A few weekends ago, Derek and I hiked to Piney Falls. We got lost a bunch of times, and we didn’t get the full experience that we had expected, but it was still a great hike.
The Piney Falls trail head is just north of Spring City, TN. It was about an hour’s drive away from where we live.
The Piney Falls trail is confusing, if you’re not sure of what to expect. This was our first time, and we ended up backtracking once, and turning off the correct trail twice.
The trail goes to both upper and lower Piney Falls. There is a junction and you can take either direction. The trail is a loop, but it can be avoided if you are not okay with a water crossing
We first went to upper Piney Falls, where we came out to the top of the falls.
It was here that we realized that we would have to cross the water. Since it was winter and there was a high flow of water, we decided that this was a bad idea. I would imagine that it is doable in summer months.
Because of this, we turned back around and headed back to the junction. If you go right, that takes you to upper Piney Falls, and left takes you to lower Piney Falls.
We got lost at least twice our way to lower Piney Falls. There are many different areas where it looks like the trail turns off. If you hike this trail, keep following alongside the rock cliffs.
We were treated to a great display of icicles along the cliffs.
At one point we were both sitting on a rock, frustrated and trying to look up trail maps and figure out our location on Google Maps. Just then, a couple came hiking through. They were familiar with the trail and led us to the waterfall.
The unique feature of Piney Falls is that you can walk behind the falls. I believe that if we had continued the hike behind the falls, and gone up the other side of the trail, we eventually would have come to the other side of the upper Piney Falls crossing. Maybe?
Unfortunately, there had just been a cold snap, so there was ice everywhere. I wanted to get a good shot of Piney Falls badly enough that I crawled on my hands and knees to get around!
Even though our hike was cut short and we missed half of the trail, the ice did create amazing photo opportunities!
