Onion Falls

Topographic maps label Onion Falls as occurring along the spillway channel of the Thorpe Dam immediately below Lake Glenville. According to the third edition of Kevin Adam's seminal North Carolina Waterfalls book, this is actually a mapping error. The actual Onion Falls were destroyed when the Thorpe Dam was constructed, it's location being about one-sixth of a mile northeast of where the maps place the falls - currently buried under dozens and dozens of feet of talus and soil which were placed to shore up the foot of the dam. Per Adams' book the falls were allegedly a sliding cascade approximately 100 feet tall. The falls marked on the topographic maps are instead a man made channel which was constructed to serve solely as the spillway for the lake. While the falls along the spillway are man made and should not be considered a replacement for Onion Falls itself, when it flows (which should align with the scheduled annual releases of water from the dam) it is still an impressive site to behold based on the pictures we've seen.