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 Toms Branch Falls
 Trail Features:   Waterfalls
 Trail Location: Deep Creek
 Roundtrip Miles: 0.6 miles
 Total Elevation Gain: 47 feet
 Avg. Elev Gain / Mile:  157 feet
 Highest Elevation: 1905 feet
 Trail Difficulty Rating:   0.69 (easy)
 Parking Lot Latitude: 35.4643
 Parking Lot Longitude:   -83.4342

Directions to Trailhead: 

The Toms Branch Falls trailhead is located just north of Bryson City in North Carolina. To get there from Cherokee, head south on Rt. 19. You will drive exactly 10 miles from the intersection of 441 and 19 in Cherokee to Everett Street in Bryson City. Turn right onto Everett and drive for 0.2 miles. Turn right onto Depot Street. After a short distance, take a left onto Ramseur Street and then an immediate right onto Deep Creek Road. Drive 2.3 miles to the park entrance and then another 0.5 mile to the parking lot for Toms Branch Falls.

Trail Description: 

Toms Branch Falls is accessed via the Deep Creek Trail.

 

The Deep Creek Trail was one of the first trails constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the newly legislated park in the early 1930s. The Deep Creek Campground was the site of a CCC Camp from 1933 to 1936.

Bryson City author Horace Kephart, author of Our Southern Highlanders, lived for a short while with the Bob Barnett family in one of the last houses up Deep Creek in 1910. Until his death from an automobile accident in 1931, he used the old Bryson Place near where the Left Fork enters the main portion of Deep Creek as his summertime camping spot. A permanent marker there commemorates the site.

The Deep Creek Trail begins as a wide path as it traces Deep Creek up stream. At 0.3 miles, 80-foot Toms Branch Falls spills down into the creek from the opposite bank. The park service has provided several benches for admiring these beautiful falls.


As an option, you can continue on this trail for another 0.6 miles to reach Indian Creek Falls.

 

As another option, Juney Whank Falls is in this area, which is a short half-mile hike, and can be accessed from the same parking lot.