Skinny Dip Falls: A Story of Fishing, Storms, and Change
Back in November 2020, I set out on one of my favorite kinds of mountain adventures—a full day of fishing that started at Skinny Dip Falls and worked its way up the creek. This wasn’t a hike on marked trails; it was what we call blue lining, where you follow the water because there are no paths. The creek was narrow and tight, filled with boulders and pockets of current that promised trout if you were willing to work for them.
The plan was simple: fish upstream all day, make it out along the Graveyard Fields Trail, and then catch a ride back down to my truck. I’d fished plenty of small creeks, but this was my first time really tackling this stretch. I knew there were smaller waterfalls and big boulders waiting along the way, but I didn’t realize just how challenging it would get.
This pool was just above Skinny Dip Falls, the entire creek on the way up resembles this same layout. Large boulders with small falls into little pools where trout love to sit and eat and soak up the fresh and oxygenated water.
From Graveyard Fields you can hike to “Upper Falls” or take the easier boardwalk route to “Second Falls.” But on that fishing trip, I realized there was another, much bigger waterfall down the creek—one you can see from the road but rarely up close. Yellowstone Falls is massive, a wall of water that you can’t climb around or scramble up. When we reached it, the only way forward was straight up the mountainside. We scaled the steep slope, grabbed the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, and hiked our way back down into Graveyard Fields. It was tough, but it made for a good story and left me with the itch to come back one day for a full backpacking and fishing trip.
From the base of Yellowstone Falls it seems as if you could maybe climb up. Upon a higher view you can see that the falls continues up further and further with an overall height of about 125-feet tall.
"“Second Falls” offers an easy hike and a great view of one of the parkways most visited waterfalls. This falls resembles that of Yellowstone Falls its larger counterpart that’s only about half a mile further down river.
I didn’t return to Skinny Dip Falls again until May 2025. In the years between, I’d fished up around Graveyard Fields and visited those falls, and while they certainly showed signs of heavy weather, they didn’t feel nearly as different. That’s what made the contrast so striking—further downstream, at Skinny Dip, the changes were drastic.
What was once a perfect cascade spilling into a plunge pool had been torn apart. In its place were giant boulders with only a trickle of water running through them. The creek downstream was choked with rockslides and debris, less of a flowing stream and more of a broken channel.
Images are of Skinny Dip Falls, Before (left) and After (right).
I later learned from a local friend that most of the destruction came after Hurricane Fred in 2021. Fred tore through Western North Carolina with flooding and landslides that ripped apart creeks and trails. Hurricane Helene in 2024 only added to the damage. What was once a hidden gem now feels almost unrecognizable.
Walking back there with my family this year was a gut punch. I had hoped to show them a place I remembered for its beauty, but instead we found a landscape transformed by storms. The easy swimming hole and fishing runs were gone. Access is harder, fishing more difficult, and the whole area feels like it’s still recovering.
But that’s the truth about the mountains—they’re never permanent. Nature reshapes itself with every storm, and we don’t have control over what’s lost or what remains. Skinny Dip Falls might not be what it once was, but the story of its change is part of what makes this place so powerful. It’s a reminder that the land we love is alive, shifting, and always writing new chapters.
