About Upper Piney Falls
Upper Piney Falls was a pretty 80ft waterfall that we got to walk behind.
In an effort to avoid confusion, we’re sticking with designating the main waterfalls on this page as the Upper and Lower Piney Falls (yes there’s a second waterfall here).
That’s because there happened to be another Piney Falls in Falls Creek Falls State Park further to the west near Spencer.
There seemed to be a bit of confusion regarding how dangerous visiting the Upper Piney Falls was.
After our experience, it seemed that those claims were either exaggerated or they were describing the conditions prior to improvements (especially regarding the signage) that we may have benefitted from.
Hiking to the Upper Piney Falls
From the small parking lot and trailhead (see directions below), we followed a wide trail that made a curve around what appeared to be a sign board except there was no sign on it.
Instead, there were etchings (graffiti, if you will) on the wooden foundation with conflicting claims of how dangerous the descent to the base of the Upper Piney Falls was.
While such messages planted seeds of doubt about whether we could visit the Upper Piney Falls or not, we proceeded nonetheless.
This part of the hike was pretty straightforward as it meandered on what appeared to be an old unpaved road beneath tall trees (said to be old growth) with plenty of Fall colors to boot.
Along the way, we passed by what appeared to be a small wire rope barricade though we weren’t sure what it was for.
Eventually, we reached a junction where clearly-marked signboards on trees pointed the way to either the base of Upper Falls (left) or the top of Upper Falls (right).
Since we weren’t interested in going to the top of the falls, we went left.
At this point, the trail got a bit narrower with one short steep part that I’m sure would be easy to miss on the return if not for the trail markings.
Eventually, we’d reach another junction where going left descended steeply for the Lower Piney Falls (which we came back for later) and going right continued to the base of Upper Piney Falls.
At this point, the trail started to hug the escarpment responsible for the plunge of Little Piney Creek over the Upper Piney Falls.
We happened to chance upon a dead deer by the trail during our hike, which we suspected were due to illegal hunting (as signs indicated this place prohibited such acts).
Eventually after roughly 1.5 or 2 miles (just a guess), the trail reached the Upper Piney Falls and even continued behind the falls as well as a little beyond it for a different angled view.
Unfortunately, the late morning sun was against us from that different angled view, which made photography from there a bit difficult.
However, we did notice that the cliff wall adjacent to the trail here exhibited what appeared to be faintly discernable basalt formations (not sure if it is indeed basalt or not though).
Whatever the case may be, it clued us in that this cliff was probably volcanic in origin, and this layer of hard rock was why the creek plunged the way it did.
This cliff also dripped water attesting to the amount of upstream moisture that spread from the creek and into the soil and vegetation.
The detour to Lower Piney Falls
Returning back to the junction with Lower Piney Falls, I made a very steep descent (might be even trickier if the ground was muddy and wet) towards a top down view of the smaller 40ft waterfall itself.
I don’t think there was a safe way to get to the bottom of this one and I didn’t feel like trying.
Plus, the sun was totally against me while most of the falls was in shadow so I didn’t linger here too long given the subpar photo results.
Finally, just to give you an idea of the time commitment, we spent about 90 minutes to do all the hiking and photo taking for both waterfalls.
Authorities
Upper Piney Falls resides in Cumberland Trail State Park near Spring City in Rhea County, Tennessee. It is administered by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, visit their website.
Since we drove to Upper Piney Falls from Ozone Falls, we’ll describe the route going from there.
Perhaps Ozone Falls visitors in the mood for another adventure might also do as we did (at least that’s my thinking).
Anyways, for directions to Ozone Falls, see the directions on that page.
Logistically speaking, Ozone Falls was 48 miles (under an hour drive) east of Cookeville and 57 miles (about an hour drive) west of Knoxville.
Leaving Ozone Falls, we drove about 5.5 miles west on Hwy 70 before turning left onto the rural (but paved) Cox Valley Rd.
Continuing another 3.4 miles on Cox Valley Rd, we eventually connected with Hwy 68.
Turning left onto Hwy 68, we then drove another 11.7 miles into the unincorporated town of Grandview.
While in town, we turned right onto Firetower Rd (though Emergency Rd just before it also connected to Firetower Rd and was less rougher) and followed this unpaved road for about 1.6 miles.
The limited parking area and trailhead was on the right.
To give you some geographical context, Cookeville was 81 miles (90 minutes drive) east of Nashville, 102 miles (over 90 minutes drive) west of Knoxville, and 99 miles (2 hours drive) north of Chattanooga.
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L-shaped bottom up sweep of the Upper Piney Falls' profile
Left to right sweep from behind the Upper Piney Falls with a bottom up sweep of the falls itself
Top down sweep panning up at the overhanging cliffs before doing a top down sweep of the falls then panning to the right at the plunge pool
Left to right backwards gamma sweep of the profile of the falls from the opposite side of the alcove
Backwards J-shaped sweep following the falls from almost behind it
Left to right sweep looking down at the Lower Piney Falls
Right to left sweep looking down at Lower Piney Falls in its shadowy gorge
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