No, not those Rocky Mountains, but this weekend turned out to be all about rocks. Saturday, Chet and I turned up to help the Land Trust of North Alabama do some trail maintenance work on the Talus Trail in the Green Mountain Nature Preserve. We should have known by all the rock bars the land steward had laid out that we’d be moving rocks, bench cutting, and laying in steps. Personally, I love this kind of trail building, but it is the most exhausting kind, I think. At any rate, we were s.o.r.e. the next day!
Still, we hadn’t had quite enough “outdoors” yet and the weather was absolutely perfect so Sunday morning we headed out to walk a trail instead of building one. I’d been looking around for inspiration and had discovered that there’s a whole new area added to the South Cumberland State Park in Tennessee! I love South Cumberland State Park – it’s got some of the most gorgeous scenery around – so a new part of it I just had to explore. Denny Cove tract is 625 acres of land just 2 miles south of Foster Falls off of US 41. Acquired in 2016, it officially opened in March 2017. This nearly pristine area was previously owned by a Brazilian timber company and contains at least a mile of sandstone cliff that is perfect for rock climbing. I’m not a rock climber, so I’m not going to be able to describe that aspect of it, but do a search on “Denny Cove climbing” and you’ll get all sorts of hits describing hundreds of climbing routes. In fact, the climbing advocacy group Southeast Climbers’ Coalition was instrumental in raising the funds to buy the property and worked closely with the Friends of South Cumberland State Park and other groups to make this new addition to South Cumberland State Park a reality. Thanks guys!
Denny Cove is apparently a fantastic spot for climbing, but there is hiking there, too, so we packed up and headed north. We had no trouble finding it – it is well marked on US 41 with a large brown and white sign and an obvious entrance gate – and drove down the long gravel road to the large parking area. I admit I was surprised to find 18 other cars already there, including one colorful van. I had thought, being a fairly new park, that it wouldn’t be very crowded on a Sunday morning, but I guess word has gotten out! We snapped our usual photo of the park map at the kiosk, signed in, and headed down the our first trail of the day.
On the online park maps, this trail is called “Denny Cove Trail” and is marked as .45 miles. The map posted at the kiosk, though, shows a trail called “Main Trail” and another farther along called the “Overlook Trail.” I’m not sure which is the current terminology. In any case “Denny Cove”/”Main” is a level, easy trail that heads through woods of mixed hardwoods and pines. A short way in, we crossed a gravel road and then the trail picked back up on the other side. Before the gravel road, the only trail markers are orange ribbons on some of the trees. After the gravel road, there are several signs reminding folks that the gates close at sundown, and then occasional white plastic trail markers. There’s really no way to get lost, though. The footpath is very clear and I didn’t notice side trails that can confuse things.
At .37 miles, we came to a spot where two creeks flow in a “Y” to the edge of a small cliff. Across one creek, we spotted a blue blaze, which marked what the kiosk map called the “Overlook Trail.” This very short trail (.14 miles) heads uphill and then to the edge of a bluff. The trail looks to split here, but the actual blue-blazed trail heads towards the right to a big rock that juts out from the cliff . There are gorgeous views down into Denny Cove from here. Pro tip, though, if you go left instead of (or in addition to) right, in a few feet you come to a spot without a large rock, but with what I thought were more impressive views down into Denny Cove and on out into the gorge formed by Big and Little Fiery Gizzard Creeks. As a side note, the Fiery Gizzard Trail, in another tract of the South Cumberland State Park, is considered to be one of the top 25 trails in the United States. It’s 13 miles, and a bit beyond the range of my balky hips at the moment, but someday I want to hike it. We admired the views from both locations, and then backtracked to the spot where the two creeks fell over the bluff. White blazes led us down some rocks and over the top of one of the falls.
I say “one of” because the two creeks didn’t flow together and then fall over the cliff – they separately flowed over the cliff forming two small but lovely waterfalls. Water from both did combine just below the two falls and flowed on down the hill. This little section of the trail confused us a bit. There’s a sign for “Denny East” and “Denny West” with arrows pointing right and left, and then “Waterfall 1.0 mile” with an arrow pointing straight. For some reason, I interpreted this to mean the trail to the waterfall was a loop and either way would take you a mile. Not so. There are 3 trails. “Denny East” we never actually saw a footbed for, though there is a lovely set of stone steps heading up towards the base of the bluff just past the sign. “Denny West” is a .25 mile trail that angles back towards the base of the two little waterfalls, and then west along the base of the cliffs we were just standing on top of at the overlook. We didn’t hike that whole trail – we just went down far enough to get some pictures of the little waterfalls and then came back up and followed the main white blazed trail, which is just called the Waterfall Trail.
Waterfall Trail starts off pleasantly. It makes a gradual decline through the woods down into Denny Cove. On our left were the famous sandstone climbing cliffs. As we walked down the trail, I could hear people talking and the clink of metal but I couldn’t ever spot anybody in action. Chet spotted a tree that might be a marker tree (though to me it doesn’t look quite right). The trail had a few short sections that were a bit rocky, but these were easy enough to walk across. In about 3/4 of a mile, we came to a sign for the Buffet Wall Access. The Buffet Wall is named this because it provides “all you can climb” opportunities and is very popular with the climbing crowd. We had heard another small waterfall tumbling off the cliff edge and I thought the access trail just might be a way to get a better view so we hiked the short ways up that trail to the base of the cliff. There we found a group of climbers busily doing that climbing thing, one big black dog hanging out, and a barely discernible trail along the base of the cliff leading back towards the elusive waterfall. We hiked back and tried to get a good picture of the falls, but we weren’t very successful. We hiked on back to the Waterfall Trail.
At this point, the story gets me back to my theme about the rocks. The last 1/4 mile of the Waterfall Trail was pretty difficult for me. It was rock slide after boulder field after rubble field to pick your way through. It made it pretty slow going as I’m super cautious about getting an ankle twisted (again). It seemed like the folks putting up the trail markers sort of gave up, too, as we reached a point where they didn’t even bother to try to mark the trail any more. We guessed our way through it until we got to a spot where we could see and hear loud cascading water coming down through a narrow canyon ahead. There were a set of narrow stone steps to climb and when I arrived at the top I was … a little disappointed. All I could see ahead was a bit of a small cascade and I was thinking that this was one of those falls where you end up at the top, but never get a very good view.
Then I realized the trail had curved a bit and I picked up my head to look down the trail and literally gasped. Through the trees I could see a wall of water rushing over the lip of the cliffs high above. It was truly breathtaking! The trail on to the base of the 80 foot falls is a bit indistinct, but there’s no doubt where you should be heading so just find your way. There isn’t a big area to hang out in. The narrow trail ends almost at the plunge pool, with just a small open area and one nice big flat rock to stand around on. Lucky for us, we had the place to ourselves. We spent some time snapping pictures and just enjoying all the majesty, and then, chilled from the cold air rushing off the falls, decided to get moving again.
This is an out-and-back kind of trail, so we just retraced our footsteps, skipping the Buffet Wall and the Overlook on the way back. The total mileage for the trip came in at 3.47 miles according to our GPS track, though that rocky quarter mile felt like it was at least that long all on its own. I’m so glad I powered through it, though. That waterfall was totally worth it!
Woodlands and Waters 