Smith Falls State Park

The secret to Smith Falls, and to the many smaller falls along this stretch of the Niobrara, is water hidden underground. Rain and snowmelt soak into the vast sand of the surrounding hills and move slowly through the porous rock until it reaches the edge of the canyon, where it seeps and pours out along ledges as springs. Those steady springs feed the river and, where they spill over hard ledges, create waterfalls in a country that otherwise sees little standing water.

The constant flow of cool, clean groundwater also keeps the side canyon at Smith Falls green and humid all year, which is why ferns, mosses, and shade-loving plants thrive here even when the surrounding grasslands bake. The whole valley is a meeting place of ecosystems, where paper birch left over from the Ice Age grows within sight of ponderosa pine and eastern hardwoods, a mix found almost nowhere else.

The Niobrara is one of the finest canoeing and tubing rivers in the Great Plains, a clear, mostly gentle stream that winds between wooded bluffs and past dozens of seeping springs and small waterfalls. In the warm months the river fills with paddlers and floaters drifting downstream, stopping to swim, picnic, and hike up to Smith Falls, which sits just off the water on the south bank.

This reach of the river was designated a national scenic river to protect its beauty, its geology, and its unusual mix of plant and animal life. Long before that, the Niobrara Valley was home and hunting ground to Plains peoples, and the river's name comes from a Ponca and wider Siouan word meaning running or spreading water, a fitting name for a stream fed by countless springs.

From the park, a boardwalk trail leads across a footbridge over the Niobrara and up the side canyon to the base of Smith Falls, an easy walk that most visitors can manage. The path keeps people off the delicate ferns and mosses that cling to the wet rock, and the cool, shaded canyon is a welcome retreat on a hot summer day.

The park is a favorite launching and landing point for river trips, and its wooded campground and picnic grounds along the water make it a natural base for exploring the valley. Whether you come to float the river, walk to the falls, or simply sit in the shade and listen to the water, the place has a quiet, out-of-the-way magic.

Spring greens the canyon and swells the springs, and migrating birds move through the valley, a fresh and quiet time before the summer float season begins. Cool water and lingering chill make it more a hiking than a swimming season.

Summer is the busy season, warm and green, the river full of paddlers and the falls at their most inviting. Fall brings gold to the birches and hardwoods and thins the crowds, one of the loveliest times to walk the boardwalk, and winter leaves the canyon still and icy, the falls sometimes framed in frozen spray.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.