Almost everything worth doing here is outdoors, and almost all of it is free. Two things are worth knowing before you pick your dates. The waterfalls and the leaf color do not peak at the same time. And nearly all of the brow is private land, so the view Mentone is famous for is mostly seen from other people’s porches.
Everything below was checked on 22 September 2026. Hours in this part of the world change with the season and with whoever is available to open up, so call ahead for anything you are driving a distance for.
Waterfalls, by how far you have to walk
Nine of them are within half an hour of the village. This is the list in order of effort, not in order of grandeur.
| Waterfall | Where | Walk from the car | Drop | Parking |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grace’s High Falls | Overlook on Highway 176, in the canyon | None, it is a roadside overlook | 133 feet, the tallest above ground in Alabama | Free |
| Lodge Falls | DeSoto State Park, behind the lodge | A minute | About 25 feet | Free |
| Little River Falls | Highway 35, at the bridge | A few minutes on a boardwalk, step free route available | 45 feet | Free |
| Azalea Cascade | DeSoto State Park, Talmadge Butler Boardwalk | 360 yards of boardwalk, usable by anyone | A cascade into a pool, not a drop | Free |
| DeSoto Falls | Seven miles from the state park, off Lookout Mountain Parkway | About 50 concrete steps down to the deck | 107 feet | $5 a vehicle |
| Indian Falls | DeSoto State Park | About a tenth of a mile | About 20 feet | Free |
| Laurel Falls | DeSoto State Park, Orange Trail from the Country Store | Three quarters of a mile, rugged | Not published | Free |
| Little Falls | Trail from the Little River Falls lot | Three quarters of a mile and 137 stone steps | Small, and the reason people go is the swimming | Free |
| Lost Falls | DeSoto State Park | A mile and a half | About five feet | Free |
The part nobody puts on a poster
These are rain fed. Alabama State Parks says it plainly about DeSoto Falls: the water is high in winter and early spring, and in summer and fall it is much lower and sometimes dry. The Park Service says the same about Grace’s High Falls, that it does not flow year round. Lost Falls is officially described as truly lost when there is no water in it.
February through April is when the waterfalls are worth the drive. Leaf color begins in late September and historically peaks between the second half of October and the first week of November. Those two windows do not overlap. Pick which trip you are taking.
DeSoto Falls
The one most people mean when they say they are going to see a waterfall in Mentone. It drops 107 feet on the West Fork of the Little River, by the measurement on the trailhead map at the falls, about seven miles from the main state park area, and the walk from the car is around fifty concrete steps down to an observation deck.
Parking is $5 a vehicle, or $50 for a pass good for a year. The lot is small, it fills up on weekends, there is no overflow and no parking along the road, and it will not take an RV or anything with a trailer. Get there early or go on a weekday.
Swimming is allowed above the A. A. Miller Dam at the picnic area, at your own risk and with no lifeguard. That is the impoundment above the falls. There is no sanctioned trail to the bottom, and the routes you will find online that go down there are not park trails.
Little River Canyon
Little River is one of the few rivers in the country that runs most of its length on top of a mountain, and the canyon it has cut is the deepest east of the Mississippi. It is a National Preserve, which means almost all of it is free.
Little River Falls
Forty five feet, right at the Highway 35 bridge, with a hundred car paved lot that takes RVs and buses, and a boardwalk to a close view that takes a few minutes to walk. There are two routes, one with rock steps and one accessible ramp. No charge.
One rule, and it is a law rather than a suggestion: stay fifty feet back from the edge of the falls except on the walkways. People have been swept over this waterfall and not come back. Kayakers running the falls are the only exception.
The rim drive
Highway 176 runs about eleven miles along the west rim from Highway 35 down to Eberhart Point, with eight overlooks on the way. Keep going on the county roads and it is roughly twenty three miles all the way to the mouth of the canyon. Forty five minutes if you do not stop, which nobody does. Two to three hours is honest.
The Park Service does not recommend the rim road for RVs or anything towing, and on the section below Eberhart Point they do not allow them at all. Sharp blind turns, steep blind hills, no shoulder, and loose gravel on the corners.
Grace’s High Falls
A hundred and thirty three feet, the tallest above ground waterfall in the state, seen from a viewing platform on the rim drive with no walking involved at all. It only runs after rain. In a dry August you will be looking at a cliff.
