The Spruce Flats Falls trail starts at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont. The Institute is labeled Camp Townsend on the topo map. The trail is not maintained by the Park Service and does not appear on any trail map that I've been able to find.
I began at Point A above some of the Tremont Institute buildings. Point A is the trailhead for the Lumber Ridge trail. It's arguable whether Point A is really the trailhead for the Spruce Flats Falls trail because there are several places above the Tremont Institute buildings where you can join up with the Spruce Flats Falls trail.
I began at Point A for a curious reason. When I first hiked the Lumber Ridge trail, I ran into quite a few people who were looking for the waterfall. But there is no waterfall on the Lumber Ridge trail. It turns out that you are supposed to start on the Lumber Ridge trail and within the first 100 feet you turn off to the right on a little connector called the Buckeye Trail. The Buckeye trail is just a little connector loop above the Tremont Institute buildings, and it doesn't go to the waterfall, either. But within a few hundred feet it does connect to the trail that goes to the waterfall.
The trail makes a couple of switchbacks above Point A and climbs up the side of Mill Ridge, "turns the corner" at point C and then going down to the Spruce Flats Falls at Point B. The trail is variously described as moderate or as steep.
An alternate route is to begin at Point D and hike up to Point B. This is also an unmaintained trail and the trail is also called the Spruce Flats Falls trail. The fact that two different trails have the same name makes it confusing to research the trail. Even though it is not maintained, the Point D to Point B route does appear on topo maps. No matter which of the two routes you use to get the waterfall, the unmaintained Spruce Flats Falls trail continues about another three miles to the east to Buckhorn Gap. Buckhorn Gap is also the terminus of the Lumber Ridge trail, so you can get to Buckhorn Gap either way. At the scale of this particular map, Buckhorn Gap is just off the map to the east.
The unmarked trailhead at Point D is a little tricky to find. The way I found it the first time was to hike to the waterfall again from the Tremont Institute, and then to follow the old unmaintained trail from Point B down to Point D. It is necessary to wade across the Middle Prong to get from the road to the trailhead or vice versa. It can be an easy or difficult crossing depending on how high the Middle Prong is running.
