This morning we have to go into town and pick up some last-minute items for Thanksgiving dinner, and since
it looks like it’s going to be a nice day, we decide to make a day of it by doing a little hiking. We haven’t seen much
rain lately, so we cross off waterfalls from the possibilities list and after a little discussion decide on
Buzzard’s Roost way down south. It is
quite a drive, but we got an early start, and the scenery is nice, so the drive goes by pretty quick.
 |
easy hiking
|
Buzzard’s Roost is a designated Special Interest Area, but you would
never know it from the lack of any signage, without doing a little research we
would have never found it. Just past a
little white house we turn left off Maupin Flat Road on an old road which now
is an ATV trail, I pull off the road up a low bank and park, with the white
house still in site through the trees.
There are a couple more pull off parking spots nearby but not very many, room for maybe five cars max without blocking the road. |
rocky section of road
|
We head southeast on the ‘trail’ (old road now an ATV road), right away
coming to a big mud hole, this is actually the second big mud hole, we drove
through the first. These are just the
first of many, most we can easily keep out of the mud along the edge of the road,
but a couple require short detours off the road into the woods. Besides mud the other feature
of this first section of the hike is greenbrier which seems to
line both sides of the road almost continuously. |
main intersection
|
Overall,
the hiking is very easy with little elevation change, after
about half a mile the trail swings around to the northeast and around the top
of Flat Rock Hollow with a nice bluffline up above us off to the north. After crossing Flat Rock’s main creek, we come
into a boulder field of sharp-edged rock, car size and smaller. One large flat slab of rock lays across the
road, making this a minor obstacle for ATV’s but not a problem for hikers. Continuing now southeast again, the trail
begins a gradual descent for the next third of a mile.
 |
over the rainbow
|
During this descent we pass an area where the road detours around a deep
gully the result of erosion from rushing water.
Beyond the detour the road levels out and we see a small pond on the left
which the road curves around. A quarter
mile past the pond the road detours around a large fallen tree that makes a
nice bench for a short break. Another 100 yards we come to an old road off to the north, keep straight here
on the ATV trail and in less than 200 feet is an intersection. |
Rainbow Rock
|
This is the main Buzzard’s
Roost intersection, with Rainbow Rock the big natural bridge to the left and
Buzzard’s Roost the cool turtle rocks to the right, we’ll go left to see the natural bridge
first. At this main intersection you’ll notice a few more little detours in the
trail around fallen trees. Heading east
now it’s only about a hundred yards to the next intersection where we take the
right fork. Only around 200 feet further
is an ATV turn around area and an obvious trail leaving the road and heading south downhill to Rainbow Rock.
 |
on the roost
|
Down the hill we go, it’s steep but not too bad mostly on solid bedrock
and less than 200 feet. Rainbow Rock is
really beautiful at almost 90 feet long and over 30 feet high, the name seems
very appropriate. The arch under the
bridge has a high radius like a big
rainbow over a valley, hard to describe but very pretty. A good-sized tree is growing right up along
the inside of the bridge right at the narrowest spot along the top, this is as
far as I wander out. Be careful all
around this arch, it’s a long way to the bottom. Speaking of which, a faint trail leads west
down to the bottom, but we head back up to the ATV road on top.
 |
autumn at Buzzard's Roost
|
Back at the main intersection we take the left and head down a little
and around some more fallen tree detours before leaving the road at a large
campsite on the left. You can see the
old road continues south, but this campsite appears to be as far as anyone
goes. In the back of the campsite is a
wide rocky trail heading downhill to the east, about 150 feet or so to the
Buzzard’s Roost, not real steep but watch your footing with all the loose rock. |
Buzzard's Roost
|
Buzzard’s Roost is a big area of rounded weathered sandstone, turtle rocks some call them. We climb around on top, it’s sort of like a
maze with many dead ends, we have to be careful of every step to avoid the deep
crevices everywhere. I find a route down
to explore some of the crevices from below and it’s more dead ends
like a mouse
in a maze. Naturally we take a bunch of
pictures and before heading back up to the campsite I make my way around to the
north just about a hundred feet to a small natural arch. This much smaller arch is more the typical low radius type bridge and is easy to
walk across on top or through the arch underneath.
 |
smaller natural bridge
|
Up at the campsite we meet two hikers and their friendly black dog,
we’re all impressed, everyone (other than the dog) is wearing some hunter
orange, they head on down to Buzzard’s Roost and we head back to the truck,
almost 2 miles away. Today was a
wonderful day for hiking, it got a little breezy in the afternoon as some
clouds blew in, and it even sprinkled for about five minutes, we had a great
time of course, our total distance hiked was just over 4.7 miles with 600 feet
of elevation gain.
Buzzard’s Roost SIA: Although there isn’t any signage telling you
‘This is the place’, it really isn’t hard to find if you’re coming down from up
north as we did. In Pelsor (Sand Gap) head west on Highway 123 just under 5
miles to Meadows Knob Road (FR 1802) and head south for about 3 miles to a fork
in the road.
Take the left fork, this is
now Maupin Flat Road (FR 1805) keep heading south another 3.6 miles to the Buzzard’s Roost Road (FR 93197C), you
will find this narrow ATV road to the left, just past a little white house on
the right (this is the only house we saw on Maupin Flat Rd.) pull in here and
park without blocking the road, parking is very
limited.
Coming up to Buzzard’s Roost from the south is more confusing, and
I’ve never done it. But if you’re
familiar with Treat Road, cross Indian Creek on the concrete bridge then just
over 1.5 miles farther is an intersection, take the right fork which is Maupin Flat Road
all uphill for about 3 miles to Buzzard’s
Roost Road (FR 93197C) and turn
right, if you pass the little white house, you went too far.
 |
base map before fair use alterations is property of USFS Forest Service-
-licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 U.S. License |
Comments