A few weekends ago I went on a backpacking trip in Panthertown Valley, NC. My grandparents have a lake house 15 minutes away at Lake Toxaway so I have spent a lot of time in this area. This is the first time I have spent more than one night in the area which allowed us to cover a lot more ground than usual.

The best map I have found of the Valley was purchased years ago at an outdoor store in the area. This website has a good overview of the trails as well, but some of the smaller ones are missing.

We started off at the Cold Mountain entrance, hiked to Schoolhouse Falls, then headed up the mountain to Little Green where we camped for the night. We got up early the next morning and headed over towards Granny Burrell Falls where we had lunch. From there, we went to Salt Rock (awesome view across the valley). From Salt Rock, we headed back into the valley. We didn’t have much of a plan other than we wanted to end the day at Jawbone Falls. Once across the valley, we ended up taking a trail that put us out on the left side of Warden Falls. We hung out there for a bit, then crossed the creek so we were on river right which allowed us to take the main trail to Jawbone to setup camp. The next morning, we made another quick stop at Schoolhouse before heading back to the Cold Mountain parking lot. 

This area is one of my favorites – there are tons of waterfalls, and other great views. If you don’t have time for an overnight trip, there are still plenty of easy day trips. This site has a ton of photos and gives a good break down of where everything is.