Yahoo Falls: Kentucky’s tallest waterfall

Yahoo Falls (opens in a new tab) is a single plunge of about 113 feet on Yahoo Creek in McCreary County, inside the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area (opens in a new tab). The National Park Service (opens in a new tab) calls it Kentucky’s highest waterfall. A falls in the Red River Gorge is said to beat it by a few inches, so the title is friendly ground for argument.

The creek pours off a sandstone ledge on the Cumberland Plateau in front of one of the park’s largest rock houses, a shallow cave worn back under the cliff. Hikers can walk right up to the base and even behind the falling water. In late summer the falls can shrink to a trickle, and it runs best after spring rain.

The falls lie in timberland that became part of the Cumberland National Forest when it was created in 1937; the forest was renamed the Daniel Boone National Forest (opens in a new tab) in 1968. In the 1960s forest supervisor Robert Collins set out to make Yahoo Falls an easy scenic stop that would draw visitors to the Stearns Ranger District. Crews built a road to the top of the gorge, a picnic area and campsite, trails, and a long flight of steel stairs down past the cliffs.

In 1987 the land passed from the Forest Service to the National Park Service as part of Big South Fork. The 1960s picnic shelter still stands, and the Park Service restored it in 2011 (opens in a new tab) with help from inmates at the nearby federal penitentiary. McCreary County and the Park Service paved the road to the falls in 2016.

No one is sure how the falls got its name, which is also spelled Ywahoo and may come from a Muscogee word. Several local legends about the name and about frontier events at the falls are often repeated, but none has been traced to records from the time, so they are left out here.

Kentucky today

To reach the falls, take KY 700 off U.S. 27 at Whitley City and follow the road to the Yahoo Falls picnic area and trailhead. A loop of about a mile reaches the base, the steep metal stairs can be hard for some hikers, and a spur leads to the 100-foot-long Yahoo Arch, according to Kentucky Tourism (opens in a new tab). Cumberland Falls is a short drive to the northeast.