It rises just west of Monterey at the edge of the Cumberland Plateau, and traverses the Eastern Highland Rim before dropping off to the Nashville Basin and emptying into Center Hill Lake along the Caney Fork.

[5] After flowing through a series of sharp bends, the river passes under Tennessee Highway 111 before entering northern White County, winding its way through a rural area to the north and west of the Upper Cumberland Regional Airport.

The river again reaches (and forms) the Putnam-White county line before entering Burgess Falls Lake, a reservoir built in the early 1920s to provide electricity for Cookeville.

Beyond the dam, the river enters a gorge and flows over a series of three waterfalls, culminating in the 136-foot Burgess Falls, as it drops from the Highland Rim to the Nashville Basin.

The river flows primarily across the Eastern Highland Rim, a region of rolling terrain underlain by limestone strata and dissected by deep erosional valleys.

[8] Window Cliff, a formation that includes several natural arches overlooking a waterfall, lies along a bend of Cane Creek just upstream from its confluence with the Falling Water River.