Polk

From Saluda, you have two options. You can drive about 3 miles south on NC 176 toward Tryon, turn right on Pearson Falls Road, and continue 0.9 miles to the entrance.

You can also approach from the other end of Pearson Falls Road, which begins in Saluda. From that direction, the drive is 2.7 miles on an unpaved road.

As in a cathedral nave where one may admire the art of centuries, so one goes reverently up the glen called Pearson’s Falls, where scenes from the story of life on earth are painted upon the cavern walls and green windows.

One of North Carolina’s waterfall treasures, Pearsons Falls is also one of the state’s oldest tourist attractions. It has welcomed visitors since the Tryon Garden Club acquired the property in 1931.

Pearsons Falls is beautiful, but North Carolina has many beautiful waterfalls. What sets this one apart is its preservation story and the rich biological setting that surrounds it. Read on for the full story.

 Pearsons Falls is currently closed due to the destruction caused by Tropical Storm Helene. Restoration efforts are nearly complete, and the waterfall is expected to open in late June or early July with a new online ticketing system. I'll update this page as soon as it opens. Click Show More for more information.

Easy/moderate

The attendant will point you in the right direction. You can’t get lost on the hike.

You don’t need details for this one. Just head upstream.

Historical photo by Bayard Wooten, North Carolina's most renowned female photographer. Date unknown. Wooten photographed across the state from 1905 into the 1950s. (076A-01)

Historical postcard of Pearsons Falls. Note the caption "Thousand Cascades, Chimney Rock Country." Postcard printers often took liberty with the captions to help sales. Apparrently, this one felt like it would sell better by listing it as being near Chimney Rock. (076A-02)

Page from a promotional booklet published by Southern Railway in the early 1900s titled 

The Land of the Sky, Western North Carolina, Asheville Plateau

Page from a promotional booklet published in 1904 by Southern Railway titled 

The Land of the Sky, A Picturesque Country on the Southern Railway

, published in 1924. Photographer unknown. (076A-05)

 magazine. Photographer unknown. (076A-06)

This photo of Pearsons Falls appeared in the original 1932 edition of 

Pearsons Falls is off US 176, between Saluda and Tryon.

Get Your Bearings

Things have changed quite a bit at Pearsons Falls since Hurricane Helene, and not just visually. Visitors are now required to make a reservation and get an advance ticket. Admission is $10 for adults and $1 for children 6-12. Dogs and drones are not permitted.

 for more information and to make a reservation.

You can also become part of the community that helps preserve Pearson’s Falls & Glen by joining the new 

Visitor Changes

After being downgraded from a hurricane, Tropical Storm Helene tore through western North Carolina on September 26, 2024, causing severe damage. Pearsons Falls was not spared.

Documentary filmmakers Terry and Cher Brown of Keva Creative have been documenting the extensive restoration and are producing a new film about it, titled 

. Cher says the documentary “follows the extraordinary journey of Pearson’s Falls & Glen after Hurricane Helene—documenting not only the restoration of a beloved natural preserve, but the deeper story of stewardship, resilience, and the healing power of nature.”

Cher, who also serves as chairperson of Pearson’s Falls & Glen, hopes to release 

 in September. See the gallery below for some of her photos of the damage and restoration.

Cher Brown Gallery of Helene Destruction & Restoration

Hurricane Helene

 Charles William Pearson surveyed the railroad route through North Pacolet River Gorge that later became the famous Saluda Grade. A Civil War Confederate captain and engineer, he later acquired substantial property in the area, including Pearsons Falls.

 Pearson Falls, Pearsons Falls, or Pearson’s Falls? The road is named Pearson Falls Road. The owners use Pearson’s, while NCWaterfalls.com uses Pearsons.

When Tryon Garden Club acquired the property in 1928, they called it Pearson’s Falls, so I think we can take Pearson Falls out of the running. Most people and publications also use Pearson’s, but if you’ve spent much time on this site, you know I’m not most people.

For consistency, and to follow the naming convention set by U.S. Board on Geographic Names (see 

 for more on that), I leave apostrophes out of waterfall names. So, on this site, as on official USGS maps and others that follow the same standard, it’s Pearsons Falls.

I admit it can look odd without the apostrophe, but what good are standards if you don’t follow them?

Naming

In 1931, Charles William Pearson’s son planned to sell the waterfall property to a timber company. Tryon Garden Club, founded only a few years earlier, stepped in and purchased it with financial support from Frances and Clarence Lightner. The Lightner’s signed the note for the purchase and the club made the final payment in November 1939.

