I hiked the Catawba Falls Trail east of Asheville, trekking through a mossy, shady forest valley to a beautiful series of waterfalls on the Catawba River.

The headwaters of the Catawba River are beautifully scenic. Just east of Asheville, the river tumbles through a rolling forest, cascading in a series of waterfalls and flowing over a mossy riverbed set in a shady, scenic stretch of the Pisgah National Forest. I explored waterfall after waterfall in a sun-dappled valley, hiking just over two miles through a shady forest to the seeping wall of vibrant green moss and tendrils of water known as Catawba Falls.