Wolf Creek and Left Fork Big Creek Caves and Waterfalls, Ozarks north of Cowell, Arkansas

2/27/2018 - Big Creek Cave Falls, Wolf Creek Cave Falls, more waterfalls, caves, and "Stuff you might find in the Ozarks"

GPS Coordinates:  Latitude/Longitude/Elevation
  Parking:  35.87684, -93.16071,  1162 feet
  Big Creek Cave Falls:  35.86318, -93.15447,  1294 feet
  Wolf Creek Cave Falls:  35.86063,  -93.15244,  1297 feet
  Underground Falls:  35.86074,  -93.15257,  1281 feet
  Cave Creek Cascade:  35.86384,  -93.15439,  1267 feet
  Mine shaft:  35.85954,  -93.15322,  1309 feet
  Unnamed Cave Falls:  35.85954,  -93.15350,  1300 feet
  Unnamed Wolf Creek Falls #1:  35.86265,  -93.15121,  1292 feet
  Unnamed Wolf Creek Falls #2:  35.86225,  -93.14889
  Unnamed Wolf Creek Falls #3:  35.86211,  -93.14881,  1425 ft.
  Turn off trail to Wolf Creek Falls #3:  35.86147,  -93.14929,  1408 ft.
  Turn off trail to Cave Creek Cascade:  35.86472,  -93.15319,  1239 feet
  Rock Peninsula Falls:  35.86666,  -93.15417,  1214 feet
  Turn off trail to Rock Peninsula Falls area:  35.86736,  -93.15412, 1223 feet
  Old homestead with antique car bodies:  35.86826,  -93.15399, 1260 feet

Pet friendly:  Yes, I usually take Boomer with me when I go here.  One word of caution - if your dog needs to stay on leash, it should be OK unless you venture off trail and do any significant bushwhacking.  There are a lot of briers and underbrush in this area.  Around the upper two waterfalls on Wolf Creek, Boomer struggled a little finding a way in and out, but he managed.

Motorcycle friendly:  Not really.  It is 2.8 miles down a marginal gravel road.  I would never take mine on it, but I know a lot of you riders don't see that as a challenge at all.  As one of my nephews puts it, "my driveway is longer and rougher than that."

Hiking Statistics:  We logged 4.25 miles round trip today, with a highest-to-lowest elevation change of 400 feet.  Our hike was cut short today by a thunderstorm; normally we wander around for well over six miles here, just exploring a little while hitting all the other stuff we already know we wanted to see.  I would rate this a moderate bushwhack.  Quite a bit of hiking is along old trace roads.  The only difficult bushwhacking is climbing up and down at creek level on Wolf Creek

GPS files (.gpx format) - Maps of the GPS track are at the bottom of this post.
  Big Creek Cave area waypoints
  Big Creek Cave and Wolf Creek GPS track for today's hike

Note - this post adds some new features I found on this hike.  Previous blog posts to the Big Creek Cave area:
  Feb 6, 2016
  Jan 27, 2015
  

Wolf Creek Falls #3

With all the recent rainfall after our extended drought, I have been torn on where to go.  After almost no rain for a half year, we finally got eight inches of rain over about a one week period.  Needless to say, the creeks, streams, and waterfalls are gushing.  I wanted to get out and see some of my favorites in all their glory, but I also wanted to go see some areas on my "wet weather" list that I still have not seen with a good amount of water flow.  I finally settled on one of my old favorites, the Big Creek Cave Falls area, because it has lots of cool stuff AND it has waterfalls on Wolf Creek that I still have not seen with decent water flow.  It was just me and Boomer (our German Shepherd) today, and with more rain threatening to blow in, we got out as early as we could and headed north.

