Cub Creek Falls, Arkansas Ozarks near Cowell

1/29/2018 - Cub Creek Falls and bushwhack of the entire hollow.

GPS Coordinates: (Latitude, Longitude, Elevation)
  Parking for Cub Creek Falls:  35.80897   -93.15819,  2010 feet  
  Parking today (near southwest prong):  35.79420   -93.15346
  Cub Creek Falls:  35.80727   -93.15299,   1740 feet
  Bluffline Break #1:  35.79241   -93.14657
  Bluffline Break #2:  35.79143   -93.14764
  Unnamed Falls #1:  35.79263   -93.14644
  Unnamed Falls #2:  35.79730   -93.14509
  Unnamed Falls #3:  35.80441   -93.15183
  Unnamed Falls #4:  35.80897   -93.15281

Pet-Friendly: Yes.  Dogs on or off leash should be OK.  I didn't see any areas that most dogs couldn't navigate on their own.

Motorcycle Friendly: Yes.  The Parking location is almost a mile down a dirt road, but at this part of the road, it is usually pretty well maintained.

Hiking Statistics:  The hike to Cub Creek Falls is only about 0.6 miles each way, with an elevation change of 357 feet.  About half of that is along an old ATV trail.  Today, I explored the entire length of the western prongs of Cub Creek, 5.8 miles in total with a highest-to-lowest elevation change of 635 feet.  I would rate the hike to Cub Creek Falls alone as a moderate bushwhack, and the overall hike up Cub Hollow as a difficult bushwhack.

GPS files:
    Pelsor - Deer area waypoints
    Cub Creek GPS track (today's hike; western prongs)
    Lonesome Hollow GPS track
    Cub Hollow Polyfoss GPS track (eastern prongs)

Related Blog posts:
    Lonesome Hollow Falls
    Cub Hollow Polyfoss

Cub Creek Falls

Cub Creek has been on my radar for quite a while.  The 'main' creek, the drainage with most of the area, runs adjacent to, and parallel to, Lonesome Hollow.  Lonesome Hollow Falls is one of my favorites, a good-sized waterfall that is easy to get to and not far off the highway.  It is one of my go-to waterfalls for visiting friends and family.  Looking at the topology of these two hollows, it seemed to me that there should be a similar waterfall at about the same elevation, off the same bluffline, in Cub Hollow.  Looking at the hollow overall, this big northwest prong and the other prong on the west looked very promising.  The topology looked very good for waterfalls, and the two northeastern prongs of Cub Hollow certainly had quite a few of them.  I put links to blog posts for the adjacent areas above, and both are featured in Tim Ernst's excellent guidebook Arkansas Waterfalls.  If you don't have this guidebook, get it.  You can thank me later.  

Cub Creek

To get there, from the Dover town square (intersection of Hwy 7 and Hwy 27), go 39.2 miles north on Highway 7 to the Cowell Cemetery on the left.  This is about 0.2 miles south of Cowell.  The cemetery is right on the west side of Highway 7.  Old Highway 7 looped around the west side of the cemetery.  Take the loop halfway around the cemetery, and take FR-1253 (aka NC-7120, or Taylor Ridge Road) south.  There are two dirt roads at this point; FR-1253 is the south-most of these, and has signs that say 'Dead End' and 'One Lane Road with Turnouts'.  Follow FR-1253 for 0.8 miles, bearing left to stay on FR-1253 at about 0.4 miles, and park on the left where an old trace road leads off.  

Cub Creek

Since I was going out to explore an area that looked like it had a lot of rough and precipitous terrain, I decided to leave Boomer at home today.  He can go just about anywhere, but if I ended up having to climb up or down cliffs or shinny down trees to get below bluffs, that's something he just can't do.  I have made several trips to the northeastern prongs of Cub Hollow and I have followed those down to where they flowed into the main Cub Creek coming from the northwestern prong.  See the map at the bottom of this post to get a better visualization of how this hollow is laid out.  After today's hike, I know that there is a short story here;  Cub Creek Falls is fairly easy to get to,  the rest of the hollow is not.  I'll detail how to get there first, then go back and describe the rest of the hollow.

Cub Creek Falls

After you park, take the old trace road to the east.  This looks like it was used as an ATV trail at one time, but hasn't seen any use for quite a while.  This trail will lead you around the top of a steep side drainage just downstream from Cub Creek Falls, and then take you down to a point that you can bushwhack down to Cub Creek upstream of the waterfall.  As you go downstream, there is a small but pretty waterfall, Falls #4.  Be careful at the top of Cub Creek Falls, and make sure you cross the creek to the east side before you get there.  The top of the waterfall slopes toward the drop and is slippery rock wherever it is wet.  On the east side of the waterfall (left as you go downstream), there is a bluffline break you can hike down and around to the base of the waterfall.

Cub Creek

For this hollow, my recommendation is to hike back out the way you hiked in.  There is a whole lot more to the hollow, and a lot of very pretty creek, but it is a lot of bushwhacking without a whole lot else to see.  I have friends that just like to get out, go where there are no trails, and go where others don't.  While there is a lot to be said for that, and I do that on a regular basis, the vast most hikers know there is plenty of equally pretty scenery in areas that are much easier hiking.  For today's hike, I started out parking at a turnout 1.2 miles further down FR-1253.  From there, I went down into the southwestern prong, which looked very promising from a topology view.

Cub Creek

I found Falls #1 in a smaller side drainage that actually had some decent flow in it, despite the extended drought we were in.  Today, however, the creek disappeared into the ground about 20 feet before the waterfall, with just a trickle going over Falls #1.  I listed coordinates for two bluffline breaks, both around the bluff to the right of Falls #1.  Going down below the bluff, I continued around to the right to get into that big southwestern prong.  Today, there was some flow in the creek there, but not much in the way of waterfalls.  Where the creek crossed the blufflines, they were all broken down into a jumble of rocks.  

Cub Creek Falls

Continuing down the southwestern prong and then turning up Cub Creek, this was pretty much the story for the rest of the hollow.  Until you get all the way up to Cub Creek Falls, high in the drainage, the blufflines are all broken down where the creek goes through them.  Cub Creek at this point is a year-round creek, not a wet weather tributary as is the case in the smaller prongs.  Cub Creek itself is beautiful down along the creek.  Don't get me wrong, it is still a bushwhack the whole way.  However, once you get down through the bluffs to the creek itself, it isn't too bad.  It is rock strewn, but the thick brush tends to be higher up on the sides of the hollow.  I have recorded coordinates for a couple of small waterfalls I found along the way.  

While I had a great time hiking today, I probably won't return except to take friends out to Cub Creek Falls.  There are still many, many areas I have not explored, and I only have one lifetime to try to get to as many of these as I can.  I would highly recommend, however, making the short hike from FR-1253 down to Cub Creek Falls.  It is a bushwhack, but I think most hikers of all ages will be able to make this hike.  

Cub Creek Area GPS Tracks
Orange - Cub Creek Falls
Yellow - Lonesome Hollow Falls
Red - Cub Hollow Polyfoss Falls
Blue - today's hike