Renowned naturalist Donald Culross Peattie supported the preservation effort through his writing, which helped readers appreciate the glen’s biological diversity and the need to protect it. At the time, his mother, Elia, was president of Tryon Garden Club.

Preservation

, I wrote that the listed height of 90 feet was exaggerated. In the 2005 second edition, I called it about 75 feet high. In the 2016 third edition, I said it was about 50 feet.

The nature of Pearsons Falls makes it difficult to estimate the height, but there’s no excuse for there being that much range in my listings. How high is it really?

From the base, my rangefinder puts it at about 75 feet, but you can’t see the entire waterfall from that angle. LiDAR suggests it’s closer to 100 feet. That aligns fairly well with the commonly cited 90-foot figure, which is also the height listed on the Pearson’s Falls & Glen website.

Measuring

The railroad from Tryon to Saluda, which passes near Pearsons Falls, is widely described as the steepest standard-gauge mainline railway in the United States, climbing more than 600 feet in less than three miles. The first train made the climb in 1878. Norfolk Southern shut down the line in 2001, and it has been deteriorating ever since.

In 2022, Conserving Carolina, PAL: Play, Advocate Live Well in South Carolina, and Upstate Forever announced plans to buy the rail corridor and convert it into a 31.5-mile hiking and biking trail. The effort moved quickly. The property was purchased on June 17, 2025, and trail planning is now underway.

For more on Saluda Grade and Saluda Grade Trail, visit the 

Saluda Grade

On the hike to Pearsons Falls, you’ll pass a small dam that the town of Tryon built in the 1950s. It served as a supplemental water source until Tropical Storm Helene destroyed the water line.

Power Generation

“Nowhere else along the way did we find so glorious a wildflower garden as in this hidden nook among the North Carolina mountains.”

For nearly a century, botanists, naturalists, and other nature lovers have been drawn to the rich biology of the Pearsons Falls glen. Botanical surveys have documented hundreds of species there, including dozens that are rare or uncommon in the region. Some can be seen along the trail to the waterfall. Among the uncommon species are hydra, or wild ginger (

In 1932, Donald Culross Peattie wrote a short book about the glen titled 

A Natural History of Pearson’s Falls. And Some of Its Human Associations

. In 1962, Tryon Garden Club published a revised edition, 

Pearson’s Falls Glen, Its Story, Its Flora, Its Birds

. Waterfall Keepers of North Carolina holds original copies of both books in its library.

Biology

Pearson’s Falls has captivated many writers during the nearly 100 years since the Tryon Garden Club acquired it. In addition to the quotations featured elsewhere on this page, here are a few of my favorite passages.

. Note that Pearson’s Falls is on Colt Creek, a tributary of North Pacolet River.

At the head of the glen the path brought us to the white lace of Pearson’s Falls. It is lace formed of water by gravity on a loom of granite. In a thin, foaming layer the water of Pacolet River slides down the face of successive shelves of rock. The sound of this falling water is murmurous, calming, companionable. Here is no mighty, roaring Niagara, no deep-tongued bellow. This was a sound for a glen to enclose.

The memory of this rare and beautiful place we were leaving—its water music, its flower perfume and flower color—was one that often, in later recollections, brough us special pleasure.

A Natural History of Pearson’s Falls and Some of Its Human Associates

Here, for thousands of years, the white sprite, the fall, has been in being, delicious, setting in motion a perpetual breeze which makes the maidenhair and the foam-flower to tremble ceaselessly upon their stalks, keeping a fleck of brown foam forever swirling about the little pool below.

Literature

On cloudy days, Pearsons Falls photographs well in any season. On sunny days, the tree canopy creates heavy contrast, making a good image of the entire falls difficult or even impossible to capture. The mini-ledges create a nice opportunity for shooting isolations, and this is something that could work okay on a sunny day.

Accessibility:	Hiking trail
County:	Polk
River Basin:	Broad
Watercourse:	Colt Creek
Watershed:	Small
Type and Height:	Multi-ledge waterfall about 100 feet high
Landowner:	Tryon Garden Club

Beauty Rating:	8
Elevation:	1780 feet
USGS Map:	Saluda NC/SC
Hike Difficulty:	Easy/moderate
Hike Distance:	A little over a quarter mile
Waterfall GPS:	35.21511, -82.33557
Trailhead GPS:	35.21924, -82.33195

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