Accessibility – Hard (Very hard if you want to make it so)
Height – 15′
Distance – 3.8 miles (lollipop loop)
Beauty – 5
Photo rating – 4
Solitude – 9
GPS Info: LAT 34.92838 LONG -83.08567
Last Updated – 12-24-20254
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Where to park: There is roadside parking on SC107 close to the Cherry Hill Recreation Area, which is at the trailhead for the Winding Stairs Trail. The GPS is at: 34.94124, -83.08993.
Note: I’m going to describe the hike the way we did it, not that I would ever do it that way again, since it added an element of danger that I didn’t feel was warranted when there was another way. It was a live-and-learn moment for me, and when I go back, I have lived and learned a better way.
The hike: The Winding Stairs Trail heads into the woods, briefly overlaps the Cherry Hill Rec Access Road, and then veers off to the right, leaving the road behind. goes to the left and passes through the Cherry Hill Recreation Area, and a spur trail goes to the right. At 0.6 miles from the start, give or take, a ridge drops down to the trail on your right. On our way out, we came down this ridge, and on future visits, I will go up it. We remained on the trail for another 0.4 miles, which is the first hard left switchback. We continued more or less straight ahead, paralleling a line of cliffs, that guard the side of the ridge,
At 0.1 miles from where we left the trail, the old road we were following veered off to the left and vanished into a sea of downfall, while our path went up the line of cliffs, following two narrow gulleys and forcing us across a narrow ledge. It wasn’t nearly as bad as all that, but for someone with vertigo, it wasn’t my favorite thing. We made it to the top, and where we ended up was the middle of the ridge we would hike on the way out. There were eight waterfalls planned for the day, and we started at the bottom, with Secret Falls, which I had been to a few years earlier when I hiked Winding Stairs Trail to Miuka Falls.
Our route was down the middle of the ridge, all the way to Secret Falls, and after checking out several different vantages and views of the various parts, we headed upstream, on river left, staying close to the creek. It was 0.2 miles to our next stop, which was Lower Crane Creek Falls. This part of the trek wasn’t too bad, and the terrain was such that we didn’t have to get too far from the creek. We went up and around Lower Crane Creek Falls on river left, and it wasn’t too long before we were back in the creek at the base of Very Secret Falls, a long, sliding waterfall.
The hike between Lower Crane Creek Falls and Very Secret Falls had been easy, but getting to Middle Crane Creek Falls required us to go much further from the creek to get around some cliffs, while the total distance was less than 0.1 miles. Middle Crane Creek Falls was a smaller drop, hemmed in by vegetation. We headed upstream by climbing up the bank on river left, and staying relatively close to the creek on our way to Crane Creek Falls. getting way above the creek, only to cross the creek below the falls and approach this one from the river right side. Everything that Middle Crane Creek Falls lacked, Crane Creek Falls possessed. It was for sure, the highlight of the trip.
Getting around it took some time, with us having to backtrack some, only to then swing wide up the hillside, and once we were around it, we moved upstream and dropped down to the creek at the base of Yellowjacket Falls, which was nearly the equal of Crane Creek Falls. Getting around this 50-foot waterfall required an even higher trip up the side of the ridge, and we stayed up there for a long time before bending back toward the creek more than 0.1 miles later, reaching the base of Prospector Falls from a river left approach. After the last two, this one was okay.
Our last stop was just upstream, and after climbing up the bank on river right, we made our way to the base of Deadfall Falls, the uppermost waterfall on the trek. The name says it all, but I still prefer it to some of the early waterfalls on the hike. From the base of Deadfall Falls, we went back up the bank on river right, until the woods opened up and we crossed the creek and headed up the side of the ridge. The upstream angled climb was 0.25 miles until we reached the point where we came up the cliff face, but for the way out, we hiked along the middle of the ridge until it dropped us on the Winding Stairs Trail 0.6 miles from the cars.
