Rainbow Falls

Question:  How do you get Amy Brown to shut up?  Answer:  Take her on an extremely difficult hike when she is out of shape.

It’s starting to cool off (kinda) here in the South, and that means hiking season is back!  My hiking partner extraordinaire Becky and I kicked things off by picking apparently one of the most difficult hikes out there.  GO BIG OR GO HOME!  We discussed where we were going to go the weekend prior, and I felt drawn to Jones Gap, which is part of the Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area and very close to Camp WaBak.  Just down the road, in fact.  I suggested the hike to Becky and mentioned that it was listed as “Most Difficult” on the trail guide thinking that she would say, “Eh, let’s not be so ambitious for our first hike.”  But instead, she said, “Sounds good!” and a little voice in my head said, “Don’t do it!”  I smugly ignored this little voice and thought it couldn’t be that bad because I had been on plenty of difficult hikes before. 

Rainbow Falls is an almost 100 foot waterfall and about 1.6 miles up its own trail which breaks off from the Jones Gap Trail.  To get to it, you’ll hike about 3/4th of a mile down the Jones Gap Trail (starting from the Jones Gap State Park office).  The Rainbow Falls Trail is a very long 1.6 miles.  Especially when you haven’t done any walking over the summer or anything leading up to this.  Yep.

Even though I had everything all laid out the night before (including my new walking stick!), I fell into my usual habit of underestimating how long it takes me to get ready in the morning.   I left 10 minutes later than I wanted to, and the discombobulation continued when I got out of the car and realized the batteries to my GPS were dead.  The store was closed, so that meant I wouldn’t be able to find the two geocaches in the area or log this hike.  There’s barely any cell service (if any!) in this area, so I was really bummed and just out of sorts (just ask Becky).  I finally accepted my fate (aka stopped pouting) and off we went!

First, I got my State Park book stamped.  The South Carolina State Parks Division offers a book where you can collect a stamp for each park that you visit.  If you visit all 47 state parks, you can get a t-shirt!  I’ve got all of two stamps, so as you can see, I’m an avid visitor of state parks.  Da-nice has visited every state park two or three times each or something like that, but she’s kind of weird that way.  I think she secretly owns a Park Ranger uniform.

Back to the hike!  I don’t know about the rest of the 5 mile Jones Gap Trail, but the first mile is very well maintained and flat.  I’d love to sometime park one car at the end of it off Highway 276 and leave one at the Jones Gap State Park office and hike the whole thing.  There are many campsites along this trail, and it’s been suggested as a great starter backpacking trek.

And so it begins!  We turn off onto the Rainbow Falls Trail:

As you can see by the contour map, the trail starts off pretty easy, so it’s at this point I begin to discuss something in earnest to Becky.  It has to do with Girl Scouts.  Can you believe it?  I never talk about Girl Scouts.  Becky has learned to walk in front because I am usually blabbing so much that I forget to look for the blazes.  Also, I think it’s so that I don’t see her eyes glaze over when I start talking.  Did I mention I was leading the Big Boy hike for the upcoming Mountain Magic?  Don’t tell anybody that I have this habit of forgetting to keep my eye on the blazes.  It’ll be our little secret.  Shh.  😉

Not too far into the hike, the bell that’s on my walking stick falls off.  I don’t hear it fall (probably because I am talking so much).  So if you’re hiking up to Rainbow Falls and find a gold bell, it’s mine.  But it was kind of annoying anyway, so you can keep it.

Then the climb up started.  I’m still talking about Girl Scout related topics, but neither my legs or my mouth are slowing down.  After a while, I do the thing where I stop as if to emphasize what I’m talking about (as in WHAT I AM SAYING IS SO SERIOUS THAT I HAVE TO STOP!), but really I’m stopping because my leg muscles are about to burst into flames because they are burning so much.  But I’m not winded yet, so I’m still talking.

Up, up, up we go.  It’s here I begin to think that I need to cut this story short because I’m running out of breath.  But I still have more to say!  And why is it so hot?  It’s not supposed to be this humid in the mountains!  Why have I been so lazy the past few weeks and not have gone walking in my neighborhood that’s filled with steep hills to prep for this?  I think I can hear the little voice in my head that warned me to pick an easier hike laughing.

We stop at this very pretty overpass.  I check my phone every once in a while, because I’m hoping at some point I’ll get some data service to download the two geocaches into an app called c:geo and look for them that way.  I’m still bummed because I like to check the GPS at times to see what elevation we’re at and how far we’ve gone, so I feel a little lost.  But in just this little spot, I have 4G!  So I download the geocaches (which is a good excuse to rest because it seems Becky is having no issues with this hike).

We keep going up, up, up and up, and finally I tell Becky that we have to stop for an extended break.  It is at this point I have finished my Girl Scouts related story and decide there is nothing more to say.  A 20-something girl wearing a Justin Timberlake concert t-shirt comes around the bend.  I tell her that I saw that JT concert and isn’t he amazing!?!?  She agrees and we talk to her for a while.  She’s hiking alone and can’t decide how many miles she’ll go today.  Maybe 14?  Or 20?  Hee hee!  I just smile and think to myself that I’ll be happy if I just get to Rainbow Falls and back.

We hit the trail again and keep going up.  The refreshed feeling I had from taking an extended stop disappears quickly.  Becky starts talking about her woodwind quintet and what’s going on with it.  I just say “uh huh” every once in a while even though it’s all I can do to get the words out of my mouth.   We come across this cool vertical rock face.   Here’s a picture of it looking straight up:

No, we didn’t have to climb it.  We keep on truckin’ along and come across a couple probably in their late 50s or 60s.  At this point, I’m struggling, but I’m putting on my game face and silently cursing that I didn’t get off my lazy butt a few times this past month.  Becky will tell you that I don’t have a game face.  We talk to the couple who tells us that we have gotten past the hard part and the falls were just right ahead.

THEY LIED!!!!!!