Cummins Falls

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.

( Click here for the full trip report with pictures and videos )

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.