Thursday, March 14, 2019

Grimmet Springs Area Waterfalls, Ozarks north of Dover, Arkansas

3/14/2019 -  Grimmet Springs Hollow Waterfalls

GPS Coordinates:  (Latitude,  Longitude,  Elevation)
  Parking location:  35.504632,-93.153892,  977 ft.
  Falls #1:  35.506783,-93.154270,  810 ft.
  Falls #2:  35.508060,-93.154787
  Falls #3:  35.509578,-93.149930
  Falls #4:  35.509625,-93.149729
  Falls #5:  35.510211,-93.148603,  649 ft.
  Old Trace Road:  35.510119,-93.148599,  661 ft.
  Falls #6:  35.510446,-93.145270,  720 ft.
  Falls #7:  35.511081,-93.144949
  Falls #8:  35.511479,-93.144659,  833 ft.
  Falls #9:  35.510214,-93.143952
  Falls #10:  35.510267,-93.142212
  Falls #11:  35.510221,-93.141963
  Falls #12:  35.510413,-93.141759
  Falls #13:  35.508384,-93.139575
  Falls #14:  35.508703,-93.139417
  Falls #15:  35.507397,-93.137720,  825 ft.
  Falls #16:  35.507580,-93.137463
  Falls #17:  35.507795,-93.135991,  862 ft.

Pet Friendly: Dogs off leash should be okay.  If your dog needs to be on a leash, it will be inadvisable to take it because of the steepness and ruggedness of the terrain.  Boomer had a little difficulty in a couple of places scrambling up and around big boulders, but he managed to find a way.  Your dog's mileage may vary.


Hiking Statistics:  Boomer and I hiked 4.6 miles today, mostly along the creeks in each prong of the hollow.  The minimum-to-maximum elevation difference was 435 feet, with a fair amount of going up on bluffs and into side drainages, then back down to the creek.  The return around the top of the hollow to the parking location in on an old logging road, making up about 1/3 of the hike.  The rest was all a bushwhack, usually in rough terrain and rock-hopping along the creek.  I would rate this a moderate bushwhack.

GPS files (.gpx format) - See maps at the bottom of this blog post
  Grimmet Springs Hollow waypoints
  Grimmet Springs Hollow GPS track

Links to blog posts for nearby areas:

  Rough Hollow Waterfalls
  Longpool Falls
  Twister Falls and Upper Longpool Creek

Falls #1

I have been trying to get out more to some of the areas in the western Ozarks since I have kind of ignored that great trekking area the last couple of years.  But it seems like they have been getting somewhat less rain recently than we have around our home north of Dover.  When I went to Christmas Falls a few days ago, the amount of flow in the waterfalls was somewhat disappointing.  Today, I opted to stay a little closer to home.  Really close, in fact; this is less than 10 miles from our house.  While we were driving back from a hike a couple of weeks ago, my friend Dan Frew pointed out a little unnamed hollow off Big Piney Creek.  He had recently hiked through the hollow and found a few waterfalls, so I thought I would go take a look today.  To be clear, this is an unnamed hollow.  That doesn't seem to work well for my blog readers since there are quite a few unnamed hollows, so I'm referring to it as Grimmet Springs Hollow since Grimmet Springs is near the mouth of this hollow on Old Highway 7, where the hollow drains into Big Piney.  


Boomer (our German Shepherd) and I loaded up in the FJ Cruiser and drove north.  As I mentioned, it is a very short ride.  The driving directions are really simple as well.  To get there, we'll start at Dover:  
  • From the junction of Highways 7 and 27 (aka the Dover town square, where the PDQ and Dover fire station is), go north on Highway 7 for 6.4 miles.
  • Turn left on New Three Knob Mountain Road.  This is a paved road to start, then becomes a pretty good gravel road.
  • Go 2.7 miles on New Three Knob Mountain Road and park off the road where a 4WD road intersects on the right.  This is the parking location.
It is only 0.9 miles further on New Three Knob Mountain Road to Old Highway 7 (aka Longpool Road) if you want even less dirt road.


Falls #15
Grimmet Springs Hollow has two major prongs (see the map below), one on the west side and the main prong on the north side.  I wanted to check out both prongs, and explore some of the side drainages on the larger north prong.  My plan today was just to make a big loop, down one prong and back up the other.  The 4WD road where I parked looks like an old logging road, and loops around the top of the prongs and forks in the hollow.  Boomer and I started by taking this trail around to the top of the west prong and starting our hike downstream.  having done that, the creek in this prong is pretty but other than a couple of small waterfalls there isn't much to see until you get down to Falls #1, which we found about a quarter mile downstream from where the old road crossed the top of the west prong.  I think you are better off just hiking down into the hollow from the parking location.  The bank on the west side seems to be more open with a better slope and is easier hiking than right alongside the creek.  My advice would be just to angle downslope toward Falls #1 from the git-go.


