Being a weekend, we wanted to get there early before the crowds. We arrived around 9 (central time) and were the first people here. From the parking area, we headed down to the waterfall, passing the tall cliffs and the Gamblers’ Den, a location for illicit gambling in the past.
Past this we came to a viewpoint at about the middle of the waterfall. I usually like to see waterfalls from the base, but this one had a great viewpoint from the middle.
I think the waterfall actually looked bigger from the middle than from the base. We then climbed down to the base to get some pictures from this perspective as well as the cascades below the main drop.
Then we headed back to the car and continued on to the next waterfall. We got on TN-68 towards Spring City, turning onto Firetower Road just past Grandview to park at the Piney Falls State Natural Area. There are two waterfalls here – the upper and lower falls on Piney Creek. We started hiking down the trail and turned right at the split to head towards the top of Upper Piney Falls. Under normal conditions, it’s possible to cross the creek above the falls and work down to the base. But the water was way too high today. So we backtracked and went first to Lower Piney Falls. The trail comes out at the top of the waterfall, but there isn’t a good view from here.
The tall cliffs prevented getting any further down. As we were heading back, I saw some people coming from a side path. Thinking that might lead to the base, we turned and tried to follow the path, but found no way to get down to creek level.
Finally giving up, we headed to the base of Upper Piney Falls. Just before getting there, I saw the couple from before and asked if they had figured out how to get to the base, but they had no more luck than we did.
I got some pictures from the base of Upper Piney Falls and tried to go behind the falls, but they spray was so intense, I turned back.
On the way back, we tried one more time to try to get to the base of Lower Piney Falls, but couldn’t find any reasonable path. So we headed back to the car and continued to Shut In Gap Road to Stinging Fork Falls State Natural Area. The first part of the hike was through new-growth forest and eventually started heading down to the creek into a more natural area. As we got to near the top of the falls, we saw some people scrambling down to the base and followed. Getting back up would be tricky, but it turns out we had gotten off the trail and following the trail would be a much easier hike back up. Stinging Fork Falls is a really beautiful waterfall with a great swimming hole at the base.
It was way too cold for swimming today and unfortunately, the sun was shining right on the waterfall. I tried to get a couple pictures and then we followed the trail back. There were some nice cascades along the creek downstream from the falls and stairs provided a much easier path to the top.
On the way back, we swung by the overlook, but the views were mostly obscured by trees. The creek was not visible below (though it was easily heard), though the surrounding cliffs were very pretty. We then headed back to the car and continued up the road a short ways and turned on Walden Mountain Road to the Cumberland Trail parking. Right at the parking area, a large number of tiger swallowtail butterflies were puddling on the ground.
We started hiking along the Cumberland Trail following Duskin Creek downstream. There were lots of scenic little cascades along the creek.
In a mile or so, we made it to White Pine Cascades. It’s a really scenic cascading waterfall on the creek with an inviting swim hole at the base. Unfortunately, the sun was shining directly on it, ruining any chance for a decent picture.
Without a cloud in the sky, there wasn’t much chance the situation would change any time soon, so we started hiking back. We stopped at several of the little cascades along the way.
Back at the car, we headed back to paved roads and drove towards Cleveland. We checked into our hotel, Holiday Inn Express, and then went across the street for dinner at Fulin’s Asian Cuisine.
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