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Looking Glass Falls

Photo: Gary Stevens / CC BY 2.0 · source

🌊 Lakes & rivers

Looking Glass Falls

Brevard, NC · Western North Carolina

About

One of the most photographed waterfalls in the Blue Ridge, Looking Glass Falls drops a clean 60 feet over a rounded granite face just steps from US-276 in Pisgah National Forest. A short stairway leads down to the plunge pool, where the spray cools the air on a summer afternoon and the rock takes on a mirror sheen after rain. It runs year-round and turns to ice columns in a hard freeze, so the view rewards a stop in any season.

Highlights

60-foot drop over a curved granite faceRoadside view plus a short stairway to the baseFlows year-round and freezes into ice columns in winterIn Pisgah National Forest near Brevard

Getting there

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The Blue Ridge Mountains26 places

The Blue Ridge Mountains

The ancient, blue-hazed peaks of the southern Appalachians, threaded by the Blue Ridge Parkway from Shenandoah to the Smokies. Mile-high summits and the highest peak east of the Mississippi, waterfalls you can walk behind, long-range overlooks, and mountain towns like Asheville with the Biltmore at their heart. Go in October for the color, but the haze is blue year-round.