Arikaree Falls

Arikaree Falls is a 63-foot tiered in Nebraska. The water falls in 2 distinct tiers.

It's fullest after rain, and flow can drop off during dry spells — plan around recent weather.

Plungeworthy rates Arikaree Falls 7.9/10 — worth the drive. The score weighs its scale, how confidently it's mapped, and its character.

This is Smith Falls — Nebraska's tallest waterfall at 63 feet — under its original name. It was first known as Arikaree Falls, for the Arikara people who moved into northern Nebraska in 1823, then renamed for Frederic Smith, who filed the first homestead patent on the land in 1896.

The water is Ogallala aquifer groundwater daylighting at the contact with the Niobrara Formation chalk, which means it pours year-round regardless of drought. The cool, spring-fed canyon shelters glacial-relic paper birch and hybrid aspen you won't find anywhere else in the Sandhills.

You reach it by crossing the Niobrara River on a historic 160-foot iron truss footbridge (relocated here from Verdigre in 1996), then following an accessible boardwalk to the base — rebuilt with a new stream-viewing platform after the old boardwalk was replaced in a project that wrapped up following its September 2022 closure.

Spring-fed and reliable year-round — no need to chase rain.

Memorial Day through Labor Day is peak Niobrara float season and the busiest window; the visitor center runs daily May through September. Weekdays are far quieter.