Fifteen
months ago while hiking on the OHT east of Richland Creek Wilderness (see:
159 Fat Lip Falls), I made it as far as Long Branch and found a beautiful
waterfall. Only exploring about 100 yards of Long
Branch that day, I’ve been waiting ever since for the chance to return after some good
prolonged rain. One week after our ‘big’ rains, today the creek should
still be flowing well.
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rocky Long Branch
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Parked
just off Falling Water Road (FR 1205) at an old road I’ll refer to as 'Long Branch Road' (FR 92744A). Today the forest service
gate blocking vehicle access down the road is standing wide open. I’m tempted
to just drive on down but not knowing what lies ahead and seeing no tire
tracks, I decide to park outside the gate.
I will soon come to regret this decision, walking down the road I
quickly realize how good its condition is, any little SUV could handle this
road even the two easy creek crossings. |
Long Branch Rd.
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Oh
well, ‘you never know until you go…’ the reason I tend to shy away from
an unknown road is the possibility of coming to an impassable situation without
anywhere to turn around. But this road
is pretty wide for an old road, has lots of places to park or turn around and
even a side road branching off.
The road eventually fades away to nothing in a huge hay field, at the
far end of the field the road resumes heading into the woods but is no
longer drivable. |
| after hay field the road looks more like a trail |
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washed out road with natural stone steps
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This
would be a good place to park, at the southeast corner of this big field,
starting the hike 0.9 miles closer to Long Branch and reducing the elevation
gain by almost 300 feet. Next time I’ll
know, if the gate’s open drive on down.
Continuing down the road is easy enough to follow and even appears to
get some foot traffic soon crossing a little creek, the road is now more like a
trail, and not a bad trail at that. |
| beginning of rocky bluffs |
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window rock
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About
a hundred yards past this little creek crossing is another junction, I keep
going downhill east but will check out the southbound road on the way back out. By now, getting close enough to Long
Branch to hear lots of fast moving water even though the creek is still
over 100 feet below the elevation of the road/trail. Soon the road is completely washed out
leaving a natural stone stairway down for at least 100 yards getting ever
closer to Long Branch. |
on rocky Long Branch @ Rock Jumble Falls
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For
the next 300 yards the road inches closer and closer to Long Branch as it
continues gradually downhill. While
on the other side of the road a bluffline gets taller and more rugged, near the
beginning of the bluffs at its top one big rock sits on top two others ‘window
rock’. I call this a ‘bluffline’ but
it’s more like a giant rock jumble or tightly packed enormous boulders, I’m
tempted to climb up to investigate but the ‘sweet sound’ of falling water is
beckoning me from below. |
small falls and big rocks
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Long Branch is rugged yet beautiful
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Back
up on the road which is getting harder to find, less than 200 feet is a faint
old road trace (fort) intersection where I take the left fork back down to Long
Branch. At the creek I’m climbing around, and over big boulders with
little falls and cascades everywhere. I
name a couple of these just as descriptions; ‘tumbling rock cascades’ ‘road crossing cascades’... Across the creek the road is once again obvious as it heads up a
short hill, but I continue climbing down the creek.
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| Pool Cascade... |
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and just below Boulder Cascade
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Not
much further downstream is a nice cascade above a jacuzzi size swimming hole ‘pool
cascade’ and a little farther down a rare small flat area bordered by a giant
creek-side boulder with a tree growing horizontally provides a perfect spot to
sit and reflect on natures beauty. And
naturally there’s another impressive cascade here ‘boulder bay cascade’. A lot of the cascades are short and steep enough
to be considered waterfalls, but we won’t split-hairs.
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| more rocks and more falls |
Just
a little more climbing downstream is the last falls I’ll manage to reach today
‘wedged boulder falls’ drops six feet or so from around the side of more big
boulders. Now Long Branch gets even
steeper, so obviously there are many more falls further downstream but
continuing would involve too much danger for me, so instead I climb up the bank with lots of loose shale across a low point.