Canyon Mouth Park
At the bottom end of the canyon in Cherokee County, off Highway 273 onto County Road 275. This is the one place in the preserve that charges, $15 a vehicle for the day or $35 for the year, and the federal America the Beautiful passes are taken. Picnic tables under the trees with grills, restrooms, a playground, a pavilion, an easy mile of riverside trail, and easy access to the water. It is the standard kayak takeout.
Worth saying clearly: it is a long way round from Mentone and it is approached from a different direction entirely, not simply the far end of the rim drive. Gates close, and cars left inside get locked in.
The Canyon Center
4322 Little River Trail NE, Fort Payne. Tuesday to Sunday, 10 to 4, closed Mondays, free. Run by Jacksonville State University, with exhibits, a theater, a gift shop and a natural history library, and it doubles as the overflow parking for Little River Falls on busy weekends. If you are new to the canyon, start here and pick up a map.
Swimming, and the truth about it
There are three places people swim, and every one of them has a drowning on record.
- Blue Hole, on Highway 35 about a quarter mile east of Little River Falls. The Park Service calls it a family friendly summer swimming hole with calm, easy flowing water. Small lot, often full by eleven on a summer weekend.
- Little Falls, three quarters of a mile and 137 stone steps below the Little River Falls lot. Popular all summer. The last two hundred feet of the trail is the hard part.
- Canyon Mouth Park, river access in a developed day use area, for a fee.
There are no lifeguards anywhere in the preserve. The Park Service points out that six inches of moving water will take an adult off their feet, that about half of all swimming deaths involve alcohol, and that cell signal in the canyon is poor. Alcohol is banned outright inside the preserve, as is glass. The river is rain fed and rises fast.
None of that is a reason not to go. It is a reason to look at the river before you get in it, and to keep hold of your children.
Trails
DeSoto State Park has more than 35 miles of trail, including eleven miles open to mountain bikes, and there is no charge to enter the park at all. The only fee anywhere is the $5 at the falls.
The Talmadge Butler Boardwalk is 360 yards, can be traveled by people of all abilities, and ends at an octagonal deck over the pool at the bottom of Azalea Cascade. Ten or fifteen minutes each way at a stroll.
The loop most people want is Laurel Falls and Lost Falls together, 2.78 miles on the orange and blue blazes, with the option of coming back along the boardwalk. Call it an hour and a half to two hours. Indian Falls, by contrast, is a ten minute round trip.
In the canyon there are another 26 miles of trail and more than 20 miles of backcountry road open to hikers, horses, bikes and four wheel drive. Slant Rock Road is currently closed to vehicles, though you can walk or ride in. There is no camping in the preserve, and the backcountry campsites are closed.
The village
Mentone Brow Park
North Cool Street, a quarter mile off Highway 117. Pavilions, picnic tables, paths, and the overlook. DeKalb Tourism describes it as one of the few public places in town to get a good view from the brow, which is the polite way of saying the rest of it belongs to somebody. Sunset is the reason to go.
Sallie Howard Memorial Chapel
A small stone chapel at the corner of County Roads 165 and 617, built around a sandstone boulder that pushes through the wall behind the pulpit. Milford Howard, a former Alabama congressman, built it in 1937 in memory of his wife Sallie, who had died twelve years earlier. His ashes are in the rock.
A beam inside carries a line from her last letter to him, spelled as she spelled it: God Has All Ways Been As Good To Me As I Would Let Him Be. Howard added one word of his own underneath. Immortality.
Open year round, free, and there are services on Sunday mornings at ten. Come as you are is meant literally.
Moon Lake
The school opened in 1911, burned in the twenties, and was rebuilt by the community in 1929. It taught Mentone’s children for over a century and closed in 2021. The town bought it, and there are now something like thirteen artisan businesses in the old classrooms, along with a restaurant, a community room, a museum corner of local memorabilia, a playground and an amphitheater. Northeast Alabama Community College teaches in the rooms that are left.
It is also where the Fall Festival happens, and where the Americana Nights concerts are held on the fourth Saturday of the month through the summer.
