Blue Hole Falls is a small waterfall and plunge pool on Little Fiery Gizzard Creek inside Grundy Forest State Natural Area, the northern end of Fiery Gizzard State Park just outside Tracy City, Tennessee. Tennessee State Parks runs the park, which until 2025 was part of South Cumberland State Park and took the name of its best-known trail that year. The natural area itself covers 234 acres that Tracy City donated in 1935 for a Civilian Conservation Corps camp, and it sits on the forested edge of the Cumberland Plateau where the creek begins cutting down into the Fiery Gizzard gorge.

Start at the Fiery Gizzard North Trailhead, 131 Fiery Gizzard Road in Tracy City, which is reached by driving past Tracy City Elementary School. The lot has an overflow area, EV chargers, and the Grundy Forest Pavilion, a rebuilt CCC shelter with restrooms, water and a grill. From there, the Grundy Forest Day Loop is a 2-mile round trip that the park rates moderate. Blue Hole Falls comes up about 0.6 mile in, near the School Branch footbridge, and a short wooden staircase drops to the front of the falls and the pool. Plan on roots, rocks and a few steep, slick spots, and note that mountain bikes are not allowed on the loop.

The falls are short, about 9 or 10 feet depending on the source, and pour into a round, clear pool that turns blue-green in good light. The hole is roughly 7 feet deep at its deepest, with a rocky, uneven bottom that shallows quickly toward the edges, so most visitors wade or swim gently rather than dive. Tennessee State Parks lists Blue Hole Falls among the waterfalls in the park where swimming is allowed, but it asks people not to jump from any falls because the water beneath them is shallower than it looks and often hides rocks and fallen trees. This is an unsupervised creek pool, and the water stays cold well into summer under the shade of the hemlocks and hardwoods.

There is no entry or parking fee listed by the park. The park is open from 8 a.m. until 30 minutes before sunset, and the park office keeps hours of 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (phone 931-924-2980). The main visitor center is at 11745 US 41 in Monteagle. Flow on Little Fiery Gizzard Creek depends heavily on rain, so the falls can shrink to a trickle in late summer and fall. As of this writing the park has posted a weather alert that water sources are unavailable at the Little Cove and Small Wilds campgrounds, a sign of dry conditions, so bring your own drinking water. After heavy rain the creek rises fast and the pool becomes a poor place to swim.

Blue Hole is one of several stops on a short stretch of creek. Just downstream, across a metal bridge, Black Canyon Cascades slides through a narrow slot about 5 feet wide and 30 feet deep, which is not a swimming spot. Hanes Hole Falls is another small falls and pool that people wade, and Sycamore Falls, about 12 feet tall, waits farther along the loop. The CCC built a pump house above the Blue Hole, and the Cave Springs Rock House nearby shelters a hemlock estimated at 500 years old. Hikers who want a longer day can keep going on the Fiery Gizzard Trail, which runs 12.5 miles to Foster Falls, with backcountry campsites along the way.