GPS Coordinates: (Latitude, Longitude, Elevation)
Park - Spirits Creek and Train Trestle: 35.684246,-93.897851, 1614 ft.
Spirits Creek Falls: 35.687100,-93.908000, 1039 ft.
Lower Robinson Falls: 35.687455,-93.909444, 1123 ft.
Upper Robinson Falls: 35.687671,-93.910098, 1167 ft.
Pet-Friendly: Dogs will be fine either on or off a leash. Most of the hiking is on the Ozark Highlands Trail (OHT) so you may encounter other hikers. If your dog doesn't play nice with others, leave it home or put it on a leash.
Hiking Statistics: Today's hike was 2.53 miles round trip. The minimum-to-maximum elevation difference was 654 feet, but it didn't seem all that bad because the bulk of that was on a pretty good trail, the OHT. You have to climb from Spirit Creek to get to Robinson Falls, and that part is a bushwhack, but it is only about 130 feet of elevation. We took 2:20 (hh:mm) to do the round-trip hike. I would rate this a moderate hike. The bushwhacking part is short and easy, and the climb out is on a good trail without excessive slopes. Take your time and enjoy.
GPS files (.gpx format) - See maps at the bottom of this blog post
Spirits Creek and Train Trestle waypoints
Spirits Creek and Robinson Falls GPS track
Spirits Creek and Train Trestle waypoints
Spirits Creek and Robinson Falls GPS track
Jack White Falls and Phipps Branch Falls
I was kind of torn on where to go today. It was supposed to be bright and sunny so it wouldn't be the best day for photography, but it would be all that much better for enjoying the hike. There were a couple of areas that I had been itching to go explore, and in areas that had received much more rainfall recently than the western Ozarks. Boomer (our German Shepherd) was the deciding factor today. I have learned to leave Boomer at home when I explore new places because there are some situations such as rock climbing that he might not be capable of. You never know what you might run into in the way of obstacles. Lately, I had left him home a few times with Bethany instead of taking him along, and he was getting a little mopey looking as I was getting my hiking gear together. In the end, I went with just getting out with Boomer and enjoying a day of adventure. I figured Spirits Creek and Train Trestle Falls would make for a very full day of hiking, all in areas I knew he could run around and be as big a goober as he wanted to be. The things you do for your kids, even the furry ones, right?
The cool thing about this doubleheader hike is we only had to park in one location. Spirits Creek is down the Ozark Highlands Trail (OHT) to the west of where you park, and Train Trestle Falls is down the OHT to the east. To get there, your navigation unit or phone should have the roads involved, so just entering the coordinates above will be easiest. If you can't do that, I'll start directions from I-40;
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| Spirits Creek Falls - with Rick and Boomer |
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| Upper Robinson Falls |
- Leave I-40 at exit 35 and go north on Highway 23 for 12.6 miles.
- Turn left on White Rock Mountain Road (aka CR-1003). This is less than a mile after you cross the Mulberry River, but before you get to Cass.
- Go 4.2 miles and bear right to stay on White Rock Mountain Road. It becomes CR-76 at that point.
- Go an additional 1.4 miles on White Rock Mountain Road and bear right onto Rag Town Road (aka CR-76).
- Go 0.8 miles on Rag Town Road and park in the clearing on the right just past where the OHT crosses the road.
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| Grays Spring Picnic Area |
They have been working on White Rock Mountain Road, especially on the part where it climbs up the mountain. Where they have finished working on it, it is in pretty good shape. The other parts of it are still fairly rough, but any vehicle should be able to make it down the road okay. Where you turn right onto Ragtown road is just past the Grays Spring picnic area. You should pull in and check it out. It was built back in the day by the CCC and is my favorite rest stop. It is out in the middle of nowhere on a 'lane-and-a-half' dirt road that, it seems, is never in very good shape and has spectacular views. Check out the old vault toilet at one end of the picnic area. I would never use it, clearly, no one has for many years, but it is the only 'flush' toilet I have ever seen in a vault toilet. Pretty cool for a place with no electricity and no running water. The CCC boys built everything out of rock, and they must have had a bunch left over that they didn't want to haul away. That's the only reason I can think of for the big stone pillar at the west end. If any of you know more about the history of this place, please let me know about it.
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| Upper Robinson Falls |
From the clearing where you park, cross the road and start heading down the OHT. That's all there is to it. Keep your eyes on the OHT trail markers; the white markers are vertical when the trail goes straight ahead, and if they are crooked one way or the other, it is telling you the trail bends in the direction it is slanted. At 1.04 miles down the OHT heading west, the trail bends to the left and you will see a spur trail going off to the right toward Spirits Creek. Turn right onto this trail and it will take you to a primitive campsite just above Spirits Creek Falls. There is a volunteer trail from the campsite down to a bluffline break just downstream of the waterfall, and from there you can hike the few yards back upstream to the base of the waterfall. I would point out that the OHT does, in fact, get re-routed from time to time because stuff like landslides happen and because better routes are sometimes found If you look at my track (map below) you will see it doesn't follow where the DeLorme topo maps or the NFS topo maps I use in the field. We stayed on the OHT all the way down to where you turn off to go to Spirits Creek Falls.
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| Spirits Creek Falls |
Spirits Creek Falls is relatively short, only about eight feet tall, but it is on the main creek itself. The headwaters for Spirits Creek is more than two miles upstream, and it is a big, broad, valley. It has a lot of drainage area above it so it will have fairly good flow long after the streams in the side drainages have dried up to a trickle. It's on my list to go explore further, especially the upper forks. From the top of Spirits Creek Falls, you can look upstream and see where the side drainage containing Upper and Lower Robinson Falls flows in from the left. Cross Spirits Creek wherever you can and these two waterfalls are a short bushwhack away. There is a faint volunteer trail up to Lower Robinson Falls, but you don't really need that. It is only about a hundred yards from Spirits Creek and you can see it as soon as you start up the drainage. Upper Robinson Falls is even less distance further upstream in this side drainage. You can see Upper Robinson Falls from Lower Robinson Falls.
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| Lower Robinson Falls |
From Robinson Falls, we headed back down, crossed Spirits Creek, and headed back up the OHT. Along the way, we met a nice couple on their way down. We chatted for a while, and it turned out they are avid blog readers and recognized Boomer's name as soon as I called out to him. Boomer thinks that everyone was put on this Earth just to play with him, so he tends to think of everyone as simply his adoring fans. He may be right about that; I don't think anyone has reacted to him in a way to make him think otherwise. It was close to noon when we got back to the parking location, so today's plan was on track. We had all afternoon to go down the OHT the other way and visit Train Trestle Falls.
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| Spririts Creek Falls and Robinson Falls GPS track Red - where the older maps think the Ozark Highlands Trail is Blue - where the OHT really is - today's hike GPS track |
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