Devil’s Den Falls

Devil’s Den Falls is within the Talladega National Forest.  It can be reached two ways.  The low intensity way is to drive to Lake Chinnabee’s recreation area then take a minor walk upstream from the parking lot on the Chinnabee Silent Trail to reach first a viewing platform and second the falls base.  This took me about 10 minutes.  The catch is that the recreation area around the lake may not be open year round, so check before you go.  The high intensity way is to come at it from 3.5 mile away at the FS Road 600-3 which serves as a trailhead for the Chinnabee Silent Trail.  This commits you to a 7 mile round trip of rolling hills, forest, creek side cascades (gorgeous), and even a stop at Cheaha Falls on the way.

It took me two trips to make it to Devil’s Den.  On my first outing to the Talladega National Forest area I hopped onto the Chinnabee from FS Road 600-3’s trailhead and wasn’t really grasping the distance or the time required.  I got so close I could see the viewing platform for Devil’s Den in the distance, but turned around and rapidly hiked out of there because sun was starting to vanish.  If I’d known how close I was to Devil’s Den at the time I’d have been mortified because it was probably just a few hundred feet away from where I made it to.  A day later I tried driving to the lake’s rec area to start from there but it was closed.  So it would be two years later when I came back to explore more of the forest and decided to pop into the lake recreation area, open thankfully, that I’d make it.  And it was so simple from there, just a walk, not even a hike.  The picture here doesn’t do it justice either.  This was a time of low rainfall in Alabama, but imagine that whole rock shelf flowing and that giant basin below is considered a fantastic swimming hole.

If you’ve come this far to see Devil’s Den, try poking around Lake Chinnabee too.  There’s a spot that used to be a campground that is now mostly discarded day use.  The lake has an additional trail to a spillway over a dam too.  Since I enjoy primitive camping I think Devil’s Den might be a great place to take a bath when staying at nearby primitive Turnipseed Campground that happens to also be a trailhead for the Chinnabee Silent Trail that comes here from 4 miles away.