Lonesome Hollow Falls, Arkansas Ozarks

4/28/2014 - Hike to Lonesome Hollow Falls

GPS Coordinates:  (Latitude,  Longitude,  Elevation)
  Parking:  35.80639, -93.15759,  1822 feet
  Turn off ATV trail:  35.80364,  -93.15878,  1839 feet
  Lonesome Hollow Falls:  35.80487, -93.16006,  1988 feet

Pet friendly: Yes.  OK for pets on or off leash.

Motorcycle friendly: Yes.  Less than a mile down a fairly good gravel road.  I would take my street bike on this road.

GPS files:
  GPS track file for Lonesome Hollow Falls hike (.gpx format)

Lonesome Hollow Falls (47 feet)

The last time I came to Lonesome Hollow, the waterfall was a beautiful, fairly tall (47 feet) waterfall, but I thought it would be much better with more water flow.  I have a list of waterfalls like this that I vowed to go back to after a good rain.  Yesterday, we got almost three inches of rain at our house north of Dover.  While I realize the amount of rainfall varies widely over an area as large as the Ozarks, I figured surely there was a good deal of rain in the mountains north of us, even if not as much as we received at home.  So Bethany and I, along with our German Shepard, Boomer, loaded up and headed north to see if we could visit a number of these "see when wet" waterfalls.  Lonesome Hollow Falls was first on our list.

I won't reiterate the detailed directions on how to get to the falls, since you can get that information on my previous post for Lonesome Hollow Falls.  Click on the link here to access that post and the detailed directions.

Lonesome Hollow Bluffline

We parked and started our stroll down the old ATV trail.  By the looks of the ATV trail, it looked like no one had been here since my last venture to Lonesome Hollow months ago.  I'm sure that is not the case, but I like it when there aren't any signs of human intrusion.  Today we had the woods all to ourselves, as usual.  After dropping off the trail where it gets below the bluffline on the right, we made our way along the bottom of the bluffline, coming into view of the waterfall.  It was really flowing well, completely changing the way the waterfall looked.  This area did not get the three inches of rain we got further south, but certainly got plenty of rain to make the waterfall spectacular.  After getting back home, I went back to some of the photos I took in February and did some comparisons.  A little more water makes a big difference.  I thought it was a cool little waterfall then; now it looked like an awesome not-so-little waterfall.  See the comparison photos side-by-side below.

Feb 12, 2014

This is what I would call an easy hike.  It is only a half mile each way, and less than 200 feet elevation change.  The first quarter mile is easy hiking on the old ATV trail.  The other quarter mile is technically a bushwhack since there is no trail, but it's an easy bushwhack.  It is on the level and easy to hike along the bottom of the bluffline.  This waterfall hike is going on my list of easy hikes with great waterfalls that I can take visiting friends and family to,  when there's adequate ground water, that is.

April 28, 2014