Falling Waters State Park is located at 1130 State Park Rd, Chipley, FL 32428, to the North of Panama City, FL via State Road 77. There are three hiking trails here known as the Wiregrass Trail, Sinkholes Trail & Terrace Trail. Each trail amounts to a simple short nature walk and largely function to get visitors from one landmark to another in the park, as opposed to being any sort of hard core hiking experiences. This park also offers a lake, playground, bathrooms, seasonal butterfly garden, informative markers and of course the waterfall.
The “waterfall” at Falling Waters State Park isn’t quite what you’d expect out of a normal waterfall. It is a huge sinkhole that has variable amounts of water flowing into it, so the term “waterfall” is a bit of a stretch. You might visit the park just after a rainstorm and find water flowing strongly or you may visit the park during the driest part of the year and there could be only a mere trickle of water in motion. To have the waterfall effect there is a boardwalk that takes you down into a sinkhole so you can look up at the waterfall.
The Sinkholes trail follows a boardwalk that skirts several sinkholes as the name implies, allowing decent vantage points to look into them.
The Wiregrass Trail is sort of the main connector trail in the park tying together the major areas; parking lot, playground, Turtle Lake, sinkholes. Like all the trails here, it isn’t anything serious or that you’d likely consider to be a real hike.
Turtle Lake is a man made two acre lake that is used to supplement water to the waterfall. Do note that there is a swimming area immediately beside an alligator warning sign and the alligator sign cautions you to not swim near alligators which may imply this swimming area is ill conceived.
Terrace Trail is a short trail with a bit of what Florida calls “elevation” wherein the main function is really just to connect Pine Ridge Campground with the rest of the park’s landmarks. It could perhaps offer some bird watching and scenic views at least. The campground is the usual RV overrun state park style campground.