Wolf Creek Cave Falls

To get there, go north on Highway 7 another 1.3 miles from the Highway 16 intersection going to Deer. Turn right onto NC-6840.  There is a one-story frame farmhouse here on the right and this looks like a couple of ruts going behind the guy's house as if it is his driveway.  It isn't.  It actually turns into a decent one-lane forest service gravel road. Go 2.8 miles from Highway 7 on this road and park on the right by a metal gate. The power line ends there at what was an old homestead years ago, one of at least three that I know of in the area. There is no trace of a house left, but there is a rock storm shelter remaining. There is a metal gate here across an old road leading past the homestead site and you can park in the small loop off the road by this gate.  Note that NC-6840 is the 'new' Newton County road number.  Old maps will have that as FR-1224 or CR-59, and it is sometimes referred to as Cowell Road.  NC-6840 is the only road sign you will see when turning off Highway 7.

Ford across Left Fork Big Creek

On a previous blog post, I detailed step-by-step hiking directions to the various features in this area.  I even included photos of the area at each major turn and section of the hike to get you over the field, across Left Fork Big Creek, and onto the old trace road.  I won't reiterate all that mass of detail, I'll just direct you to them at the link here. That's an awful lot of detail to copy and would just needlessly clutter this blog post.  One note here on my directions; this is one of the few hikes where I deviate from the route in Tim Ernst's Arkansas Waterfalls book.  This excellent book has been my hiking bible and was my guide for my first visit to the area, many years ago.  I have since used a much easier route that utilizes the old trace roads in the area.

Rock Peninsula Falls

Boomer and I hiked straight through, across the first creek you ford, which is Right Fork Big Creek, across the small field, across the big field, across the ford on Left Fork Big Creek, and then we took the trail along the left (east) side of the creek.  We detoured off to go to Rock Peninsula Falls and snap a couple of photos.    From there, we took an old trace that runs closest to the creek and runs into the trail we had been on.  We got a little surprise today in that it looks like erosion from the creek has caused a small landslide, and a section of this old road was completely gone, leaving a dropoff of about 20 feet to the creek below.  We could hike around the eroded area easily enough, but I'll just have to remember to stay on the main trail running along the east side of the creek in the future.

Wolf Creek Falls #1 - with Boomer

We continued hiking up the trail to where it crosses Wolf Creek, then we hiked upstream on Wolf Creek on the right (west) side until we got to Falls #1.  I had only seen this waterfall previously with a little dribble of flow, and today it looked great.  From there, I knew I wanted to go upstream to look for more waterfalls, and it appeared it was easier to go up through a break on the left (east) side of the waterfall.  Climbing up above Falls #1 and heading upstream, there is a tall, solid rock cliff on the east side, with the creek running very close to it.  Our hiking, therefore, was confined to the right (west) side of the creek, and it is very rugged with a steep slope and lots of huge rocks to maneuver around.  In the future, I'll be going in the opposite direction we did today; I'll explain later.

In addition to Wolf Creek Cave and Big Creek Cave, which are well known, there are a number of caves in the area, and some fairly big ones at that.  Because the others are not well known and are wild caves, I won't be sharing the location data for them.  I hate to leave the blog post incomplete, but because of the small fraction of people that just can't seem to go to fantastic places like this without leaving graffiti or removing and damaging artifacts, I'm not making public any location data for wild caves and sites I find that have any kind of historical or archeological significance.  Not ones that are not already well known, anyway.  I apologize and hate that the sins of the very few dictate measures like this, but there it is.

Wolf Creek Falls #2

After climbing upstream to Falls #2, I thought that it was a little difficult to get to.  That was a walk in the park compared to Falls #3.  I could see the upper part of Falls #3 from Falls #2, so I was determined to get to it, and by climbing through some narrow cracks and over and around boulders, then climbing up the steep bluff and back down to the base of Falls #3, we finally got there.  It was worth it.  This waterfall reminds me a lot of Thunder Canyon Falls, one of my favorites.  It is about the same size and twists down a narrow chute.  Falls #3 has a big sentinal rock that splits the flow as it comes down, making the roar that much louder and making the waterfall that much prettier.  Wolf Creek has a lot of drainage area upstream and looks like it should have a lot of flow most of the year, but I know that is not the case.  That being said, when the wet weather does hit, this one should definitely be on your list to go see.

