The 10 Best Waterfalls in Tennessee

Fall Creek: 256 feet of free-fall — the East's tallest — with a state park empire around it.

Burgess: three falls stacking to a 103-foot finale, now overlook-only — the base staircase is gone for good.

Cummins: the state's most famous swimming hole, run on a $7 permit and a hard weather rule written in tragedy.

Virgin: a 110-footer that exits one cave and vanishes into another — nine backcountry miles to watch a mountain swallow a waterfall.

Greeter: Savage Gulf's spiral-staircase swimming hole.

Machine: a cave-born 60-footer fanning over layered rock in Short Springs' karst country.

Foster: a 60-foot plunge pool ringed by two hundred climbing routes — the plateau's best double feature.

Bald River: the Cherokee Forest's roadside cathedral, back with a new viewing deck after its road rebuild.

Abrams: twenty feet tall, the Smokies' biggest volume, and its most dangerous pool — five miles for the sight, never the swim.

Rainbow Falls: the Smokies' tallest single drop, first leg of the LeConte pilgrimage.