The people in the pictures are me (Forrest Smith), my wife Rebecca Troutman, and my son Larry Smith. I'm the big fat guy, Larry's the kid with the red backpack. He's grown up pretty much since then. Larry took the pictures with me in them. Larry is shrugging in that shot looking down the Horsepasture because we hiked about as far down into the gorge as we could, and that was pretty much the end of the line that day. Rebecca is the woman.
I found many of the waterfalls I've seen in North Carolina with the help of Kevin Adams' book, North Carolina Waterfalls: Where to Find Them, How to Photograph Them. On several occasions, I've met hikers carrying well-worn copies of that book. If you don't have the book, buy it.
Whitewater Falls is nearly impossible not to find, and I got directions to Lower Whitewater Falls from a South Carolina Welcome Center on I-85. I have seen plenty of references to Bearwallow Falls, and I found the way to those falls by reading the Reid Quadrangle Map and driving back and forth along U.S. 64 until I convinced myself where to get out of the car and start walking. I suspect I crossed a good bit of private property to get to the falls.
My Windy Falls stories are very long, just like the hike down the Horsepasture River. Suffice it to report that I was drawn a map to Windy Falls on two pieces of shirt cardboard by a pair of hikers who said they were looking for what I eventually discover to be Bearwallow Falls. Sooner or later I'm going to write up my Windy Falls adventures, so if you're interested keep checking back.
You might find it interesting, if you've ever been there, that I actually went to Windy Falls before I discovered Rainbow Falls, even though I camped out beside the Horsepasture less than a quarter mile upstream from Rainbow.
The picture taken of Windy Falls from the bottom was given to me by George Avakian. George actually hiked to Windy Falls from downstream (he's from South Carolina, which might or might not explain that).
