So first of all, there’s a sign at the trailhead that says “Secret Falls”. Kind of ruins the Secret part of it. We happen to know the Forest Service official who put up this particular sign and he just shrugged when we pointed that out. Oh well.
Anyway, Secret Falls is in the Nantahala National Forest in the general vicinity of Highlands. It’s about a mile hike each way to a very pretty falls.
Along the way there are a couple of stream crossings, they are small and can be leapt or rock-hopped across. The trail continues beyond the falls and appears to follow the river canyon, possibly into Georgia (which isn’t far away). We didn’t follow it any further than these falls though so we don’t know what’s down there (yet).