Falling Water Falls, Signal Mountain (TN)
Falling Water Falls is a 110' gem found near Signal Mountain, TN. Views from the top of the falls (beware: bluffs!) can be accessed easily by walking from a small parking area on Forest Park Drive on Signal Mountain (see this for more details). Using this trail, one can walk directly to the top of the waterfall; if you cross Little Falling Water Creek, more views are available from the opposite side.
The hard (but fun) way to access the bottom of the falls is to begin a hike on Levi Road at the bottom of the mountain. When hiking, please make sure that you exit off of the road on state property. There is no trail for this adventure; you are on your own. After about a mile hike and 700 ft of ascent, you will find yourself at the base of Falling Water Falls. Don't attempt this without a GPS and a waypoint for Falling Water Falls. This is a hard mile, but well worth it!
As an added bonus for those willing to hike up the mountain to get to Falling Water Falls, one can find Levi Cave fairly soon after leaving the road. I supposedly have a GPS location for it, but had some technical difficulties and now am not sure if the fix that I have is accurate or not. So, I plan to revisit it when I get the chance. The mouth of Levi Cave is simply a 2' wide hole in the ground; however, the cave is supposedly (I only explored a very small part of it) 750' long.
The quality of the pictures here (I apologize!) is poor; these were taken with a 2MP Canon Powershot A40. I would like to revisit to take new pictures!
Update: a GPS waypoint for this waterfall can be found here.
Falling Water Falls, from top
Falling Water Falls, from bottom
Falling Water Falls Map; state property shown in yellow. Click to enlarge.
The hard (but fun) way to access the bottom of the falls is to begin a hike on Levi Road at the bottom of the mountain. When hiking, please make sure that you exit off of the road on state property. There is no trail for this adventure; you are on your own. After about a mile hike and 700 ft of ascent, you will find yourself at the base of Falling Water Falls. Don't attempt this without a GPS and a waypoint for Falling Water Falls. This is a hard mile, but well worth it!
As an added bonus for those willing to hike up the mountain to get to Falling Water Falls, one can find Levi Cave fairly soon after leaving the road. I supposedly have a GPS location for it, but had some technical difficulties and now am not sure if the fix that I have is accurate or not. So, I plan to revisit it when I get the chance. The mouth of Levi Cave is simply a 2' wide hole in the ground; however, the cave is supposedly (I only explored a very small part of it) 750' long.
The quality of the pictures here (I apologize!) is poor; these were taken with a 2MP Canon Powershot A40. I would like to revisit to take new pictures!
Update: a GPS waypoint for this waterfall can be found here.
Falling Water Falls, from top
Falling Water Falls, from bottom
Falling Water Falls Map; state property shown in yellow. Click to enlarge.
posted by Daniel Hyams | 7:59 PM
7 Comments:
Thanks for posting the maps and info on Falling Water Falls. I had been trying to find out how to get to the bottom of the falls with no luck.
Steve
Thanks for the post! Last year I went up to the top of the waterfall and it was amazing. I plan to eventually make it to the bottom.
I was surprised when I took a closer look at the map. My friends and I use to go caving off of Levi road all the time. We've been all the way to the back of that cave and it is pretty cool.
I never realized how close we were to a waterfall though. You can see a lot of my various waterfall pictures here:
http://sumdog.com
There are a bunch from around Cookeville, TN where I went to school too.
Sumit
When I was a kid/teenager in the late '70's and early '80's, before there were as many houses at the top of the cliffs as there are now, there used to be a little trail on the right side of the road... looking at the map posted above, it was basically on the un numbered bluff lot that is just about below the "F" in the words "Falling water trl". - We would pull off into the woods there and leave our dirtbikes/cars and climb down an easy spot in the cliff that lead to a trail that curved around the point and went straight to the lower part of the falls. You could even walk back behind the falls if you wanted... better be careful though, cause it'd be easy to fall. I haven't lived in Chattanooga for many many years now, but the last time I visited the area, I drove around there to see if things still looked the same and there were a lot of houses where it used to be all woods. The trail we used to use is probably in some doctor or lawyers back yard now. :-( I hope that's not the case, but driving past there, it sure looked that way.
That used to be a fun place to go. We also used to climb the cliffs around Brady Point before all the doctor/lawyer houses were there. There was a small cave in the cliffs there that was fun and lead to the bottom of the cliffs if you went the right way... or to a hell hole if you went the wrong way ;-) - We used to go to Levi cave too... and little airplane (tumbling shoals?) cave down by the river, etc. Lots of fun. I really miss living there. :-(
nat and beck say thanks for the information to the bottom of the falls! we spent a day searching with no luck on our own. we were resienged to believe the base of the falls was on private property.can't wait to get back out there!
Another quick way to the bottom is abseiling. You can get all sides of the falls that way. :)
I never realized there was even a cave there. I happen to live 2 roads away. Went down in. I was thinking it would be small judging by the entrance, but it huge. We had a blast.
Thanks for your wonderful site. I grew up on Forest Park Drive (in the 60s-70s) when it didn't even have the loop at the end. We had to follow an old logging road and trails to get to the falls. Many people didn't know about the falls at that time and most times we visited we were the only ones there. I think back on what an incredible situation I had growing up with access to such an amazing environment. By the way, we bought our house for $25,000. Things have certainly changed on Signal Mtn.
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