Midnight Hole

The Big Creek area sits at the northeast edge of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where the North Carolina-Tennessee border folds into steep, wet terrain once taken over by logging camps. The railroad that hauled timber out in the early 1900s is gone; the Civilian Conservation Corps turned the old grade into a trail in the 1930s. That trail now runs alongside Big Creek — clear, fast, mountain-cold — and takes you 1.5 miles upstream to a swimming hole called Midnight Hole.

You'll cross two wooden bridges before you reach it. Six hundred feet past the second one, look left through the trees. The entrance is unmarked, easy to miss if you're not paying attention. What you find there is a six-foot waterfall pouring between two massive boulders into a deep, emerald-green pool, the kind of water that looks warm in photographs and hits you like a slap when you step in. The creek bottom is pebbly and the edges are shallow, but move toward the falls and the depth drops fast. The rocks are slick. Water sandals are not optional.

The best time to swim is late morning to early afternoon, when direct sun breaks through the surrounding trees and the cold becomes bearable. By mid-afternoon, shade starts to creep back in and the water temperature goes from bracing to punishing. Local tradition holds that some people fish the creek downstream, but nobody serious sticks around past dusk — Big Creek belongs to something else after dark, so they say.

Mouse Creek Falls, a 45-foot tiered cascade, sits another half-mile up the trail if you want to keep walking. There's a hitching post on the way — a leftover from when settlers needed somewhere to tie their horses. The falls are worth the detour, but most people come for Midnight Hole and call it a day.

Hurricane Helene hit the Big Creek area hard in late 2024. Trail access beyond the falls may still be restricted. Verify conditions before you drive out.