Falls #1
The bluffline break we came down through to get to the base of Falls #1 is also on the left (west) side as you go downstream, so hiking straight to it works for that as well.  Falls #1 is a beautiful waterfall tumbling over a fairly high bluffline, one of the most picturesque waterfalls we saw today.  Even if you don't want to make the whole big loop as I did today, this one is well worth the trip down and back to the New Three Knob Mountain Road.  There are a couple of small waterfalls just downstream of it that adds to the beauty of the area.  Other than this one, there was only one other waterfall in the west prong, Falls #2, that I thought was photo-worthy today.  Falls #2 was about 150 yards downstream from Falls #1.  Boomer and I continued hiking downstream on the west prong, cutting around the spur between the prongs as we approached the junction of the two prongs.

Falls #11
As we rounded the spur between prongs, I couldn't help but notice the tall, sheer, bluffs rising up at the top of the ridge.  In the north prong, those big bluffs are prominent on both sides, but particularly so on the north side.  I hiked up to it while exploring one side drainage today, but it was apparent that there was more to see here than what I had time for today.  Someday in the drier seasons, this will be a good place to come to for a hike, just exploring the big bluffs on the north wall of this hollow.  We followed the old trace road for a short distance until I small waterfalls on the creek below, then descended down to hike along the creek.  Falls #3 and Falls #4 were long, tall, cascades where side drainages fell steeply down to the main creek.  Falls #5 is on the main creek and is more of a huge rock with water flowing off all sides than it is a waterfall.  It is about a half mile upstream from the junction of the two prongs in this hollow.


Falls #5
Looking across the creek from Falls #5, I could see the distinctive flat cutback of an old road just a dozen feet above the creek bed.  Climbing up to it, we utilized that to hike further upstream.  This old trace road probably came all the way up from the mouth of the hollow near Big Piney Creek at one time, an old logging and wagon road to access the upper parts of this hollow.  It has been many years since it was used for anything, however.  There are fairly good sized trees growing out of the middle of where it was carved into the bank, and in one place the roadbed has slid off into the creek, leaving only about a foot or two of the old trace to hike along.  Old trace roads like this aren't usable for any kind of mechanized vehicle anymore, but they generally make much better hiking surfaces for people and horses.  Just having a relatively flat, low-slope surface without jumbles of loose rock and boulders makes hiking much easier.  We followed this just above the creek, sometimes dipping down to creek level, another quarter mile upstream to Falls #6, in a side drainage on the right.


Falls #16
Falls #6 could have used more water today, but I noticed all the water flowing over it disappeared immediately into the ground.  Looking back across the creek on the left, there was a more sizable tributary drainage, but it was also completely dry.  Looking higher up, I could see the glint of white water in the upper part of the side creek, so Boomer and I ventured up to check it out.  We found Falls #7 and Fall #8 up in this side drainage and marveled again at some of the large bluffs high on the ridge here.  Continuing upstream, over the next quarter mile we found Falls #9, Falls #10, Falls #11 and Falls #12.  Another Quarter mile above that, Falls #13 and Falls #14 were in a side drainage on the left.  If you look at a topo map, these tributaries on the left side actually have a fairly large drainage area above them.  Some of the waterfalls in them were a little lacking for water today, but the creeks are starting to dry up now.  With some spring rains, these waterfalls in the side drainages might look really good.  


Stacked rock berm near Falls #15 and Falls #16
Just upstream from Falls #13, the north prong splits into two major forks, with each having a nice waterfall at that point.  Falls #15 is in the smaller fork on the right, with a huge sentinel bluff standing above it where the creeks fork.  Just upstream on the main fork is a shelter cave, with Falls #16 at the upstream end of the overhang.  There are some signs of human habitation here as well.  Across the creek from the shelter cave, there is a stacked-rock berm along the creek.  Above this old berm wall, there is only a distance of about four or five feet to the bluff behind it, so I'm not sure what the purpose might have been.  Flood waters and erosion can change the face of the land in these hollows in just a few decades, so there is no telling what this area looked like when that berm wall was stacked.  Under the overhang of the shelter, it looks like there had been some activity at one time.  If I had to guess, I would say this was the site of a still.  It seems like we find a place where a still had been operated in almost every hollow.


