This Land, Your Land

This is not usually a commentary blog; we're trying just to update folks on what's going on in parks, forests and other public recreation land in North Carolina.

But one thing we advocate on the main Carolina Outdoors Guide site and elsewhere is do not screw around at the top of waterfalls. It's way too easy to lose your footing and wind up dead. It happens every summer.

On June 7, a 28-year-old Asheville woman wading in the pool above Rainbow Falls in the Pisgah Forest was swept over the 125-foot falls and killed. Two friends hiking with her saw her slip, and pulled her body from the river below the falls, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times.

"The Rainbow Falls death is the second at a Western North Carolina waterfall in less than two weeks," the newspaper said.

"A Wake County man died at Elk River Falls in Avery County on May 29. The following day, a man and woman were injured in an accident at Upper Whitewater Falls near Cashiers in Jackson County."