued a couple hundred feet down the driveway and found an easy way to the creek edge. There was what appeared to be an old overground trail along the side leading to an old broken bridge. We decided not to try the bridge and continued up the side that we were on.
The trail ended at a set of three cascades on the creek. The creek is really overgrown so it was hard to get a view of the whole cascades at once but I believe we found the right spot. We tried a few different spots to get pictures. The best probably would have been from the middle of the creek but it is still early in the season for us to get that wet.
Returning back to where we parked we decided to walk up the gated portion of 1361 a little ways. There were berry bushes in bloom so there will be either blackberries or raspberries along here later in the summer. We also found a few trillium and other flowers blooming beside the road. After searching unsuccessfully for a geocache we headed back to the van.
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