Big Bradley Falls — Attraction in North Carolina

This is a difficult waterfall to chase, per se, and many people seem to struggle with finding the falls, identifying which falls are Big Bradley, and other issues, and I hope to resolve them in this review.

Firstly, there are two ways to Big Bradley. One way involves hiking from Holbert Cove Rd (the lot across from Little Bradley) and taking a steep rappel down into the gorge, ignoring all the signs about how you could very well die, with a rope that you have to scramble a ways down off the trail to find, and then lowering yourself down, as well as climbing the same vertical cliff face back up to the trail again on your way out. Finding the rope is a challenge if you aren't going with someone who has previously been.

The other way involves parking on the Green River Game Lands access road that is right in front of Wilderness Cove Tubing (you literally pull into the tubing place and take the path right in front of it). Make no mistake, this is not an "easy" way but it is perhaps a safer way. I read a lot about this path before I went, but most of the information is old and there has been a lot of storm damage along the way. At the first fork, you take a right in front of the old cabin. Then, you come to another fork in what seems like an overgrown field. There is a path to the right, and that is the one you should take, although it seems narrow. Take that path til you reach the river and cross it, and pick up the obvious path there.

It may seem like the path just ends in places, but it doesn't. Yes, you have to climb some tree trunks and such. You may feel like you lose the path but stay as close to the gorge as you can and you really cannot get lost. There will come a point where you need to go down into the gorge and scramble up the rocks to the falls. This is a good 15-20 minutes for boulder climbing and rock scrambling but it is the only way and it is not a bad way, just adventurous. If you reach a point where the path is too narrow and you feel like you're going to slide down the rocks into the gorge, you've gone too far. Just back up a bit and go down...

Went hiking here Veterans Day and was really disappointed. First of all the trail was not properly marked and we ended up taking a dead end path with no one else in sight and no man in the group which made us very uneasy. When we finally found the right one there was no way to get across the water except to walk in it or try to balance yourself on some dead trees which stretched from side to side. This was hard for a 66 year old and one of the 8 year olds ended up slipping and falling in the cold water. There were also lots of rocks and stumps covered with leaves which also made it dangerous. Not a good experience for our group...

Beautiful place, but be careful! I think it was mostly due to the amount of wet weather and storms in the area in the months before we went, and the trails were open, but very little warning about the conditions before you get on a trail. Lots of climbing over and under fallen trees, nature has moved several spots where the hill looked like it had just washed away. None of this was bad for someone that hikes a fair amount, and it was totally worth going, but be prepared for whatever is there. You won't get warnings from signage, etc. And take water shoes! Several creek crossing and one river to...