Falls #17
Falls #16 is a bank-to-bank kind of waterfall, so Boomer and I climbed above the berm wall and then above the bluff to continue our hike upstream.  Approximately 150 yards upstream, we found Fall #17, a small two-tiered waterfall.  What makes this one unique is that it had a long section of pipeline pipe laying across the entire thing.  I'm used to finding all kinds of stuff in the Ozarks.  Nature has a lot of weird things in itself, and everywhere mankind goes they tend to leave their trash and anything else that happens to get away from them.  This was a section of heavy gauge pipe, 3/16" wall thickness about a foot in diameter and about 25 feet long.  Looking it up in the tables, that chunk of pipe has to weigh well over 1,000 pounds, so I can only imagine the forces necessary to move it downstream to where it is now.  There is a pipeline laid under the creek about 50 yards upstream, and no doubt it got away from the construction crew somehow and ended up here.  From the amount of rust on the welding bevel at the end of the pipe, it must have been here quite a few years.  It sucks that some crew left it to clutter up our wilderness, but I'm not sure how it could be retrieved at this point.


Falls #16
Moving upstream from Falls #17, Boomer and I soon crossed the pipeline right-of-way.  We continued on upstream to where the old logging road wrapped around the tops of the forks, the one we parked on earlier and turned right onto it to hike back to the FJ.  Crossing back over the pipeline right-of-way, I looked down and the creek was less than 200 feet away.  Another lesson learned I can pass on is that there is no need to bushwhack upstream until you find the old 4WD road.  After Falls #17 (Pipeline Falls?), there isn't really anything else to see, and it's easy to just go up the pipeline access which will be kept clear.  The hike back to the parking location on the logging road is almost two miles, but it is mostly on the level and easy hiking.  This was a pretty cool little area, unexpectedly nice, rugged and isolated in an area so close to the River Valley.  I'll need to return to the larger waterfalls when it greens up some, as well as to do some further exploration in the side drainages.  Exploring the big bluffs on the north rim will be a fun hike for one of those days when the creeks are all dry and we need to get out somewhere.
Grimmet Springs Hollow
GPS Track
Old trace road along the creek in the north prong - with Boomer.
Note that at this point, most of the roadbed has eroded away.
Falls #2
Boomer!  Along creek in the north prong of Grimmet Springs Hollow
Falls #10
Falls #11
Falls #12
Bluffs on the north rim of Grimmet Springs Hollow

Bluffs on the north rim of Grimmet Springs Hollow
Sentinel Bluff above Falls #15

Sunday, March 10, 2019

Christmas Falls, Western Ozarks north of Cass, Arkansas

3/10/2019 - Christmas Falls

GPS Coordinates:  (Latitude,  Longitude,  Elevation)

  Parking location: 35.741410,-93.778139,  1957 ft.
  Falls #1:  35.740741,-93.777116
  Turn left onto old trace road:  35.738698,-93.777420,  1777 ft.
  Falls #2:  35.740337,-93.774391,  1698 ft.
  Falls #3:  35.739633,-93.774734,  1631 ft.
  Bluffline break:  35.738705,-93.774513
  Christmas Falls:  35.738947,-93.774612,  1546 ft.
  Falls #5:  35.737621,-93.773884
  Falls #6:  35.736188,-93.774015
  Falls #7:  35.735492,-93.773850,  1349 ft.

Pet-Friendly:  Dogs will okay off leash.  A good deal of this is bushwhacking, even if it is following an old road, so putting your dog on a leash will be overly cumbersome.  It is very steep and sometimes slippery in places, so use your own judgment on your dog's abilities.

Hiking Statistics:  Today's hike to Christmas Falls was 3.5 miles round trip, completed in 3:47 hours.  Christmas Hollow is 1063 feet of elevation change from top to bottom, and the minimum-to-maximum elevation difference today was 731 feet.  That being said, I did a lot of exploring today.  The 'best route' I mapped out below is 0.81 miles each way, with an elevation difference of about 400 feet.  To just go to Christmas Falls is less than half the hike I did today.  I would rate this a difficult bushwhack due to the ruggedness of the terrain.  In the 'leaves-on season', undergrowth will be a factor as well.

