Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 9, 1993 TAG: 9305110509
SECTION: DISCOVER PAGE: 26 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BECKY HEPLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PEMBROKE LENGTH: Long
It doesn't matter if you define roughing it as a three-week backpack trip through the mountains or one towel short at the Holiday Inn. If you live in this area, you've probably been to the Cascades.
The numbers bear out the contention that the recreational area, four miles north of Pembroke in Giles County, is one of the most popular places around to get outdoors. The U.S. Forest Service, which administers the area, does traffic counts.
Weekends and holidays such as Memorial Day and the Fourth of July can bring more than 1,000 vevhicles to the parking lot. Even in the slower times, it still attracts sizable numbers - and no wonder.
Mother Nature must have studied marketing and staging. The first time you make the four-mile round-trip trek, you get hints of what is to come - the sounds of the falls build and the breeze picks up the closer you get.
But not until you round that last curve in the path and enter the opening do you get the full effect of a large mountain stream tumbling 66 feet into a clear deep pool.
It is exhilarating. The wind that is restyling your hair also atomizes some of the water and sprays it onto your face. Meanwhile, the sound crashes around you and, you want to laugh out loud at the sight and sound of so much power.
You become mesmerized watching the water, now looking smooth and molten, now breaking into thousands of tiny bubbles, in its relentless march to the sea.
If it's July, you marvel at the natural air conditioning. If it's February, you delight in the icicles decorating various surfaces.
Spring, the season of delicate flowers like trout lilies and trillium, brings the tonic effect of green to winter-gray weary eyes. In October, the southern hardwood forest is a study in the red-yellow-orange part of the color spectrum.
Even in the heat of summer, the water of Little Stony Creek maintains its chilly temperature, making the stream one of Trout Unlimited's favorite native trout streams.
Fishing is catch-and-release, permitting only artificial lures with barbless hooks. The water is clear enough to see the fish and for them to see you, making the process that much more difficult.
The trail to the falls starts in the parking lot of the recreation area. It is a loop trail that follows the stream on the way up and an old logging trail on the way down. It generally takes about 3 1/2 hours for those who saunter and longer for those who linger.
The hike is a venture into the natural world, but there is one remnant of the area's previous history. All that remains of the earlier logging business and sawmill operation is an old steam boiler that ran the saw.
Dale Belcher, who now lives in Phoenix, Ariz., recalled the days during the 1930s and 1940s when his grandparents, Cicero and Lilly Largen, ran the sawmill. The crew was paid $2.50 a day, plus board and lodging and they worked 10 hours a day, six days a week.
The men cut the timber and hauled it to the mill, where it was turned into lumber. A tram car pushed by the men on log tracks would haul the lumber to a yard. Belcher said on occasions the downhill sections of the track would create spills when a load of lumber got to going too fast.
In the nearly 50 years since the logging operation shut down, the forest has reclaimed its own. The Forest Service, which got the land in 1968 and held opening ceremonies in 1970, added the picnic areas, bathrooms and the parking lot, dug a well for drinking water and constructed the trail.
The trail is a real tribute to the engineering abilities of the Forest Service. Several bridges span the creek and there are steps built into the trail at various points where the stream sometimes washes it out.
"The area gets so much use, it's necessary to have a hardened path," said Cheryl Mills, landscape architect in the Blacksburg Ranger District of the U.S. Forest Service.
One of the major projects facing the Forest Service this summer is hardening more of the trail around the falls area. There has been serious erosion where people have gotten off the path. Mills said the Forest Service would upgrade the upper viewing platform and put in a trail from the lower platform to the upper platform.
Most people don't realize that there is another waterfall above the big one on Little Stoney Creek. There are two trails to get to it. The Nature Conservancy Trail (off Virginia 714 at the Butt Mountain lookout tower) is a three-mile hike one way.
This trail has a side trail that will take you to the top of Barney's Wall, a rock ledge that overlooks the Little Stoney Creek Gorge and which is seen from the Cascades trail.
You also can pick up the eastern trail head from the upper part of the trail loop at the Cascades. The upper falls are approximately a half mile from the larger falls.
The one way you don't get there is climbing up to the big waterfall and following the creek. Climbing around the falls is strictly prohibited. While no one has died from a fall, people who have fallen while climbing around the Cascades have been seriously injured.
Actually, the greater danger is in the picnic area, where bees and hornets can make life miserable for people who are allergic to bee stings.
There is no phone at the picnic spot to call for help. While there are plans to have a telephone installed, people are urged to be cautious and always prepared.
Despite the perils of nature, people keep coming back to the Cascades.
"People just have a close, personal relationship with this area," said Mills.
\ CASCADES RULES\ \ The Cascades Recreation Area is open all year round from dawn to dusk.
\ There are no fees to use the areas.
\ Camping overnight at the Cascades is prohibvited.
\ All dogs must be on a leash.
\ There are 15 picnic sites with tables and grills.
\ Water fountains available May 1-Oct. 1.
\ Flush toilets available May 1-Oct. 1, portable toivlets available rest of the year.
by CNB