Ozone Falls

On the way home from our Smokey Mountain weekend we stopped to see one more waterfall – Ozone Falls. (Check out our Smokey Mountain waterfall hike here). Ozone Falls is located between Knoxville and Nashville and is 110ft tall. The hike is very short -.3 miles – but it is all downhill and mostly over climbing rocks.

Photo opp stop – it’s always nice when someone offers to take our pic so we can have one together

A year ago I would have looked down from the top and noped right out of there but I figured it was free to try and we could always turn back if we felt unsafe. We definitely took our time on this one and there is absolutely no shame in that. A kindly fellow hiker took our picture on a small dirt landing right before the decent to the bottom. We climbed down from this point which I do not recommend – there is a stone staircase if you go right instead of going on the ledge and this is how we climbed up – it was still steep but soooo much easier.

Rocks to climb over to reach the pool at the base

Close up of Ozone Falls

I’ve seem pictures from other hiker where the base is completely dry but during our visit there was a large, cold, pool deep enough to swim in. The bottom is the same type of rocks that surround the pool and the water is not clear enough to see your feet so be careful. We both wore water shoes and felt like that was a solid choice.

Ozone Falls from the base of the gorge
It doesn’t look very big in photos but if you look closely you can see Shaun right where the water is hitting the pool to give a scale reference
I remembered to use the panoramic setting to be able to get this shot
Shaun chilling on the rocks with a panoramic look at the gorge

In total we spent a little over an hour at this stop, most of this time was spent enjoying the setting. This was a more popular waterfall than we expected and there were always several other hikers there during our stay.

I hope this post has inspired you to explore nature and determine if Ozone Falls is right for you.

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