GPS files (.gpx format) - See maps at the bottom of this blog post
  Christmas Falls waypoints
  Christmas Falls GPS track

Links to blog posts for other nearby areas:
  Sixty-Foot Falls
  Bootlegger Falls


Christmas Falls (47 ft.)
I like getting out and exploring new places.  Sometimes I'll be cruising around the National Forest lands, look down into a big hollow, and think "I wonder what's down there?"  Sometimes, I'll search through the topo maps and find places that I think the topography would be great for waterfalls, and just plan a hike there.  There is something about finding a waterfall for the first time that gives me an unparalleled buzz, like a super dose of endorphins.  That's right - I get high off of nature, that's how boring and square I am.  That being said, I certainly enjoy getting out and finding waterfalls others have located before as well.  In addition to guidebooks like Tim Ernst's' Arkansas Waterfalls, there are a lot of folks that have done a fair amount of exploring already and can point you to some of the better places that no one else knows about.  My friend Dan Frew has made it a life goal to visit every nook and cranny of the Ozarks.  He frequently takes me into new places or points me to them.  Dan grew up in the area and spends much of his time out hiking new areas, but he still has many hollows, valleys, and bluffs to explore, and I'm always happy to tag along.  A few folks have documented their finds pretty well with photos and information, like Danny Hale, Brent Robinson, Brian Emfinger, and Patrick Caple, among others.

Then there is John Moore, who was out photographing and exploring the Ozarks long before most of us came along, like Tim Ernst.  John left a trail of beautiful photographs in the old Panoramio system that I have found very useful when I utilize Google Earth in my planning.  When looking into a new area, I often find that John has been there before and had found some photo-worthy stuff.  John also started keeping a chronicle of his explorations after his sons came along and documenting their adventures in his MooreMonkeys online journal.  It was there that I found an entry back on Boxing Day in 2003 for Christmas Falls.  He had some good reasons for naming this 47-foot waterfall Christmas Falls.  Intrigued by such a big, beautiful waterfall that I had never heard of, I did some research on it.  I found nothing, nada.  Weird, right?  So I had no choice but to go check it out.  Not knowing what kind of terrain I might find, I left Boomer (the magnificent mountain dog) at home with Bethany and set out for the western Ozarks.  Christmas Falls is on one of the tributaries of Mountain Creek, in the valley just east of Sixty-Foot Falls, so I expected it to be somewhat steep and rugged.


Turn off Highway 23 onto Fly Gap Road
Getting to the parking location for Christmas Falls was really straightforward and easy, although a bit of a long drive from our house north of Dover.  John had even included a map of the area on his journal, so I had a lot more than I normally did when scoping out a new area.  To get there, I'll start at exit 35 on I-40, as I often do for areas in the western Ozarks:

  • Leave I-40 at exit 35 and turn north on highway 23 (aka "The Pig Trail").
  • Go north on Highway 23 for 19.8 miles and turn right (east) on Fly Gap Road (aka CR-81).
  • Go 2.8 miles on Fly Gap Road.  Where Fly Gap Road bends sharply to the left here, pull off on the right where there is a gated NFS road.  This is the parking location.

Falls #7
From the parking location, if you go down Fly Gap Road a couple hundred more feet you will find a 4WD road on the right going down into the hollow.  I suppose you could park down this road, but it doesn't go very far before becoming basically just an ATV trail.  The parking location at the bend in Fly Gap Road was the best place I saw to park.  I hiked down the ATV trail, following it around a bend to the right.  At the first drainage the trail crosses, I heard the sound of falling water and found Falls #1 just below the trail.  Approximately 300 yards down the trail is where you need to turn left onto an old trace road.  This is where I started having a little problem with John Moore's map.  In the 15 years since he sketched the map, things have changed some.  The ATV trail I started on from Fly Gap Road was still in pretty good shape but has some big trees down across it that will prevent ATV use.  The old trace road that cuts back across the top of the hollow has become so overgrown that I couldn't see where it turned off the ATV trail.  


Falls #2
I was looking intently for the old road that John had drawn on his map and still missed it.  I went way past where I should have turned, realized that I must have missed it, and doubled back on the trail to just start bushwhacking across the top of the hollow.  I finally found the old trace road and followed it as well as I could.  It is overgrown enough that even after you find it, it is easy to lose it, and even when you know where it is, it is sometimes overgrown such that you can't hike down it.  On my return hike back out of the hollow, I made an effort to stick to the old trace road and got a good track all the way from the top of the drainage containing Christmas Falls to where it intersects the ATV trail.  I have marked coordinates for that intersection in the list of GPS coordinates above.  The blue 'best route' track I have drawn on the maps below will follow that route.  When I come back to this waterfall during "leaves-on" season, it will be harder to find, but at least now I have a good GPS track to follow.  If you aren't using a handheld GPS or a phone app like BackCountry Navigator (what I use) or GAIA (what many others use), this would be a good time to start.


