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