SPRUCE FLAT FALLS: A SHORT (BUT CHALLENGING) SMOKY MOUNTAIN WATERFALL HIKE
Looking for a quick new Smoky Mountains hike? We’re not expert hikers, but gave this just under 2-mile hike a try right after some heavy rains in May.Spruce Flat Falls is at the end of a short but challenging hike that starts at the Tremont Institute in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
HIKING TO SPRUCE FLAT FALLS
The Trail
The hike to Spruce Flat Falls is about 2 miles round trip, gaining approximately 400 feet in elevation.The trail starts at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont, located in a less busy part of the park.
Spruce Flat trail is quiet compared to other waterfall hikes like Laurel Falls, where parking is challenging.
On our hike on a weekday in May, we encountered 4 or 5 other groups on the trail and were the only ones at the waterfall.
What to Expect
You head up the gravel road from outside the visitor center to start the trail.
The trail is mostly shaded, with a couple of places near the top of the mountain where you can see the surrounding mountains.
The trail varies from smooth, hard ground to parts with rock and tree roots.
Some parts, like around here, had a pretty steep hill drop-off.
About halfway through on the way to the falls, we were starting to wonder if it was really less than 2-miles round trip!
Some sections require more of a climb than a walk.
Around the halfway point, a point covered in about 6″ of water and leaves was hard to get across without getting your feet wet.
This was also during a week when we’d gotten a lot of rain.
Here’s a gallery of a few more pictures we took.
THE WATERFALL
Spruce Flat Falls has four drops, the highest is about 30 feet.
We went on a week during which we had received a lot of rain, so the waterfall was even better than average.
The area closer to the waterfall takes a bit of climbing to get up to.
