Cummins Falls

[flyminion]

For the fifth and final (full) day of my Tennessee trip, I went to Cummins Falls State Park just north of Cookeville, TN. This entire trip was actually inspired by Cummins Falls. I had been seeing pictures on the internet of cool-looking waterfalls, usually with swimming holes, that often turned out to be in Tennessee, and Cummins Falls was sort of the straw that broke the camel’s back in inspiring me to plan a Tennessee swimming hole trip. The main visual allure of Cummins Falls is the natural rock platforms with water flowing over them that lead from the swimming hole up to the base of the main drop of the waterfall. It’s almost majestic looking, like a royal staircase leading up to a waterfall palace, as corny as that sounds. I’m pretty sure that when anyone sees pictures of Cummins Falls, their inner child is like, “I wanna climb on those waterfall stairs!”

In many cases, photos don’t do justice to the beauty of waterfalls and swimming holes, but Cummins Falls is an exception. What you see is what you get, and most people would agree that what you see is pretty awesome. For this reason, it has become “Instagram famous”, which means that it is almost always #crowded. I read that it gets so full in summer that the parking lot fills up, and they have to turn people away, so I made it a point to go on a non-holiday weekday.

I didn’t think I was going to get to go to Cummins Falls on this trip because they closed access to the gorge in June due to an investigation following a flash flood that resulted in a toddler drowning (and there was a similar incident in 2017 where two people died and about 40 were rescued by helicopter), and no re-opening date had been set. When I committed to doing this trip, I decided I would just cross my fingers that the gorge would re-open in time, and if not, I would make a return trip sometime in the future. Two days ago, when I was at Fall Creek Falls State Park, a woman mentioned that they were re-opening Cummins Falls on August 14. Cummins Falls State Park’s website seemed to confirm this, and I called to make sure yesterday morning. They said the gorge was back open, weather permitting. I also asked what time they normally fill up on weekdays, and the person on the phone said they probably wouldn’t fill up during the week now that school had started back, but that it tends to get more crowded in the afternoon. This was a similar scenario to Blue Spring State Park in Florida this May, where I thought I was going to have to get there at the break of dawn but ended up getting to sleep in. I was anxious to go to Cummins Falls as soon as possible, so I wanted to go yesterday instead of kayaking to Fancher Falls. However, yesterday ended up being kind of cool and cloudy in the morning, and my mom overheard someone today saying they closed the gorge at Cummins Falls halfway through the day yesterday due to a popup shower upstream, so it was probably for the best that I waited until today. The forecast was mostly sunny in the mid-80s with a 10% chance of rain.

I stopped in Cookeville to get a sub at Jersey Mike’s, and I arrived at the park a little before 11:30 AM. The parking lot was about half full. Apparently their re-opening came with an improved safety program that included a colored warning flag system similar to those at the beach, and a tin-roofed shelter at the trailhead with TVs playing an instructional safety video (you can watch it here).



Today was a green flag, which indicated minimal risk. After watching the safety video, I started down the trail. There was a fork in the trail with the waterfall overlook to the left, and the shortcut trail to the river on the right. I decided to take the shortcut and do the overlook later.

There was a lot of hype about how difficult this hike is, including from the park itself. I wasn’t sure if it was going to be legitimately difficult, or if these warnings were mostly just the hashtag crowd reacting to getting out from behind their computer screens for the first time. The trail down to the river was a straight-forward switchback trail and even had steps in some places. I can see how it would be strenuous to those who have bad knees or don’t get much exercise, but there was nothing technical about it. After the trail ended at the river, a 0.6 mile creek walk upstream was required to reach the base of the falls.



I was surprised to see that the water was clear, and not the murky green color characteristic of most other creeks in the area.



There was no trail along the river, but the majority of the creek walk was over relatively flat gravel sandbars, with a few crossings along the way. The only boulder scrambling was the last hundred feet or so, when the waterfall came into view.



I thought this hike was a piece of cake compared to accessing the base of Great Falls at Rock Island State Park. I got to the base of Cummins Falls at around 1 PM.



When I got there, there was a clothesline with lifejackets available for swimmers, and there were yellow diamond signs indicating safe points for flash flooding events.



There were signs saying no lifeguard on duty, but rangers with whistles took turns watching the pool. I scrambled over the boulders lining the swimming hole to find a place to put my backpack. Most of the boulders were angled toward the water, so it was easy to keep an eye on my stuff from wherever I was. I climbed up on the stair-stepping rock platforms to explore the falls.



