Gentry Creek Falls is a beautiful double waterfall in NE Tennessee near a small town named Laurel Bloomery. I had previously been on 3 winter hiking trips to Gentry Creek Falls in 2017. Obviously it has been awhile since I have visited , and I found myself wondering how nice these falls would look in late spring, when the greens seem to be at their most vibrant. I picked a day in early June, with a cloudy forecast to make this trek. I also had a perfect pair of shoes for this hike, remembering that this trail crosses Gentry Creek 15 times each way on this out and back hike, getting feet wet 30 times. This hike is fairly level except for a small climb at the very end.:
Knowing that Gentry Creek is a double falls, and that getting good photographs of both falls can be fairly difficult here, I decided to bring along my drone. The canopy is fairly large and open here, and I only needed to get high enough to capture both falls. This turned out to be a great idea. The large rock that we climbed upon in 2017 to get the view of both falls was now covered in tall weeds growth.
I absolutely was delighted at the abundance of green all around the falls, and the clouds were thick, dark and grey, making for some wonderful light conditions. The Lower Falls above, are the ones that most hikers are able to photograph with ease, but today I wanted to isolate the Upper Falls, as well as get some photos with both waterfalls. Somewhere either there is a trail to get up there, or some just know how to climb up, not me. It’s moments like this that I purchased a drone a few years back.
I found the Upper Falls to be gorgeous. The rocks have lots of moss growing along the edges, possibly indicating very little foot traffic. My small mini-drone would do nothing to affect this, which felt good.
This was a wonderful drone photo session, one of my favorites to date. After using up 2 batteries flying around, It was time to call it a day. I knew I still had 15 crossings ahead, on the 2.4 mile trip back, so I began to hike it back, passing quite a few people heading to the falls, making my timing great. Also, a large mass of thunderstorm activity was brewing, unbeknownst to me. This was not in the forecast, but I timed it almost as if I planned it, and I was able to get back in sight of my car just before the bottom came out. It was some very heavy rainfall, come down all directions including sideways with big pounding drops. I couldn’t help but to feel for all those that were on their way to enjoy the falls.
I have attached a link from a prior trip in February 2017, to compare photos from an “icy” trip. I have some instructions on getting here in this link also. In 2024 however, it is pretty easy to just speak Gentry Creek Falls into your phone’s gps app for good, accurate directions though. https://waterfallshiker.com/2017/02/11/gentry-creek-falls/