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Under the Rock Falls
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Still
heading downstream above the creek about fifty feet or more, I’m along a steep
bank on a little ledge, at an even steeper rocky point I turn around to head
back the way I came. Right away finding
a crevice cave that was missed coming down, at the opening is a tall pile of
leaves and debris in the cave entrance.
I climb over the leaf-pile then to the back of this narrow little cave
that’s maybe 25 feet deep, inside has plenty of head room. |
many falls and cascades are hidden in the rocks
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Heading
back north I soon land on that other ‘fork’ leading back to the old road trace
intersection that I mentioned above, along the way is a ONF boundary marker
nailed to a tree. The ‘road’ improves as
I head uphill slowly away from Long Branch soon climbing the natural stone
stairs that once was the road. From the
‘fort’ intersection below to the obvious road junction with flagging tied in
trees is almost half a mile of easy hiking, I turn left (south) here. |
the view down steep rocky Long Branch
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Curiosity
to ‘see something different’ on the way out is my only justification for making
this turn, I know it’s going to make this a longer hike but that’s okay, all
these old roads have made for a fairly easy hike and besides this road
may lead to a closer parking spot for the next foray down into Long
Branch. I soon cross paths with a fat
little snake about 30 inches long, I don’t know what kind but I’ve seen these
before, most recently while crossing Richland Creek (see: 178 Ben Hur Trailhead).
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looking in and out of narrow cave
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The
road heads southeast along the base of a ridge to my right, I keep expecting it
to turn and head up the hill onto the ridge. Almost to the ‘point’ of this ridge the road
turns more to the east and starts downhill, this is where I give up on the road
and head uphill through the woods only to land on a faint road in less than a
hundred yards. Is this the same road I
just abandoned, could be, the road soon disappears at the edge of a huge
hay field that follows the ridge west.
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| flakey shale @ low point |
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| little hiding waterfall |
This
the second big hay field I’ve crossed today in full sunshine, but not
uncomfortable since the temperatures today are below seventy, a little boring I
suppose just an almost endless expanse of green grass and lots of young
blackberry shoots coming up. At the west
end of the field the road resumes at a junction, straight west is up to the top
of a hill, around to the north I take the road at the base of the hill. Both routes meet up again at the FS gate with
parking and FR 1205 on the other side.
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spring wildflowers and wildlife make an appearance
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From
here I have a walk north on FR 1205 aka Falling Water Road, of almost ¾ of a
mile back to the truck. So, either of
these old roads that start at FR 1205 make excellent routes down to Long
Branch, I guess it just depends on which way you want to go once you reach the
creek. The south parking area (L2) has
slightly less elevation gain coming out but the north parking (L1) is closer to
the upstream portion of Long Branch. I
plan to return to both for further exploration of this beautiful and rugged area
in the Bearcat Wildlife Management Area. |
| ONF boundary along faint old road |
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up the ridge through a big hay field
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I
had a great time today climbing around on rugged Long Branch and exploring some
of the many old roads, this loop hike was 4.7 miles with 680 feet of altitude
gain. In the rocks and boulders around
the creek it was definitely all bushwhack and in some places difficult and a
little dangerous, but most of the trip was an easy hike on well defined
old roads. Undergrowth that can make a
bushwhack miserable later in the spring and summer, is just starting to show
up, I saw lots of young poison ivy sprouting up everywhere. |
approaching gate with FR 1205 just beyond
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Long Branch Loop: Statistics Chart 197 From
Dickey Junction which is the intersection of Falling Water Rd. (FR1205, NC
5080) and Richland Rd. (NC 5085, SC 12) go south just over 0.6 miles to Long
Branch parking area 1, or continue south on NC 5080 almost 0.75 miles further
to parking area 2, crossing into Searcy County along the way.
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base map before fair use alterations is property of USGS--licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 U.S. License
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