Falls #3
Coming around the top of the drainage containing Christmas Falls, I dropped down to the creek and started following the creek downstream.  At the top of the drainage, the old trace road has been eroded away and all traces of it have disappeared in a mini-landslide.  This drainage is very steep, and I ended up sliding on my butt down the bank downstream of Falls #2, which I found near the top of the drainage.  There is another nice waterfall, Falls #3, in a side drainage on the right a little further downstream.  Falls #3 is about 18 feet tall, and with a little more water will look really nice.  That being said, I'm not sure it's worth the effort to get to it without better flow than it had today.  It will be a lot easier to stay on the bluff above the creek and hike down on the left to get to the top of Christmas Falls.  More flow will make Falls #3 look really nice, but it will also make it that much more difficult to hike down this narrow, steep, drainage.  My next visit when it is wetter and greener, I'm sure I'll go visit Falls #3 just because I'll want to see how much different it looks.  


Christmas Falls
From where the old trace road crossed the top of the drainage, it is only about 200 yards to the top of Christmas Falls.  It's kind of rough, rugged, and steep going down along and in the creek, but at least it is just a short distance.  From the top of Christmas Falls, there is a high, unbroken bluff extending for as far as you can see on the right.  On the left, however, there is a nice bluffline break that is easily navigable just a few yards from the top of Christmas Falls.  Descending down to the base of the waterfall, I got that euphoric rush I talked about earlier.  It needs more flow in the creek to look its best, but it was still quite impressive.  John Moore measured this with some fishing line at 47 feet tall, although it hits a ledge halfway down.  It has a wide, flat top like Hamilton Falls so it won't take much more flow to make it look spectacular.  I spent a good deal of time here snapping a few photos and just enjoying the scenery.   I was hoping there would be more flow here today.  It has been a couple of weeks since the area got any rain, but yesterday the Weather Underground station at Mountainburg indicated over a half inch of rain, so I was hopeful.  Here, though, the leaves were dry and crunchy and I had kicked up some dust as I drove down Fly Gap Road.  I'll make sure it is wetter next time I come here.


Falls #6
Heading downstream from Christmas Falls, I soon came to a side drainage on the left and followed it upstream less than a hundred yards to Falls #5.  This is a nice two-tiered waterfall about 25 feet high overall.  Going back to the main creek, I followed it downstream another hundred yards to Falls #6 and then Falls #7 a hundred yards past that.  The main creek in this hollow is the left fork of Right Prong Mountain Creek.  I followed it most of the way down to where it flows into the other fork to form Right Prong Mountain Creek.  It drops very steeply, and despite having a very large drainage area above it, the main creek was completely dry about a half mile from where it flows into Right Prong Mountain Creek.  Downstream of Falls #7, the water in the creek just disappears.  With the amount of flow upstream, combined with the flow from side drainages, there is a lot of water going underground here.  That happens a lot with karst formations in the Ozarks and indicates a lot of potential for large caves in the area.  


Downstream of Falls #7, the creek is completely dry
From my vantage point downstream of Falls #7, I could see where some nice waterfalls would be if there were water in the main creek, but today they were bone dry.  It will be interesting to see how much flow remains in the creek when I come back for a visit in wetter times.  Today, however, I could see a good deal of the way to Right Prong Mountain Creek and saw nothing but dry creek with a few pools of water.  Deciding to head back, I started climbing the bluff on the right (east) side of the hollow.  Instead of trying to bushwhack up along the creek with the loose rock jumbles and briers, it is usually much better to gain a little altitude and get into better bushwhacking territory.  I reasoned that the old trace road that cut back across the top of the hollow would extend out along the same bench it was on.  Sure enough, after climbing several benches and almost 500 feet of elevation, I found the old trace road and followed it back.  


Christmas Falls
On this side of the hollow, the old trace road was actually in better condition, although very faint in spots and easy to lose.  Once on it, I made pretty good time until I got to the top of the main drainage above Christmas Falls.  From there back across the hollow to the ATV trail I had first headed down, there was quite a bit more undergrowth, but easily manageable.  As I mentioned above, I was careful to stick to the old road as much as possible to get a good track on it for future use.  It is a little thick going along this portion of the old trace road, but still far better than trying to bushwhack up the mountain directly to Fly Gap Road.  I scoped that out both on the hike down and the climb back out, and it looks like it would be a mess to hike through.  Once I hit the ATV trail, it was easy hiking as it climbed up to Fly Gap Road.  There are a few nice waterfalls here, with Christmas Falls being the one worth a return trip.  I'll be back; I can't wait to see what it looks like with more flow.  

Blue - 'Best Route' to Christmas Falls
Red - GPS track for today's hike
Blue - 'Best Route' to Christmas Falls