We head south this morning with the intention of doing the short easy
hike to Hideout Hollow Falls. It is
supposed to be seasonably cool this morning with highs later this afternoon
in the low 80’s, so we get an early start hoping to beat the heat. The dirt road from Compton
to Hideout Hollow at the Schermerhorn Trailhead isn’t bad, flat and pretty
smooth all the way to the trailhead.
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Thunder Canyon Falls
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At
the trailhead parking area there are already four vehicles here, it's not a very big parking area and there's plenty of room for one more car. What we find discouraging is two of the vehicles are small buses. Having been to Hideout
Hollow a couple times, we know it isn't a big area, and my imagination pictures bus loads swarming all over the falls. After quickly
reconsidering our plans, we decide to continue down the road to Erbie and hike
to Thunder Canyon Falls instead. |
Thunder Canyon Falls
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Well, that
nice flat and pretty smooth road mentioned above, gets really bad, real fast just
past Hideout Hollow. Over the years I’ve
been down this road twice. The
first time I didn’t think it was too bad, just one area not far from Erbie was
a little rough also with some mud, but overall, not too bad. A little worse the second time but we made it
without incident. We make it today too, but I will not try this road again, at least not in the little SUV. This is what I call a 'jeep trail’ it has deteriorated considerably since back when we made that first trip.
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steep canyon walls
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From the parking area at Erbie Trailhead, we start out north down the trail. This trail is the lower part of the Cecil Cove Loop Trail aka Creek Trail. It's a good trail and gets lots of use, following Cecil Creek upstream there are four creek crossings before we get to where we leave Cecil Cove Loop on a spur trail to Thunder Canyon Falls. Four creek crossings, but today only the first and last have any water. Cecil Creek evidently goes underground through here, crossings two and three are dry as a bone. |
Thunder Canyon Slot
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After crossing three we hear some other hikers up ahead, sounds like a lot of other hikers. We stop and stand off the trail allowing them to pass. They are a youth group from Tulsa, ages 16-25, today they have come down from Hideout Hollow and are headed to Erbie Campground which is down past the trailhead and across the Buffalo River. It takes quite a while for all of them to pass since each little group stops to talk. We learn that this bunch of 32 is just half of the bigger group. The others are hiking up the Buffalo River Trail from Pruitt to Erbie Campground where everyone will meet up and camp tonight. |
lush, dense view downstream
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On to Thunder Canyon, after Cecil Creek crossing four, we leave the Cecil Cove Loop at a small campsite. In the back of this campsite is a very visible trail that heads up a short hill. This volunteer spur trail goes to Thunder Canyon Falls. While not an official trail, it is well worn and easy to follow. By that I mean it doesn’t ‘fade’ away it’s always visible. |
Thunder Canyon Falls
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But it is not an easy hike. In places it is quite steep, and most of the half mile to the falls is very slippery, I
slip and fall on the DSLR camera I have hanging around my neck. The damage to the camera seems minimal, the edge of the
lens where the filter screws on is bent,
but it feels like I have some cracked ribs. Others have written about the slick conditions, be extremely careful, a hiking stick helps a little.
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walls worn smooth
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The whole hike into the
falls is slippery with dead leaves, loose dirt and rock. As you get close to the falls, I’d say the
last tenth of a mile you are hiking on solid bedrock along the Thunder Canyon
Slot, you’re on a ledge not far above the slot. Everything is slick from the spray and mist of the falls; extremely slippery (it deserves repeating).
You wouldn’t want to slide into the slot, that probably wouldn’t be fun.
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late spring wildflowers
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Thunder Canyon Falls is awesome, the
roar from the falls is incredible, the ‘bark is worse than the bite’ though. What I mean by that is, the falls are very loud, louder than you would think by looking at it. This is a beautiful waterfall without a
doubt, and very well named, the canyon walls amplify the sound of the falling
water to the point we have to yell at each other just to be heard. The falls twist through the solid rock face at the head of the box canyon, you can’t see all the way to the top of the falls though as the water twists its way out of sight near the top. It is an amazing waterfall in a beautiful little box canyon.
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racoon prints
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Not
that easy to get to but well worth it, even with the scratches and bruises I know we’ll be back. Thunder Canyon
Falls is the end of the line, we return the way we came. Today
we hiked just over 4 miles. Three
miles of that, along Cecil Creek was easy hiking. The half mile into Thunder Canyon and back out would have to be called difficult hiking. The total elevation gain is just over 350
feet. Other than a few bruised ribs this
was a great hike to a beautiful destination.
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the head of the canyon
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Thunder Canyon Falls: Statistics Chart 23 For driving directions and an update on road conditions for three of the many routes to Erbie Trailhead see: (82 New Erbie Loop).
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base map before fair use alterations is property of ArcGIS--licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 U.S. License
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