Adventures of a swimming hole aficionado

For day 3 of my Tennessee trip, I went to Fall Creek Falls State Park with my parents, my brother Brian, and his girlfriend Chelsea. Fall Creek Falls was on my list more for waterfalls than swimming holes. There are a few swimming holes in the park, but its main claim to fame is that Fall Creek Falls is the tallest free-falling waterfall in the eastern United States at 256 feet high. The park also features the 85-foot-high, river-wide Cane Creek Falls, which shares a cliff with the taller but narrower Rockhouse Falls, and both waterfalls spill into the same massive plunge pool. This was my main swimming hole destination of the day. Just upstream of Cane Creek Falls is Cane Creek Cascades, which is a popular swimming area because it is easily accessible. Other points of interest in the park are Piney Falls, which does not have a swimming hole or an unobstructed view, and the Gorge Hole, a manmade swimming hole on Cane Creek a short distance upstream from Cane Creek Cascades.

I chose to do Fall Creek Falls State Park today because it seemed like the best option for a bad weather day, since it was more for waterfalls than swimming, and it was supposed to storm this afternoon. I figured I could knock out my swimming hole explorations in the morning before the storms rolled in.

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

In summary, although I wasn’t too interested in the swimming hole situation at Fall Creek Falls State Park, the highlight of my trip there ended up being the Cane Creek Falls plunge pool, which far exceeded my expectations. The swimming hole was absolutely massive. It was the size of a small lake surrounded by a towering rock amphitheater with two different waterfalls spilling into it. If it had a good jump of about 10-20 feet, it would easily be a top-shelf swimming hole. I’m almost tempted to say it’s a top-shelf swimming hole anyway, but I have a hard time making that call when there isn’t anything extra to do besides just swim. The Cane Creek Cascades just upstream were okay as a quick stop to cool off, but I wasn’t terribly impressed with that particular swimming hole because it was crowded, and there were too many submerged rock slabs to kick while swimming. I didn’t get into the Gorge Hole, but since it is manmade and right off the road, its only redeeming quality would be the jumping opportunities, but jumping is illegal there, so yeah. I was a little underwhelmed by Fall Creek Falls proper on account of the low flow today (then again, I intentionally aimed for a dry week to do this trip, so I guess puny waterfall-viewing was the downside). The plunge pool at the base was fairly shallow and didn’t look very inviting, but it might be a better swimming hole when the water is up. And finally, I thought Piney Falls was pretty skipable. Today was one of those days where I packed a little too much into it for it to be completely enjoyable, but the completionist in me wanted to make the most of my visit. If I ever came back, I would probably just spend all day hanging out at the Cane Creek Falls plunge pool and blow off everything else, unless Fall Creek Falls was really flowing, as it would be a pretty epic waterfall to see when looking its best.