Visitied on Sunday, July 5th, 2020.

Located at mile marker 418.8 along the Blue Ridge Parkway, this site owes its name to the soil-covered stumps of dead trees which resemble graves in the field at its base. This desolate-looking field was caused by a forest fire in the 1920s, after the area was ravaged by the logging industry.

The trail system itself is not terribly long or complex. Upon entering the park, you are met with a fairly steep but paved path downwards through a small thicket of trees, after which you cross the Yellowstone Prong (part of which can be seen in the image below) on a wooden bridge. After crossing, you'll be met with a decision: turning right or left.

My family went left first, towards the Upper Falls and the Graveyard Fields Loop Trail (Trail #358). The first section is a fairly arid-feeling, dry area with a dirt path and intermittent wooden footpaths like the one pictured below.

Eventually, the trees become taller and the park stops providing footpaths. This section of the trail is fairly poorly marked and maintained and often muddy in places, but according to the park services department, an effort is being made to re-map and re-mark the existing trails, which were damaged after a few tropical storms in the recent years. Generally, though, all the branches and spurs of the trail head to the right place, and I managed to get through them without muddying my boots too much.

After making a few "bog" and stream crossings, you'll arrive at a rockier area which seems more like your typical North Carolina forest hike. It gets pretty rocky here, though never difficult to navigate; the trail is always clear, and in some parts the rocks have even been arranged to make some scenic-looking natural stairs.

After a little over a mile-and-a-half of total hiking, you'll come upon the Upper Falls. I hiked here around lunch time on a Saturday in the summer, so the park itself was fairly busy, but it wasn't terribly difficult to find a nice quiet spot to sit down and eat with a bit of privacy. There's a lot of open area, and the rockface has plenty of beautiful spots to sit down and eat.

You can climb higher up the Upper Falls by either walking along the steep (yet well-grooved) rocks towards the left, or by taking some fairly well-worn footpaths through the trees along the right side. Either way takes you to the top and affords you a nice view from the top of the falls.

After hiking back to the junction, you can take the short hike (less than half a mile) down to the Lower Falls. This area was significantly more crowded and frankly almost difficult to enjoy; I took very few pictures of the area.

Since the trail maps are being revised, I can't offer any real map of the route I took, but HikeWNC has a nice version of their map available online for now.

Browse through other pictures from this hike by clicking here.