Burgess Falls State Park, Putnam/White Counties, Tennessee

(Click to enlarge pictures)

 

     While nearby Fall Creek Falls State Park is much larger and has more trails, Burgess Falls State Park offers, as far as I’m concerned, more bang for the hiking buck. Very pretty in season and out, it has about two and a half miles of very nice trails, some really big trees (as evidenced by this specimen Peej is posing near) and a waterfall that is both impressive in size, beauty, and power. It could well be called the Niagara of Tennessee.

 

     P. J. has grown up as a young man and a hiker as much with Dan McDowell as he has me. At left he poses with his Uncle Danny.

 

     There’s a couple of different trails here, one which prowls the woods—the Ridge Trail, very nice, don’t ignore it!—and the one everybody does, the River Trail, which leads to each of the three falls. We chose to do both, following the Ridge Trail to its end almost at the far end of the River Trail. It’s a nice hike and I highly, highly recommend it. Here Dan and Peej rest a bit at the observation platform at the top of Big Falls.

 

          And it is big! True, at a little over 130 feet it is not quite half the size of Fall Creek Falls, but its setting is much more impressive, I think. On this day the flow was fairly light, but it was still amazingly pretty. At right, Peej and I pose on the deck, looking down the canyon away from the falls. It is a long way down!

 

          Naturally, we couldn’t just look at the falls from above…

 

               The trail to the bottom is actually pretty safe, along steep and slippery but mostly secure stairways, and inside a cage. They really don’t mean for you to get out…but you do get a pretty good payoff shot just before entering the cage.

 

          Peej poses in the same shot as above. It’s pretty noisy here, as you will learn later…at right, we pose together just before the last climb down.

 

     It’s a long, wet walk, and once you’re down you need to watch your footing very carefully!

 

          It’s worth it! Even in low flow the falls are an amazing sight!

 

          Peej at the base of Big Falls, and at right, look closely and you’ll see the observation platform a hundred and fifty feet above, and Dan McDowell snapping his own pictures.

 

     What can I say but, he is his father’s son. What a ham!

 

     Watch your step there, son…it’s a loooooong way down…

 

          Middle Falls is every bit as spectacular, and perhaps more so even though it’s less that half the size of Big Falls. The way it spreads out in its own spacious cove is just so impressive. At right: my handsome son.

 

     As at Niagara, Man intrudes and attempts to bend Nature to his will. This contraption used to carry a pipeline across a bridge to a tunnel in the rock that channeled water to power a gristmill and a sawmill. The river itself is now dammed not far upstream for power generation, leaving the waterfall for us to appreciate.

      Sometimes you take a picture and wonder later what it was you were trying to capture. I don’t know, it is an oddly-shaped bit of tree, and it kind of looks birdlike if you squint a bit…

 

     There’s no squinting needed here. Make sure you have your sound turned up before you click this picture: it will open a brief MPEG movie (9 mb, you’ll need Windows Media Player or QuickTime to view it) shot from this point. Bear in mind that this was taken at low flow…when it gets high, I’m sure it’s a helluva lot louder. When it’s really high, the state closes the park! Be patient, it’ll take a moment to load. It’s worth it, though. So is the trip…when can we go back?

 

 

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