Fifteen months ago, while hiking along the top of a bluff on our way to
Illinois Point on the Buffalo River Trail we enjoyed some nice views out onto
Lane Bend, I thought the area looked interesting and appeared to be an easy
hiking opportunity. Today I’m on my way
to find out, I park at the bottom of Longbottom Road next to the locked gate.
Back in the early 20th century during the deforestation of much of northwestern
Arkansas, men would lash together hundreds of logs and float them down the
Buffalo to the White River and eventually large sawmills outside of
Batesville. Every major bend in the
river became a landmark for relating daily progress downriver, the bends in the
river were given names usually of the local landowners along the river.
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sunny day at Lane Bend
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The Lane family who lived here
in this bend of the river had quite the productive bottomland farm, and to this
day very little of the over 200 acres is forested. I realize I’ll be hiking in full sunshine
most of the day soon after I start down the old road just past the gate. This
is very easy hiking with very little elevation change, hopefully I’ll be
alright in the bright sun. |
first pond
|
Only about 200 yards beyond the gate I come to a little pond off the
road on the right, just past the pond are the remains of an old house
consisting of some foundation stones and a lot of rusty old metal roofing. Out on the backside from the house I notice
an old post with some rusty hinges nailed to it, the gate though is long
gone. I head through into the back yard and under 100 yards further
find a second pond. |
backyard of old homesite
|
This pond I’m calling Duck Pond for the 15 to 20 mallards I surprise as
I approach, I’ll later find three more ponds on Lane Bend, five total that I
number 1-5 from southeast to northwest. After
scaring away all the duck I return out to the road and up ahead is a gooseneck
trailer on the side of the road. Past
the trailer in a curve to the left I head down a little hill and soon arrive at
a fork in the road where I turn right and slightly downhill. |
take flight over pond 2
|
Soon on my right about 50 feet off the road is a large fenced in corral I assume was for cattle
loading. After the corral past a fence
line the road ends in a large hay field which I skirt around on the outside
edge watching for a path down to the river about 100 yards away. There is lots of short thick cane all along
this stretch of river with no apparent way through. |
cattle corral
|
After spotting a break in the cane I leave the hay field heading east
into the woods. At a fence line I find an opening where the barbed wire has
been cut. Above the Buffalo flood plain
I pick one of the many short steep gullies down to the lush bottomland, down
here I see some orange ribbon tied in trees to the south. The Buffalo is east, but interested I follow
the orange flagging to see what I might find. |
orange ribbon to river
|
The flagging ends at an opening in the riverbank, I head down the steep
sandy gully onto a gorgeous gravel/sand bar.
Here at the south (downstream) end is all sand, very nice, across the
river a smooth faced bluff. It’s hard to
say how deep the water may be, but it looks plenty deep for swimming. Too bad it’s almost a mile from the parking
back at the gate, you could float down to this spot from Grinders Ferry easily
enough. |
sandy beach
|
I follow the orange ribbon on a fairly obvious trail back to the edge of
the field at a permit boundary marker
and continue around the perimeter which soon curves around to the west. If I had to guess, I think this big hay field
is about 30 acres, it gets narrower at the west end where I come to a fence
line and am forced back to the east about 100 yards and an opening that might
have had a gate once, and a very faint road trace heading south. |
'bigger' pond 5
|
There are quite a few fence lines around here, one along this road trace
which I soon leave at an opening in the fence.
Now going back to the west is pond #5 on my left, this is the biggest of the bunch so I’ll call
it Bigger Pond, I wouldn’t call it a large
pond, just bigger. Continuing west along the north side of the
pond, I turn to the south after the end of the pond. |
pond 4 above cemetery
|
I’m now bushwhacking through tall dead grass, unlike the big hay field I
just left, this large field hasn’t been cut in a few years. There are lots of little game trails
meandering in all directions, I curve around to the east and follow a very
shallow dry arroyo or draw, gradually heading uphill to yet another pond. This pond #4 I’ll call Cemetery Pond for the
cemetery I’m about to find up ahead (east) where I see some big old oak trees
that seem out of place. |
Lane Bend Cemetery just beyond the grass
|
Just over a hundred yard from pond 4 are two grave markers, one of them implies this is Lane Bend
Cemetery. These are the only marked
graves I find, although at the root ball of a large downed oak is a squared
stone revealed when the tree fell. I’m
assuming more are buried here at small picturesque Lane Bend Cemetery. From the graveyard I head southeast for about
200 yards back to the road right at the fork where I went east earlier. |
for some life was short
|
Turning right I head up the other
fork to the west and after maybe 100 yards notice another pond down the hill
back to the southeast. I leave the road
down the gentle hillside to pond #3 which I’ll call Beech Pond for the big tree
on its bank. I almost missed this one,
returning to the road I continue west up the gentle hill passing pond 4 from
above, soon arriving at the top and an intersection. |
Beech Pond
|
A faint road heads north and south which looking north I can see the
road is the same one I was on briefly before finding pond 5 which I can also
see almost a quarter mile down the hillside.
I guess hiking with few trees is a tradeoff,
sure I’m in the direct sun most of the time but also I’m enjoying some great
wide-open views in every direction. |
beach goers at Shine Eye
|
Continuing west down this obvious road I disturb a covey of quail who
take flight and give me quite a startle.
This road ends at the top of another hay field, this one smaller at
about 10 acres. Lane Hole is down there
at the south end of the field, but I turn around and head back up the hill as
I’d like to get up on top of the bluff that circles above Shine Eye. |
beautiful view downriver
|
The best way to do this seems to be going south back at the intersection
with the faint road trace. So back up I
go and turn right onto the faint road which weaves south then east and south a
little more before ending near the top of Shine Eye Bluff. I make my way up to the edge of the bluff
which curves around from east to south. |
turquoise Buffalo River
|
Up along the cliff is pretty treacherous along the edge with many downed
pine trees, big blackberry patches and the steep slope with loose rock and dead
leaves. But the views down to the river
at Shine Eye are fantastic all along the bluff, I mark eight waypoints where I
stop for pictures. I hang out up here
awhile watching people come and go down below enjoying the warm February day,
evidently Shine Eye is even popular in the winter, see: (60 Shine Eye) for my review of that crowded swimming hole. |
a rare 'beach day' in February
|
Eventually I head down a shallow little ravine to the east, crossing
another fence line over a trampled down spot, then another hundred yards or so
to my parking spot. I had a great time
today exploring Lane Bend even though I did get a little sunburn. Overall, this was a very easy hike with little
elevation gain (368 feet) over gentle rolling hills. My hike today was a total of 3.7 miles, with
the wide-open conditions you could easily make this as long or short a hike as
you like.
Lane Bend: Statistics Chart 141 The parking area is pretty easy to get to, just over 0.3 miles south of Tyler Bend Road turn east off Highway 65 on Blue Ribbon Road, follow Blue Ribbon 1.2 miles and turn left on Long Bottom Road (SC 426) and take this 1.2 miles to the gate and parking area at the bottom of the hill.
 |
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