Crabtree Falls, Blue Ridge Parkway

Crabtree Falls, Blue Ridge Parkway – Home – Parks & Forests – Camping – Hiking – Links – Adventures

Crabtree Falls is a picturesque 60-foot waterfall on a broad rock face above a small pool and a cove strewn with boulders and smaller rocks and debris. A 2.5-mile moderate-to-strenuous loop trail provides two distinctly different hikes to the falls and back for hikers who do not care to do the entire loop.

The Crabtree Falls recreation area (aka Crabtree Meadows) is at Blue Ridge Parkway Milepost 340 north of Asheville and also has a campground and picnic grounds. The left-hand leg of the Crabtree Falls Trail loop crosses the campground, and campers can pick up spurs at several points in the campground.

In late August 2018, we started our hike from the Parkway parking lot for the trail, which takes you past an amphitheater shortly after entering the woods.

Soon after the amphitheater, hikers can decide what they want out of the hike. The right-hand leg of the loop, which hikers are directed toward, is shorter but steeper and much rockier. The 1.6-mile side to the left is an easier and more scenic hike along the creek that feeds the waterfall.

We went to the right, as most hikers seemed to do and which takes you across the campground, past a trailhead and into the forest on a wide, descending gravel trail. About half a mile in, the trail meets the first set of stairs downward. Soon the waterfall can be heard.

From here, the trail is mostly rock and switchbacks headed down to the base of the falls.

But the hike certainly pays off.

A steep stairway leads up from the bridge across the creek, and back to the trail. Here we look back down the stairs …

To the left at the top of the stairs, a clearing provides another final view of the waterfall …

As the trail heads up the ridge, two short segments are supported by a retaining wall.

About 0.3-miles up from the falls, a small cascade on the creek can be reached by a small sloping spur.

Another footbridge gets you back across the creek …

Looking upstream from the bridge …

Afterward, it’s a moderate ascent back toward the campground.

As you cross the campground, the “trail” pretty much disappears, but you can see the path across the way headed back toward the amphitheater. In season, at least, there are also likely to be other hikers ahead of you to follow, as there were for us.