Grapevine Shelter waterfalls, Blue Hole Special Interest Area, Ozarks north of Hector, Arkansas

2/23/2018 - Grapevine Shelter Falls, other waterfalls in the Blue Hole SIA

GPS Coordinates:  (Latitude,  Longitude,  Elevation)
  Parking Location:  35.53732   -92.87910,  1479 ft.
  Falls #1:  35.53247   -92.88207, 1140 ft
  Falls #2:  35.53264   -92.88230,  1168 ft
  Grapevine Shelter Falls:  35.53197   -92.88488,  1165 ft
  Falls #4:  35.53180   -92.88478,  1147 ft
  Falls #5:  35.53064   -92.88563,  1145 ft
  Falls #6:  35.53057   -92.88554,  1134 ft
  Falls #7:  35.53027   -92.88443,  1053 ft
  Falls #8:  35.53060  -92.88441,  1053 ft
  Falls #9:  35.52804   -92.88410,  972 ft

Pet-Friendly:  Dogs off leash should be okay.  Dogs on a leash are always difficult in bushwhacking areas, but it can be done.  

Motorcycle Friendly:  No. Parking is off Lindsey Mountain Motorway.  This is a not-so-good dirt road many miles down other dirt roads.  Not recommended for street bikes and cruisers.

Hiking Statistics:  From top to bottom, the Blue Hole SIA is about 1000 feet of elevation change.  Today, we hiked 2.1 miles with a "highest to lowest" elevation change of 461 feet.  Roughly half of the hiking was along an ATV trail, which is fairly easy.  Probably half was what I would call a moderately difficult bushwhack.  We were hiking for 2 hours and 15 minutes on the track at the bottom of this post.

GPS files (.gpx format) - Maps of the GPS track are at the bottom of this post.
  Blue Hole Special Interest Area Waypoints
  Grapevine Shelter waterfalls GPS track

Blog posts for nearby areas:
  Sand Cave Hollow polyfoss
  Wolf Den Hollow
  Grapevine Shelter, Blue Hole Falls, and Green Grotto Falls
  Hurricane Creek

Grapevine Shelter Falls
with (L-R) Rick, David, and Dan

The Blue Hole area is what is called a "Special Interest Area" (SIA).  There are a plethora of Land Management "area" designations, and this one is supposed to be for areas that have some special characteristic that gives it unusual scientific or recreational value.   The Blue Hole SIA is well known for the Blue Hole Cascades, that you can drive a good 4WD or ATV right down to.  These two waterfalls always get some ooohs and aaaahs, but rarely does anyone even venture into the other parts of this SIA, which in my mind have much more awe-inspiring waterfalls and other features.  The Grapevine Shelter is one of those, perched about halfway down Grapevine Mountain.  Today, it was supposed to start raining mid-morning and come down heavy all day, but Dan Frew, David Dedman, and I thought we could get in a quick hike to this area before the rain started.  We met up early in Dover for breakfast and got started.

Pedestal Rock near Falls #2

To get to the parking location, drive north from Hector on Highway 27.  Less than a mile from the Big Piney Ranger station in Hector, you cross over Dare Creek.  Immediately after crossing Dare Creek, turn right onto White Oak Mountain Road (aka FR-1301).  This is a gravel road but is a well-traveled and fairly well-maintained road.  Go 11.4 miles on White Oak Mountain Road.  Be careful 7.2 miles from Highway 27 and bear left where the road branches at the 'Y' in the road.  After following White Oak Mountain Road for 11.4 miles, turn left onto Lindsey Mountain Motorway.  Go 1.8 miles, then turn down the Jeep road on the left and park.  

Falls #1

We started our hike down the Jeep road, but only for a short distance.  As soon as we neared the top of the drainage to our left, we veered off the road to the left (south) and bushwhacked down into the drainage.  Falls #1 and Falls #2 are below the major bluffline on Grapevine Mountain on this drainage.  From there, instead of following the creek downstream, we followed the bluff around to our right (west) for a little less than a quarter mile.   Grapevine Shelter is about the same elevation as those first two waterfalls we found, in a small side drainage to the west.  This is a large shelter-type cave that Dan had found in an earlier hike in the area.  This one happens to have a unique crag over the top that also guides a very tall waterfall flowing right over the front of the mouth of the cave.  I had been here before, but the waterfall is definitely a wet weather one, and we wanted to see it after the six inches of rain that had dropped on the area the last few days.    This cave was apparently used by someone in the past.  There is a rock with something the dirt dobbers have covered up and the date "September 1922".

Waterfall in the back of Grapevine Shelter

We spent a good deal of time at Grapevine Shelter.  Not just because it is awesome, which it is, but just like on my previous visit here, we actually used it as a shelter.  It had been raining off and on, and it was nice to have a dry location to go to when the rain started coming down.  I have done scaling with a photo of Grapevine Shelter Falls and found it to be 46 feet tall.  Today, there was actually a waterfall coming out of a hole in the back of this very large cave.  What a cool camping spot, eh?  A large, roomy shelter with running water.  I noticed something else different as well - some inconsiderate jerk had taken a felt tip pen and written on one of the rocks.  I couldn't tell what, but just seeing it aggravates me.  Why do people feel the need to come to places like this and ruin it for the rest of us?  This kind of stuff makes me seriously ponder on whether I should be giving directions to everyone on how to find these places.  If the problem persists, I'll keep writing for myself, but I will no longer publish them for the public at large.  

Grapevine Shelter Falls, inside out

Okay, rant over, I feel better for venting.  But remember the prime directive, people - Leave no trace.  We prefer our wilderness pristine.  Just downstream, the creek seems to run right into some large boulders.  There is actually another small cave here, with Falls #4 falling right inside it.  The pool Falls #4 falls into takes most of the room inside, and the creek runs out under the rocks in the back.  Today, the flow was so great that we could not get into the side cave for a shot of the waterfall inside.Leaving Grapevine Shelter, we continued around the bluff.  There is another drainage further around the bluff another hundred yards or so coming off Grapevine Mountain.  

Falls #2

This little drainage on the side of Grapevine Mountain has scads of nice waterfalls.  Falls #5 and Falls #6 are on the same bluffline as Grapevine Shelter Falls and the creeks from both flow together downstream.  Both Falls #7 and Falls #8 are approximately a hundred yards downstream at the junction of these creeks.   The creek downstream of Falls #1 and Falls #2 likewise flows into this creek, with Falls #9 on this combined Grapevine Mountain creek 200 yards from that junction.  The Grapevine Mountain Creek continues on for a quarter mile more before flowing into Hurricane Creek.  See the map at the bottom of this post for reference.

Cascade below Falls #2

The last time I came through here, we continued on hiking down to the two Blue Hole Falls that make up Blue Hole Cascades, then a larger loop up into Wolf Den Hollow and Green Grotto Falls.  Today, however, we didn't want to get too far from the vehicles.  We headed up the bluff from Falls #6 and climbed up to the ATV trail, then hiked that back to the parking location.  The slope out on this end of Grapevine Mountain is not quite as steep as the slope we descended on, but it is still a climb of more than a couple of hundred feet.  Once on the ATV trail, it is easy hiking, mostly on the level.  I would rate this as a moderate bushwhack, just for the moderate climb at the end.  This time of year, the undergrowth is not that much of a problem.  This one in the bag, we headed over to the Sand Cave Hollow waterfalls to see if we could press our luck on the rain.

Grapevine Mountain GPS track