Falling Spring Falls

Falling Spring Falls is the free stop on a Bath County warm springs drive. The creek that pours over this overhanging ledge is fed by the Falling Spring group, a cluster of flows and seeps in the Warm Springs anticline that run around 77°F. They are cooler than the pools up the road at Warm Springs and Hot Springs, but they discharge more water than any other warm spring in the region.

Thomas Jefferson described the cascade as falling over a rock about 200 feet to the valley below, and the county tourism office calls it one of the largest falls in Virginia. You do not hike to it. A scenic wayside sits directly on Route 220, about seven miles from Covington on the way north to Hot Springs, and the falls are easy to see from the roadway.

Come after a good rain for the fullest flow, or in a hard freeze, when the falls can ice over. There is no fee. This is strictly a look-only stop with no swimming, so treat it as a leg stretch on the way to a soak at the Omni Homestead or the Warm Springs Pools rather than a destination of its own.

Downside: unless you catch it frozen or in flood, the visit lasts about as long as it takes to take a photo.