Join us for a fun and educational visit to Jackson County’s High Falls, featuring both the waterfall’s unique geology and the extraordinary display of spring wildflowers along its access trail. Kira King, Science and Education Coordinator for Waterfall Keepers, will be directing this hike with special guides and instructors Bill Jacobs, author of Whence These Special Places? The Geology of Cashiers, Highlands & Panthertown Valley, and his wife, Susan Posey, author of A Home on Wilder Shores.

The striking High Falls is on Bill’s short-list of the region’s most geologically interesting waterfalls. Bill will explain how two very different rock types have come together at this location to form the waterfall’s two large drops, as well as the complex surrounding rock formations. He will also provide an overview of the broad geological processes that have shaped the Blue Ridge, and how differences in the various processes are reflected in the natural features we see today.

Susan isn’t into the rocks, but she is all over the wildflowers in the access trail’s rich cove forest. She will be spotting and identifying the wide assortment that typically bloom along the trail in mid-April and will discuss their particular characteristics and growth habits.

Cost: $10
Date: April 16
Time: Hike begins at 9:30am and will last about 4 hours
Limited to: 15 participants
Difficulty level: Moderate
Location: High Falls, near Glenville
Age limit: Not suitable for children under 15

This is a members-only benefit and all registrations will be checked. If you wish to bring someone with you, they will need to register separately, and they must also be a member. Since this event is limited to only 15 people, each person attending with a Family Membership must pay the registration fee.

Not a member? It’s easy to join!

Cancellation Policy: We hope that you will consider your registration as a contribution to our worthy cause. We are unable to provide refunds for cancellations. This event will be held rain or shine.

Bill Jacobs is a graduate of Swarthmore College and Duke Law School. After retiring from his Atlanta-based legal career in 2011, he pursued his curiosity about the extraordinary landscapes of the Eastern Blue Ridge, particularly the Highlands-Cashiers Plateau and surrounding areas. Eventually, this curiosity led to writing “Whence These Special Places?”, which focuses on how geologic history has shaped not just the overall landscape, but also our individual mountains, waterfalls and other natural features. Bill lives in Asheville with his wife Susan, a dog and two cats, but spends most of the summer in Cashiers. Either place, if he’s not geologizing or hiking with the dog (or both), he’s often found on his bicycle.

Susan Posey has been curious about plant life and wildflowers since she was 5 years old. For 70 years she has studied plants in classrooms and in the woods. Her study of wildflowers has moved toward an understanding of the plant community in which they occur. Some years ago, she heard a family story from the 1750s in which two many-times-great aunts came alone down the primitive trail that later became the Great Wagon Road, from Philadelphia to North Carolina. They were herb women who gathered medicinal plants of the New World. Susan used this story to write a historical fiction novel called A Home on Wilder Shores.