Continuing to explore the natural beauty of the great state of Tennessee leads a group of hikers to Winding Stairs Park, in the town of Lafayette, about 60 miles north of Murfreesboro (and about 10 miles south of the Kentucky line).
This area, one of the Lafayette City Parks, offers enough hiking trail to take up a good chunk of a day, with the inclusion of an atypical waterfall.
Many waterfalls have a singular point where a river or creek plunges straight down into a pool.
Winding Stairs Park contains a water feature that takes a little more of a diagonal journey. The creek flows in a fashion that, with care, a walker can travel down (or up) as the creek slowly descends in elevation, one rock at a time.
Walking down these rocks, feeling the shallow water run by your feet as the creek curves around a bend, will give a visitor a perfect explanation of the feature’s name: It is winding around a curve. The rocks make a natural staircase and the water is gently falling downhill. It’s a cool spot to be.
This point is not incredibly far from the parking area. A paved, handicap- and stroller-accessible trail leads from the parking lot to an overlook where visitors can look down upon the creek and ravine below. From here, a trail descends down to the creek.
This visit could make a quick stop for those who just want to observe the Winding Stairs creek feature, but a walk along the Cascades Trail offers an additional hike that provides an impressive, expansive view of the ravine and surrounding hills continuing south for miles.
Many of the trees and plants have been marked with identifying signs, a plus for those wanting to gain some nature knowledge.
The loop also contains a section known as Jacob’s Ladder—as its name suggests, it’s a fairly steep part of the trail where using the hands to ascend will prove to be helpful.
The popular Jacob’s Ladder feature offers a particularly challenging route for hikers looking for that higher degree of difficulty. It climbs up the hillside to rejoin the Cascades Trail. Or hikers can opt to take the Cascades Trail in and back to avoid the more difficult Jacob’s Ladder passage.
Aside from this trail loop—the Cascades Trail and Jacob’s Ladder combine for exactly one mile of distance—the Red Oak trail, whose trailhead sits nearby the loop trailhead at the same parking area, presents another half-mile of hiking along the east side of the creek and leads to another trail, the 1.7-mile Milk Pail Loop.
In addition to these approximately three miles of total hiking opportunities and the stream, Winding Stairs Park also contains a catch-and-release fishing lake, picnic pavilions and an indoor event space for rent.
Photos by Chuck Sutherland
Consider this park and its unique waterfall for a Tennessee day trip. Work up some heat on the trails and then cool down in the creek, as its water flows into Goose Creek and then down to the Cumberland.
Find the park entrance on Nature Trail Way, Lafayette, off of Highway 52 about a mile west of downtown Lafayette. (Be sure to go to this park entrance; some report that certain online maps lead to a different point off of Highway 10, which can indeed lead into the park, but through private property without a designated public parking area.)
For more information on Winding Stairs Park, or to make a pavilion or event center reservation, call Lafayette City Hall at 615-666-2194.
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