Since the 1870s when Rufus Morgan photographed the Catawba Falls people have hiked along the Catawba River to view this spectacular series of large and small waterfalls. After years of being off limits the falls are now open to the public. The Catawba River rises in the Blue Ridge Mountains approximately 20 miles east of Asheville. It flows east forming among several reservoirs, Lake Norman, which is just a few blocks from our home north of Charlotte. The River is named after the Native American tribes that first settled on the banks. These photos are near where the river begins in the Blue Ridge Mountains.