The southeast corner of Richland Creek Wilderness is an area we know pretty well, having visited many times, but there are still many waterfalls in the area
that we have not seen. Today we’re out
to check-off a couple more from the list and check-out a different route to get
there.
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at the roadside campsite
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Under two miles south of
Witts Springs is Richland Creek Road (SC265 or FR1219), we turn west on this
good dirt road and less than four miles later arrive at Falling
Water Road (this is the intersection for which Intersection Falls is named). A left on Falling Water
Road (FR1205) brings us to the concrete bridge over Falling Water Creek. There's parking on both sides of the bridge,
we pick the west side right in front of our trailhead. This parking spot right on
Falling Water Creek at the confluence with a lovely little feeder stream
wouldn’t be a bad place to camp although very close to the road.
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Flat Stanley Falls
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We start up the road away from Falling Water Creek, we don’t
want to just jump on the first trail we see which is the OHT with its white
blazes, we’re looking for green blazes and Fuzzybutt Trail. This is a nice mostly wide trail that follows
an old road for much of the way, it always seems to be muddy though and has
‘sprouted’ many detours around mud holes.
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Falling Water Creek (4/26/2019)
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We soon pass beneath a powerline high above us, then in around 200 yards
arrive at the base of gorgeous Flat Stanley Falls on the edge of the trail. Below
the falls is a great rock patio on the bank of Falling Water Creek with great
views both up and downstream. We rock hop across the little creek that is less than ten feet wide and continue north on Fuzzybutt Trail up the short steep hillside out of the little drainage.
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Falling Water Creek rock-patio
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In less than a quarter mile crossing
another even smaller creek with a pouroff waterfall just 10-15 feet off the
trail. I check it out from the top trying to estimate how tall this wet
weather falls may be, it’s hard to say as I don’t feel comfortable ‘right at
the edge’ but over 25 feet would be my guess.
In the next quarter mile, we pass no less than three trail intersections
all going down to Falling Water Creek to the east.
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sentinel rock to Fuzzybutt Grotto
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Then at a little creek we turn up into Fuzzybutt Grotto and cross
the creek twice before arriving at the base of Fuzzybutt Falls. The grotto has a magical feel to it with the
high walls and lots of green moss, and of course Fuzzybutt Falls at the head of
the little box canyon. Fuzzybutt Falls has cut a deep notch into the rock wall as it falls into a
pretty green pool, we linger for a while
taking pictures and soaking in the serenity of the falls and grotto. |
Fuzzybutt Falls
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Back out the way we came, we rock-hop across the
creek back to the trail and down a side trail along Falling Water Creek to Six Finger Falls. We notice a bunch of folks are enjoying the day and the falls from the other side of
Falling Water Creek.
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in Fuzzybutt Grotto
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Six Finger Falls although
not very tall is a wide cascading fall across Falling Water Creek. I have read, the name comes from the six distinct fingers of rock protruding from the higher
upstream elevation which funnels the flow, during times of lower flow there are six individual segments (falls) with the fingers remaining dry. As we continue upstream along this volunteer
trail past Six Fingers the trail swings away from the creek uphill
getting pretty steep before ending back on Fuzzybutt Trail.
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Six Finger Falls
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Back on the main trail heading south we soon pass the little stream and
pouroff falls, then about 200 yards later we see a faint trail going east
toward Falling Water Creek, I check the map and see we are due west of Intersection
Falls, we turn here to see if it does go to the banks of Falling Water Creek
across from Intersection Falls.
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Six Finger Falls with less water (5/16/2013)
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This
trail gets less and less visible the farther we go, soon we’re just
bushwhacking through some briars and brush picking our way slowly we come to
the top of the hill down to Falling Water and decide this is far enough. The slope down to the creek isn’t bad and I’m
sure we could make our way to the falls but having seen Intersection Falls
years ago we turn back in favor of Upper Horsetail Falls which we haven’t
seen. Back on Fuzzybutt Trail it’s just
100 yards further to Flat Stanley Falls. |
Lower Horsetail from vista
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We rock-hop back across the creek below Flat Stanley then head up the
steep rocky trail to Horsetail Falls, Upper Horsetail is about 250 feet higher than
Flat Stanley making this the most ‘grueling’ part of today’s hike. The volunteer trail is pretty much visible
the entire way but is also very rocky and most of it quite steep, we watch our
step and go slow, it would be too easy to fall or twist an ankle.
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slick rock up to Upper Horsetail Falls
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The trees are still bare as spring is just getting started, so we soon get glimpses of
Lower Horsetail Falls up ahead, and before long come to a faint fork in the
trail. Here you could go right and down
the rocky narrow trail around a tight little ledge and in about 100 feet to the
base of Lower Horsetail Falls as we did last time here, see: (15 Lower Horsetail Falls). |
Upper Horsetail Falls
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Instead, we go left up the rocky trail toward Upper Horsetail Falls, and
soon some fantastic views of Lower Horsetail as we wrap around the top of Lower
Horsetail Grotto. Near the same elevation
as the top of Lower Horsetail is a large flat-topped boulder with an excellent
view of Lower Horsetail Falls in its entirety. Last year
when we visited Lower Horsetail we went into the grotto at the base of the
falls, it is quite impressive up close at the base with the mist and the roar.
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Lower Horsetail Falls
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But you can’t really get a
good angle to photograph the falls, either getting the bottom or the top but
not the entire falls. We’re finally
getting close, only a little over 100 yards further we arrive in a tight
slippery little grotto and at its head Upper Horsetail Falls. While not as tall as Lower Horsetail, in my
opinion Upper Horsetail is much prettier as it ‘fans out’ actually getting
wider at the bottom. Upper
Horsetail Falls is beautiful but beware of the slick rocks the final fifty feet
into the fall's grotto. |
White Dogtooth Violet
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We head out the way we came, down the steep trail, and discuss
which is worse ‘uphill or downhill’ hiking. We
agree of course a slope is only an issue when it’s steep, uphill is a lot more tiring, hard on the knees and really
gets your heart pumping, while downhill on the other hand is much less of a
cardio workout but just as bad on the knees, plus your toes suffer more going
downhill and the risk of a fall or twisted ankle increases going downhill.
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Flat Stanley Falls
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One thing’s for sure downhill is definitely
faster, we bottom out on the main trail and head south back to Falling Water
Road and our waiting truck. Today we
visited two waterfalls we hadn’t seen before: Fuzzybutt Falls and Upper
Horsetail Falls, along with three other old favorites: Flat Stanley Falls, Six
Finger Falls and Lower Horsetail Falls.
All in all, not a bad day of waterfall chasing, and we definitely had a great time. The total distance hiked today was 2.8 miles
with an altitude gain of 488 feet.
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Six Finger Falls
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Fuzzybutt Trail: Statistics Chart 86 The wilderness can be accessed from all directions, there's too many to give all the possible routes, which you choose largely depends on where you're coming from. The route we took today is possibly the shortest dirt road drive I have found to the wilderness.
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Six Finger from east side of Falling Water Creek (12/23)
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From the intersection of Highways 16/377 which is Witts Springs, (while in Witts Springs check out the Richland Waterfalls Welcome Center) go south on Highway 16 about 1.8 miles to Richland Creek Road (FR 1219) and turn right (west). Follow Richland Creek Road 4.3 miles, then turn left (south) on Falling Water Road (FR 1205) and go just 0.45 miles to the concrete bridge over Falling Water Creek. With parking on both sides of the bridge, and the trailhead just west of the bridge on the north side of the road. |
base map before fair use alterations is property of USGS Topo-licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 U.S. License
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