Cumberland River

As the Cumberland River flowed off the Cumberland Escarpment just upstream of Burnside, when the Earth was much younger, it made a spectacular waterfall. Over time, the mighty Cumberland’s flow cut back under the edge of the resistant sandstone of the escarpment until the rock wore too thin and collapsed into the river bed below it, creating a new falls. The Cumberland River continued to chew its way upstream over thousands of years by this process, leaving behind a jagged, deep and incredibly scenic river valley that now makes one of the best whitewater floats in the upper South.