A Double Waterfall Hike
After camping all week we decided to take a relaxation day on Saturday. We had a great Spring Break week with family camping at Rock Island State Park but we just weren’t finished chasing waterfalls! Sunday came and brought absolutely gorgeous weather meaning we HAD to get outside!
The Spring Break crowds of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park wasn’t something I wanted to deal with so we decided to head Northwest to a little gem tucked away less than an hour from Knoxville.
Frozen Head State Park
Frozen Head State Park is located just outside Knoxville, Tennessee in the Cumberland Mountains and combined with the State Natural Area covers approximately 24,000 acres!
This is a park I’ve passed within minutes of on several occasions but never taken the time to visit although I’d seen pictures on friends pages and knew I had to chase some falls!
There are many miles of hiking trails in the park and even a handful of back country campsites (no RVs here).
After having breakfast we loaded up with lunch and snacks and headed out to the park already having a basic idea of the area we needed to be. We arrived a little after 11:00am and noticed very few people seemed to be in the park.
We found our parking spot at the trail head for Emory Gap Trail and grabbed our packs to start up the trail. **NOTE** You can’t miss the trail at this point because the road ends at the trail head!
As we started walking we immediately noticed the stream running under the foot bridge and several different types of flowers and plants starting to bloom.
I’d even venture to say the kids were ready to strangle me with flowers after all the pictures I was stopping to take before we even reached the first waterfall! Just wait until they see my new photography toy for the next trip………..SSSSHHHH…….Don’t tell them but THIS is what I’m getting before next weekend since I found it on a lightning deal on Amazon! But I digress……
This hike will get you 2 named falls (DeBord and Emory Gap) and several seasonal side falls and cascades along the way. GAIA GPS logged my total distance at 3.71 miles out and back with only 461 ft of elevation gain mostly heading in. As long as you’re off the trail by 6:45pm you’re fine with the park.
At roughly 0.6 miles you’ll come to a split that is well marked by several signs. The first states that you have entered a Class I Natural Area. You can read what all goes into each area HERE but the easy answer is that it’s natural and we need to keep it that way. Don’t move rocks, leave trash or even your orange peel! Take it all out with you. Just past that sign you will see another pointing to the right labeled DeBord Falls. You can basically see it from the main trail. There is an upper observation deck and stairs leading to the lower end.
After taking our time and memories from DeBord Falls it was time to hike on up to the next set of falls…..Emory Gap Falls. These falls were roughly 0.7 miles further and that is the trail end.
The trek between these two falls can be rugged, rocky and steep at times but it should be doable for just about anyone if you take your time. The falls can be seen from a distance but that area several areas where you can explore closer in. We chose to find a large boulder in the middle of the stream to set up our lunch spread. This also gave us a central spot for me to take pictures while the kids cooled their feet off in the bottom of the falls!
After finishing our lunch and making sure everything was bagged up back in our packs we started our hike out with only one side step to check out a bridge just off the trail. I’ll leave that here and direct you to the video below to see why we had to check it out! Just do us a favor and give the video a THUMBS UP and HIT the SUBSCRIBE button. These really help us out and it definitely helps me continue providing this content while teaching my kids how to love and respect the outdoors.
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Be sure you’re subscribed and following us on Instagram @The_Roaming_Dad as we have more content there daily. Weather permitting you’re NOT going to want to miss next Saturday’s hike! Followed by that we have another new park to review over a long weekend camping trip followed by a few weeks out west! We’re getting ready!!!