We have sort of a ‘come what may’ approach to this hike, my objectives today are to locate the
Old River Trail heading downstream to Erbie and find the Buffalo River Trail
heading west up to Kyle’s Landing, and just enjoy the great outdoors. It will be nice to see Triple Falls again, but it has been so dry for so long, I won’t get my hopes up. The road down to Camp Orr and the Triple Falls parking lot is rough and steep, we take it slow and have no problem getting to the bottom.
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black and blue
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Back up the road about 150 feet from the parking area is an old road off
to the left, this is the Old River Trail.
The ORT through here is on private property belonging to the Boy Scouts
of America (Camp Orr) and we notice ‘facilities’ in the field to our left. Stay on the trails, otherwise you will be
trespassing, is what I’ve read. We keep
going down the old road, easy hiking for just under a quarter mile to
Dry Creek.
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near Dry Creek
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Here we leave the ORT and
head up Dry Creek which would be beautiful if it had any
water. Less than a quarter mile we
come to the BRT crossing the creek. We
turn west onto the Buffalo River Trail and head up the hill, soon coming to a low bluff with small shelter caves along its face. A little farther uphill the trail enters
another old road, then levels out and goes around a small
drainage. Around the next bend the path
gets rocky then uphill a little more and we cross the Camp Orr Road.
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low bluff above Dry Creek
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Across the road the trail enters Rock Bridge Creek drainage, in
about 300 yards we cross the creek. On
the west side of Rock Bridge Creek,
the terrain continues to be wide open rocky
and dry. Over the ridge around the
next bend takes us under the powerline going down to Camp Orr, then into another drainage which is Shop Creek.
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steep feeder stream east of Dry Creek (Nov.2020)
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We
soon come to some rock steps and two large boulders below, the trail
switchbacks to the left and continues downhill to more rock steps and now the
two large boulders are up above. In
another 100 yards a faint trail intersects off to the right, this is the way to
the top of Triple Falls, we stay on the BRT straight ahead. Through here Shop Creek is in a tight, steep
canyon and in another 200 yard we come to and cross the creek.
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Dry Creek (Nov.2020)
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Up the other side the trail is steep with
some scattered downed trees to navigate over and around. We continue climbing and soon come to another
large boulder, this one covered with moss.
Round the next bend we leave Shop Creek’s drainage and come to a marked
trail intersection with some perfect sized rocks to sit down for a break. |
natural bathtub on Rock Bridge Creek
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The ‘Trails Illustrated Map’ of the Buffalo National River West shows a
‘spur’ trail from here down to the Camp Orr Road west of the parking area. This is the route we take down the hill, but
either the map is wrong,
or we missed the trail.
We end up on numerous trails none of which are on the map,
and all are
obviously ‘Boy Scout’ trails.
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the 'spur' should start here?
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These
trails are well marked with different colored plywood blazes and lots of
fluorescent ribbon, but the trails don’t seem to go anywhere, they just meander
aimlessly back and forth through the woods.
We hike back and forth on these trails for maybe a mile until I get
thoroughly frustrated and bail out down the hill north toward the road. We must be trespassing, but what should we
do? Go back the way we came? No thanks, go ahead and arrest me. |
Triple Falls (almost dry)
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The lesson learned: Don’t trust the map, this
is just one of many errors found on Trails Illustrated Maps of the
Buffalo. Anyway, we bushwhack down the
hill and into a campsite above the Camp Orr caretaker’s house. From this campsite is an unofficial trail that goes down quite steep to the Triple Falls Trail.
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new signs below Triple Falls
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We turn right, it’s only 50 yards or less to
Triple Falls, today however there aren’t ‘three’ falls but only one and it’s
just a trickle. We head back to the
truck which is less than 200 yards. I
apologize for my trespassing on private property today, that was never part of
‘the plan’. We did however find the ORT
access and the BRT to both Erbie and Kyle’s which was our plan for today, even the bushwhack wasn’t bad mostly wide-open
woods.
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early fall color
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Today’s hike included parts
of the Old River Trail, the Buffalo River Trail, some Boy Scout trails and just
under half a mile of bushwhacking. As
usual we had a great time in the great outdoors, hiking
a little over 3 miles with a total
elevation gain of about 300 feet. For
driving directions to Triple Falls
see: (21 Triple Falls).
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