Leatherwood Lake the Eureka Springs City Park is a couple miles north of Eureka Springs off Highway
62 .
Here we find just about everything you'd expect at a ‘city park’
like a soccer field, baseball diamond and picnic area. But Leatherwood Lake has much more to offer
the outdoor enthusiast including a campground, rental cabins, rental
canoes, kayaks and peddle boats for use on the ‘no wake’ lake.
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Lake Leatherwood
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And the best thing here I think, is the
miles and miles of hiking and mountain bike trails (horses also welcome). Today
we’ll explore the park a little and check out a couple trails while we’re at it. After parking just up the bank about 50 yards
from the little marina, at the lowest of three or four parking areas we head
north on lakeside Fuller Trail.
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small creek along Fuller Trail
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Fuller Trail is well maintained and easy to follow in and out of small drainages and stays pretty close to the lake. The trail is mostly level with just minor ups and downs around the little creeks
we cross. These four or five creeks are pretty much all bedrock and very
pretty, with a few little cascades and small waterfalls all of which could
use more water. We pass a couple trail
intersections before coming to a very pretty lake vista on a rock patio next to the
trail.
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Fuller Trail ends at road
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A little further the most impressive of the falls, I’m calling ‘Two Tiered Falls’ is actually two falls only about five feet apart but
together from below appear to be one double tiered fall. Only about 100 yards from the little double
falls Fuller Trail ends at Beacham Trail.
Fuller Trail from beginning to end was just under a mile, and very
enjoyable with many lovely little creek crossings and the gorgeous Leatherwood
Lake never far.
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locked gate on dam
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Continuing north now on Beacham Trail we soon arrive at the Leatherwood
Lake Dam with a walkway across to the east side of the lake. Unfortunately, the walkway is
closed, blocked by a chain-link fence.
The sign on the fence merely states ‘closed for repair’ but there are no
signs of any repairs happening, the fence looks like it has been here for
years, this appears to be a permanent closure.
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Lake Leatherwood Spillway
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We had hoped to follow Beacham Trail all the way around the lake for a
loop hike of about 3.5 miles, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to
happen. Unless we can hike down and
cross Leatherwood Creek below the spillway, we head down the steep rocky slope
on the north side of the dam apparently many others have also done this same
route as there is a fairly obvious volunteer trail to follow to the
bottom.
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Leatherwood Creek below the spillway
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Spillway Falls is powerful, about 100 feet wide and maybe 60 feet tall, the loud crashing water creates
a cooling mist which today feels nice.
Up close maybe 15-20 feet below the spillway appears to be the
shallowest place to cross, but still close to two feet deep. The east side
of the creek up to the top of the dam looks much steeper with big sharp rocks all the way to the top. Wisely we turn around here at Leatherwood
Creek and head back to the top on the west side of
the lake.
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Bigfoot @ the marina
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Back on top we follow Beacham Trail south all the way to the parking area where we started. Beacham Trail isn’t what I would call a
‘trail’ it is actually a well used
park service road. There are a few intersections along the road
to other ‘real trail’ possibilities. Beacham Trail is up and down
one hill after the next in full sunshine the whole time, and worse, it’s boring with
little to see along the way. In the future I'll skip Beacham Trail and use Fuller Trail for hikes on the west side
of the lake.
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Leatherwood Lake @ the campground
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Back at the car marks the end of our hike for today at just under 3 miles with 351 feet of elevation gain. Over half of the elevation gain came from the climb back up to the trail after exploring below the spillway. We take advantage of one of the many picnic tables for a lunch break
before walking around exploring some of the facilities, here at the end of the
main paved entrance road are rental cabins, picnic area, marina and a
restroom/shower building.
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signage on Fuller Trail
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Down a short
hill with a campground host set up at the top is the main campground to the
east, and what looks like a horse campground in a large open field to the west. Straight ahead we cross a dry ravine on a
wooden pedestrian bridge into the lower campground, and at the far south end is
the trailhead for ‘Leatherwood Trail’ (along Leatherwood Creek) and ‘Beacham
Trail’ (around to the east side of the lake), but those will be hikes for
another day.
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Black Oak Lake
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On our way back into Eureka Springs we turn south off Hwy. 62 onto Oil
Spring Rd. aka Black Oak Rd. (CR 138) a narrow steep little dirt road 0.7 miles
to the parking area at the base of Black Oak Lake dam. This place is a true ‘hidden gem’ virtually
unknown outside of a handful of Eureka Springs residents. Well worth checking out, the lake itself is
small but beautiful with trails all around and another ‘bluffs trail’ northwest
from the lake up to a trailhead on the road.
Some more ‘hikes for another day’ for sure.
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below Black Oak dam
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Lake Leatherwood: Statistics Chart 113 Easy to find if you know where Eureka Springs is, from the traffic light at the intersection of Van Buren St. (Hwy. 62) and Main St. (Hwy. 23 North) go west on Highway 62 about 3 miles and turn right at the Eureka Springs City Park, Lake Leatherwood sign. If your coming from the west it's 4.6 miles from the White River bridge. Then follow the park road to the end at the parking area in front of the marina. |
base map before fair use alterations is property of USGS Topo-
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