Thunderstorms rolled through most of Arkansas last night and we got
almost two inches at the house, I’m thinking today will be a good day to see
some waterfalls. Not far from where I
went hiking on New Year’s Day, upstream about two miles on the Buffalo is a
bluff with a wet weather waterfall pouring out the mouth of a cave about sixty
feet up on the bluff, this bluff is named Falls Bluff.
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highwater at Carver
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We drive south, back to Gene Rush WMA and after crossing a swollen Buffalo River we turn left into
the Wildlife Management Area. As we
cross the Big Creek bridge, I see how much difference a couple inches of rain
make. Two days ago, Big Creek was almost dry,
just small pools of still water with barely a trickle moving downstream ten
feet or more below the bridge. Today the
brownish water with whitecaps is rushing under the bridge with only about a
foot of headspace.
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roadside falls in Lime Kiln Hollow
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Just around the corner and up the hill from Big Creek is Lime Kiln
Hollow, usually almost dry but today with a beautiful roadside waterfall about
4 feet tall and 12 feet wide. We keep
going east, the road is in surprisingly good shape considering there is water
running off the road everywhere. We
continue onward and upward, it’s about six miles total from the turnoff at
Highway 123 to the WMA trailhead/gate we park next to.
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WMA trailhead
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Hiking on the old road past the gate stays up on the ridge for the first
mile, this is very easy hiking on the clean road with little elevation
change. Then as the road starts to wind
its way down the hill there are lots of downed trees on the roadway, the
descent is steep but not bad (downhill at least). |
just below first crossing
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Still going downhill but now
at an easy gradual rate the road curves around to the south and eventually
alongside a little creek. Easily enough
we rock-hop across just above a lovely little series of short cascading
waterfalls. Here the old road heads back
north but is now choked out with thick brush, it’s hard to tell this was ever a
road.
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down in Ed Clair Hollow
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For sure a struggle through the undergrowth but the road soon ends at an
obviously well used trail. The only
problem: which way to go, Falls Bluff is straight ahead to the north, this
trail goes east and west perpendicular to the old road. I choose east
thinking the trail will go down to the little creek and follow it north to the
Buffalo River less than a quarter mile away.
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Ed Clair Hollow
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The trail soon crosses back to the east side of the creek and sure
enough follows the creek downstream towards the Buffalo. We never get to the Buffalo though as the trail
gradually curves around to the east then southeast into Ed Clair Hollow. I decide we are too far past Falls Bluff to
turn around and go back, we continue up Ed Clair Hollow curious to find out
where this trail may lead. |
farther up Ed Clair
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On another old road, this trail is easy going for a while up pretty Ed
Clair Hollow with the occasional downed tree and lots of small-scale water
features such as little ledge falls and tumbling cascades. At the first major fork in the hollow the
trail crosses the right fork and heads uphill.
Here the old road seems to fizzle out as the trail gets steeper and
steeper. Zigzagging back and forth we
pass three closely separated rock cairns on our climb to the top.
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almost to the top
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Now the trail curls around north then northeast high above the left fork
of Ed Clair and soon we notice we are once again on another old road. This road trace is pretty faint
but still easy hiking with just a gentle grade upward. The creek below in Ed Clair Hollow follows a steeper path than this trail so after
about a quarter mile we are at creek level and more nice water
features.
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back to civilization
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The old road crosses the creek and turns north up the hill about 200 feet where it intersects another road. We turn right (east) on this road
which levels out and is once again easy going, soon coming to another
intersection, we turn right (east) again.
Now on the last leg of the
many old roads we soon see another WMA gate up ahead, and just beyond the real road NC 4267, but we’re about a
mile north of our parking spot. The last mile on the road back to the truck is up and down little hills
and kind of boring but we make it eventually.
Our hike today didn’t turn out as planned; we expected to hike about 3.5
miles but in the end actually hiked 4.7 miles with 731 feet of elevation
gain. We didn’t get to see Falls Bluff
and will have to try again after a future rainstorm, but we still had a great
time exploring the Buffalo National River and Gene Rush WMA.
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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
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Getting to the trailhead in the Gene Rush WMA is easy enough, just south of the bridge over the Buffalo turn east off Highway 123 onto NC 4500 at the sign for 'Gene Rush WMA'. after 1.6 miles turn left onto NC 4260. Go about 3 miles on NC 4260 then turn left on NC 4267. Here you'll see the WMA Headquarters (maintenance yard), just over 1.25 miles on NC 4267 is the old road and parking area on the left. From Highway 123 it's about 6 miles total to the parking spot/trailhead.
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