Most of the rock slabs that had water flowing over them had sufficient traction, but the wet rocks that were not immersed in water were pretty slimy and slippery. After checking out the stair-step platforms on the waterfall, I decided to snorkel the pool at the base of the falls to see if there were any jumping opportunities off the lowest ledge, which was about six feet high.



I looked up before getting in and saw that my parents had arrived at the overlook. There was a rock slab about four feet deep that stuck out about two feet in front of the ledge, but then the bottom dropped to about ten feet deep, so it would be pretty easy to clear this obstacle when jumping. I also noted that there was a small dead tree on the bottom of the pool near the river-left side with branches sticking up, so I made a mental note to stay more toward the center when jumping. I guessed that the temperature of the water was about 73 °F, as it felt like some of the warmer Florida springs. I took the temperature with my thermometer, and I was correct (I’m getting pretty good at guessing water temperatures). I climbed on the rock platforms some more and then jumped off the ledge (photo by my mom, from the overlook):



My mom had read about the hike and said she probably couldn’t do it, but I texted her and told her it wasn’t that bad (the creek portion wasn’t any worse than what we did yesterday at Fancher Falls, just longer). She declined since she didn’t bring any swimwear and didn’t want to get hot if she couldn’t get in the water. Since my parents weren’t hiking to the base of the falls, they left to go see Burgess Falls, just south of Cookeville.

I swam, hung out on the rock stairs, and then jumped some more. I wanted to hang out here until later in the afternoon, as I wanted to get a picture of the falls when they were entirely illuminated by the sun. At this point, the swimming hole was in sunlight, but the falls were in shadow. The falls face west-northwest, so I figured the best lighting would probably be in late afternoon. I had gotten a little chilly, and the sun was in and out of the clouds, so I found a warm rock to lie on on the river-right side of the base of the falls.

After getting warmed up, I got back in the water. I started taking my pictures around 3:30, as it seemed like this was the best that the lighting was going to get.











By now, the air temperature was in the mid-80s, and it felt like the water had warmed up. My thermometer now said the water was 74.5 °F. I asked a couple of people there to take a video of me jumping off the lower ledge, since I had my camera out.



After getting all the photos I wanted, I kept almost leaving but not being able to tear myself away each time I saw the sun come out and light up the clear aquamarine pool (the water wasn’t crystal clear, but you could see about eight feet down into it).

Here is a compilation of video clips I recorded from various vantage points (the final clip from the overlook was recorded by my mom):

Watch on YouTube

I finally made myself get going around 4:20 PM. It took me about 30 minutes to hike from the base of the falls to the overlook. The trail to the overlook was a little longer than I was anticipating. When I got there, the falls were now getting full sunlight, but the swimming hole was partially in shadows.



I guess the most ideal photo op was around 4:30 PM, but I’m not sure if there ever would have been a perfect one. At 5:00 PM, I heard the rangers blowing their whistles and telling everyone to head out, as the park was closing in an hour.

I took a trail a short distance upstream to see what the river was like above the falls.



It was pretty shallow and uneventful, so I headed back to the parking area. The trail back was a little longer than I thought, and I actually checked my GPS to make sure I was heading in the right direction. After I got back and changed, I headed to Outback in Cookeville and had prime rib for dinner.

In summary, I would say Cummins Falls lives up to the hype. Well, I guess there actually isn’t much verbal hype, but the copious pictures on the internet make it look pretty enticing. The clear aquamarine swimming hole and the perfectly sculpted and climbable rock stairs with water flowing over them make this a pretty attractive place to explore, even for those who aren’t normally interested in going to waterfalls and swimming holes. Cummins Falls was actually number three on my wish list for this trip (behind Rock Island and North Chick) because I assumed all you could really do there is swim, but the fact that there is a jumping opportunity adds to the coolness, even if the jump is only six feet high. It’s one of those places you want to drag your friends to just to show it off, because you know it will be a crowd pleaser. Apparently most people agree, because Cummins Falls is one of Tennessee’s worst-kept secrets. Today was a school day, and probably not everyone has caught wind of the gorge reopening, and I still counted about 40-60 people there at any given time. The swimming hole and surrounding area are big enough to accommodate that many people without it feeling too crowded, but sharing that space with over 100 people would get pretty annoying. I would say this swimming hole is probably good enough to be worth contending with crowds, but I would still aim for a non-holiday weekday if you want room to move around.