Shopping
Mentone is a village, and the shops keep village hours. These are the ones trading now.
| Where | What | When |
|---|---|---|
| Mentone Arts Center | Gallery of local and regional work, plus classes | Monday and Thursday to Sunday, 10 to 4 |
| Mentone Log Cabin Craft Village | A cluster of small shops on Highway 117 | Friday to Sunday, 10 to 4, some seasonal |
| Moon Lake | Around thirteen artisan businesses in the old school | Most of the week, varies by shop |
| Ayres Antiques | Antiques, primitives, furniture, on Highway 117 toward Georgia | Saturday 10 to 5, Sunday 12 to 5 |
| Little River Hardware | A hardware store that also sells homemade ice cream | Shop hours |
| Farmers Market at Mentone | Produce, baking, handmade | Saturday, 10 to 1 |
Skiing in Alabama
Cloudmont, at 721 County Road 614, is the only ski slope in the state. Two runs of about a thousand feet, a hundred and fifty feet of vertical, and two surface tows rather than a chairlift. Alabama gets two to six inches of snow in an average year, so all of it is made.
Be careful with this one. Cloudmont did not open at all in the winter of 2023, missed the following season too, reopened in January 2025 for the first time in five years, and ran again for its 54th season in early 2026 with new snowmaking equipment. Day sessions run 9 to 4 and evenings 6 to 10 when it is open, tickets have been somewhere in the $40 to $50 range, and rentals cannot be reserved ahead.
Check before you drive. There is a golf course on the same property and a dude ranch under the same ownership.
Guided, and in the air
True Adventure Sports, on Highway 176 in Fort Payne, runs rappelling, climbing, caving, canoeing, kayaking and a zip line. Closed Sundays. Screaming Eagle, the zip line and aerial course at DeSoto State Park, runs seasonally and is closed at the moment.
For hang gliding, Lookout Mountain Flight Park is the same mountain but the Georgia end of it, at Rising Fawn, about an hour north along the brow. Tandem flights and instruction, Thursday to Monday, 9 to 6. Note that they are on Eastern time and Mentone is on Central. That hour catches people out.
Down the mountain, in Fort Payne
- Orbix Hot Glass, on County Road 275 near the canyon. A working glass studio with a gallery, demonstrations, and classes where you make your own piece. Tuesday to Friday 9 to 4, Saturday 9 to 2. There is a second, smaller gallery downtown on Gault Avenue, open Friday and Saturday.
- Fort Payne Opera House, 510 Gault Avenue North. Built in 1889 and the oldest opera house in Alabama still in use. Thursday to Saturday, 10 to 3.30, and it still puts on shows.
- Alabama Fan Club and Museum, 101 Glenn Boulevard SW. The band was from Fort Payne, and the museum is theirs.
- Fort Payne Depot Museum, an 1891 pink sandstone depot that worked as a station until 1970. Railroad collections, local history, and dioramas that were made by hand in 1913. Hours differ depending on who you ask, so call.
- Hosiery Museum, 514 Gault Avenue North. Fort Payne made socks for the world, and the museum is free.
Picking fruit
Little River Orchard, 4594 East River Road. You pick apples, berries and flowers from late June through October, Friday and Saturday 9 to 4 and Sunday 12 to 4, with a farm store and a couple of festivals in the season. Different varieties come in at different times, so it is worth a call about what is ready.
Closed, so you do not waste the drive
This part of the internet is full of places that are not there any more.
- Sequoyah Caverns closed to the public on 3 September 2013 and has not reopened. It still appears on plenty of lists.
- Manitou Cave, in Fort Payne, is not running tours. It is worth knowing about anyway, because the walls carry Cherokee syllabary writing and the nonprofit that owns it is working toward reopening.
- Mentone Springs Hotel, the last of Alabama’s great nineteenth century resort hotels, burned on 1 March 2014.
- The Hitching Post burned in 2023. Ground was broken on the site on 17 September 2026 for a community center and a restaurant, with Elevation Bistro moving into the larger space. Building runs through 2027 for a summer opening, so expect a construction site in the middle of the village in the meantime.
- Colorfest has not run since 2022. The Mentone Fall Festival replaced it in the same October slot.
When to come
| If you want | Come |
|---|---|
| Waterfalls actually running | February to April |
| Leaf color | Late October into the first week of November |
| Whitewater | November to April, and it is Class III above the falls, IV to VI below, experts only |
| Swimming | Summer, and arrive before eleven if you want a parking space |
| Snow | January and February, and call Cloudmont first |
| The town at its busiest | Third Saturday in October, for the Fall Festival |
| The town to yourself | Any weekday that is not in leaf season |
Something here out of date, or a business we have missed? Tell us and we will fix it. This page is only worth anything if it is right.