Wolf Creek Falls #3

Climbing back up the bluff to get out of the area below Falls #3, Boomer really struggled to find a path he could climb up the rocks to get to the steep earth slope above the creek.  Once he had dirt he could dig into, he was okay and I was the one trying to climb without slipping.  I was dreading hiking downstream on the very steep slope, so I stopped and took another look at the old Forest Service maps.  Sure enough, it indicated an old road running down the spur along the top of this slope.  We hiked up and around the spur a short distance and found it.  That made it much, much easier to hike down.  My recommendation would be to hike up this road to the point I marked in the GPS coordinates above, then cut over and drop right down to Falls #3.  It is much easier going up the road and then down the creek instead of vice versa.

Vehicle at the old homestead site

After taking the old trace road down the hill to where our trail had crossed Wolf Creek, we turned left and crossed Cove Branch to go upstream to Wolf Creek.  One of the things that have always bothered me is why Wolf Creek Cave is not on Wolf Creek, and why Big Creek Cave is not on Big Creek.  Big Creek Cave Falls runs into Cove Branch, near the junction with Wolf Creek, but at least all of this is in the larger Big Creek watershed.  Wolf Creek and Cove Branch flow together to form Left Fork Big Creek, which then flows into Big Creek itself.  I think somewhere along the way, someone got confused.  If you look on the really old USGS maps, what is now Cove Branch was labeled Wolf Creek, which makes sense then for Wolf Creek Cave Falls flowing into it.  What is now Wolf Creek was labeled "Cave Branch", which some drunk cartographer must have transcribed and mixed up as "Cove Branch".  That's my theory, anyway.

Wolf Creek Cave Falls

We went upstream on Cove Branch to Wolf Creek Cave with the skies getting very dark and ominous, so Boomer and I rushed through some photos.  Coming back down to where the creek from Wolf Creek Cave flows into the cave with Underground Falls, we stopped only long enough to snap a couple of photos and a video with my cell phone.  It was thundering and we felt a few raindrops, so I decided to cut the exploration short for today and just hit Big Creek Cave Falls on our way out.  By the time we hiked the short distance back downstream on Cove Branch to the drainage with Big Creek Cave Falls, it was starting to rain.  Thinking we might get lucky and it might blow over, I detoured over to Cave Creek Cave to see if we could wait it out.  

Big Creek Cave Falls 

Cave Creek Cave is the large shelter cave where the water from Big Creek Cave Falls that goes underground at the base of the falls comes back out of the ground.  While Boomer and I were taking refuge from the rain there, we had a pleasant surprise.  Kristin Jones and Harrison Sutcliffe, both of whom I had known only through social media, were also out in the area today and came up to the cave.  It is always great to meet folks I know of, but have never met in person, out in the wilderness.  Kristin had been watching the radar and informed me that this storm probably would not be blowing over.  We all decided to head back before it got too bad.  Boomer and I made a quick trip around the bluff to Big Creek Cave for a couple of photos, and Harrison and Kristin headed for the creek crossing and the old homestead with the old cars.  

Old Homestead site

Boomer and I also made a quick stop at the old homestead site, then went back to the lower trail and headed back as we had hiked out.  The rain had already made the lower trail much soggier than it had been on the way in.  We managed to get back to the FJ before the rain really started coming down, although we were soaked anyway.  All in all, it was a shorter trip to one of my favorite places, and I wish we could have had a few more hours to explore and not be in a rush, but I'm glad we got out and did the hike.  I was finally able to see Wolf Creek with enough flow to make the waterfalls on it look great, and Falls #3 is well worth the trip by itself.  This area has a lot to offer in a relatively small area and is always highly recommended.

Big Creek Cave Falls area - GPS track for today's hike