Burgess Falls State Park is a beautiful day-use park located in Putnam and White Counties in Tennesse. Because this a day-use park, there are no campsites or cabins. Flowing through the park is the Falling Water River, where you can experience four different waterfalls, with the largest and best one at the end of the loop. There are a few trails that will wrap around the park and take you to all of the falls. If you get hot, you can even take a plunge in the pools at the base of the falls, or just dip in the river.
If you just want a leisurely day of picnicking, playing on the playground but are not up for a big hike, you can see quite a bit of the river and smaller falls near the main part of the park.
We stopped in on our way to Edgar Evins State Park. We had just driven 3 hours and wanted to hop out for a bit and stretch our legs and take a little walk. However, when we got to the park, we could not find the Visitor Center anywhere. Our first stop is always the Visitor Center so that we can get a map. They apparently just moved their Visitor Center up the road a little ways, out of the main park area, and we could not find it until we were on our way out. We did go walk a little ways down the trail, but I never go too far on a trail without a map. I had no idea how long the trail would be or if it looped back around, so we only went a short ways and headed back. It turns out that there is a map on a board up by the bathrooms and playground, but we had parked on the other side of the lot and had not seen it.
I wish we could have spent more time here and now that I know more about the trails and where everything is, I would love to go back and actually hike the falls loop and see all of the falls. It is a really beautiful park and I hate that we live so far away from all of these awesome parks. We are here at Edgar Evins for a week and then on to Rock Island for a few days, and we would like to go visit Cummins Falls State Park while we are here, so who knows...maybe we'll get back by Burgess Falls State Park.
