Greeting from Greeter Falls

Lower Greeter Falls

The Cumberland Plateau is a vast tableland of sandstone and shale that rises 1000 feet above the Tennessee River Valley and stretches across eastern Tennessee from Alabama north into Kentucky. Over time, flowing water has carved deep ravines, forming a network of hundreds of caves and waterfalls, many of them in remote areas accessible only by long, arduous hikes.

Greeter Falls is located in Grundy County near the town of Altamont and was named for the Greeter family, which owned a nearby homestead. Firescald Creek drops over a 15-foot ledge, advances about 40 yeards, then plunges 50 feet into a pool before continuing along its rocky creekbed to meet Big Creek.


Upper Greeter Falls

Access to Greeter Falls requires a half mile hike through fairly steep terrain and a descent into a gorge via a metal spiral staircase and a set of wooden stairs, which are usually wet from mist from the falls.

Greeter Falls was the first waterfall stop on a recent trip to the Cumberland Plateau and an all-around learning experience in terms of traversing the rugged landscape, caring for camera equipment in a moist environment and exposing the cascading water properly (i.e., mistakes were made here that were corrected at later waterfall stops).

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.