Secret Vistas: Fall Creek Falls
March 5th, 2009
FALL CREEK FALLS, Tenn. — After editing the coal ash video and story, we headed up into the mountains and camped for a couple of nights at Fall Creek Falls State Park. Fall Creek Falls, (above) at 256 feet, is the highest waterfall in the eastern U.S.
Lovely spot with almost no one around a week before the spring season begins. This is definitely one of the best state parks we’ve camped at, but according to the park’s Website, Southern Living magazine readers voted it the best state park in the Southeastern United States.
It’s billed as a paradise of more than 20,000 acres sprawled across the eastern top of the rugged Cumberland Plateau and “one of the most scenic and spectacular outdoor recreation areas in America. Laced with cascades, gorges, waterfalls, streams, and lush stands of virgin hardwood timber, the park beckons those who enjoy nature at her finest.”
The oak and hickory forest that covers most of the park gives way to tulip poplar and hemlock forest in the gorges. The plants and animals of the moist, protected gorges are not unlike the species found in southern Canada. Mountain laurel and rhododendron are abundant throughout the park, as are other plants and animals.
We had a close encounter with three white tailed deer in several locations in the park, and the last night in camp, two raccoons and a fox took turns polishing off a bag of sour cream and onion chips I left sitting on the picnic table bench.
Cold nights, but plenty of available fire wood. Now it’s on to Dayton, Tennessee, Darwin land, and then a couple of nights totally off the grid in the Smokies.
More photos after the jump.
