Train Trestle Falls, Ozarks near Cass, Arkansas

2/24/2019 - Train Trestle Falls

GPS Coordinates:  (Latitude,  Longitude,  Elevation)
  Park - Spirits Creek and Train Trestle:  35.684246,-93.897851, 1614 ft.
  Train Trestle Falls:  35.677577,-93.885941,  1438 ft.
  Falls #1:  35.676903,-93.892667,TT UNF #1
  Falls #2:  35.676877,-93.885218,TT UNF #2
  Falls #3:  35.676972,-93.885333,TT UNF #3
  Falls #4:  35.677222,-93.885429,TT UNF #4
  Falls #5:  35.677466,-93.885621,TT UNF #5
  Access A:  35.677049,-93.885461,1454 ft.
  Access B:  35.677660,-93.885340
  Access C:  35.678106,-93.885228
  Access D1:  35.678342,-93.885715
  Access D2 (bluffline break):  35.678415,-93.885781,  1408 ft.
  Bee Rocks:  35.67133, -93.86594

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.  If you go to the base of Train Trestle Falls, it is very steep and sometimes slippery, so use your own judgment on your dog's abilities.

Hiking Statistics:  Today's hike to Train Trestle Falls was 3.51 miles round trip.  The minimum-to-maximum elevation difference was 405 feet, most of that being the last part of the hike, where the OHT drops down to Train Trestle Falls.  The bushwhack from the OHT to the top of the waterfall is not too bad, but the bushwhack through the bluffline break to the base of the waterfall is steep and rugged.  We took 2:14 (hh: mm) to do the round-trip hike.  I would rate this a moderate hike to the trestle area.  I would rate the bushwhack to the base of Train Trestle Falls as difficult.

GPS files (.gpx format) - See maps at the bottom of this blog post
  Spirits Creek and Train Trestle waypoints
  Train Trestle Falls GPS track

Links to blog posts for other nearby areas:
  Spirits Creek Falls, Upper and Lower Robinson Falls

  Jack White Falls and Phipps Branch Falls

  White Rock Creek Waterfalls and Bluffs

Train Trestle Falls (31 ft)

Boomer and I had finished our morning hike down the Ozark Highlands Trail (OHT) to Spirits Creek (see the previous post), and we took a little breather at the FJ Cruiser before continuing on the second half of our doubleheader hike today.  I drank what was left of my coffee from this morning, still plenty warm in the tumbler.  Boomer just acted normally, that is, like a goofball.  If you go out the back of the parking spot and down to the OHT, you'll miss the little info sign where the trail intersects Rag Town Road.  You'll also miss a nicely constructed trail info and guest registration box built and donated by the WalMart sign shop.  We had a little fun looking through that and filling out a registration card (see photo).  For the blog readers, it might be interesting to check and see if it is still there.

New Hiker Information Box

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;

• 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.

Bee Rocks

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.  I wrote a little spiel on that in the Spirits Creek blog post.  Another feature along this road is something called the 'Bee Rocks'. that Tim Ernst talks about in his excellent guidebook Arkansas Waterfalls.  I had wondered where these might be, and a friend pointed me at the right ones.  I know where they are now, but I need to go back in the spring and check them out.  Supposedly, the Bee Rocks are honeycombed (pun intended) and porous with passages throughout them, and bees nest inside them.

Falls #4 - with Boomer
(the Magnificent Mountain Dog)

From the clearing where you park, go back down the road a few feet to the trailhead, turn left onto it and hike east on the OHT.  By my maps, the OHT at one time ran along an old bench road one bench below where it does now.  I scoped out some of that area and for whatever reason, if it did run along that path, it no longer does.  The old bench road and any trail along it have been washed out in a couple of places.  Just stay on the OHT, and it will take you right by the Train Trestle Falls area.  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.  It is an excellent trail system and volunteers do continual maintenance to keep it in good condition.  After an initial short drop, it is mostly on the level, with a few ups-and-downs, until it is in the hollow high above where Train Trestle Falls is located.  It then zig-zags down the mountain, dropping a couple hundred feet in elevation, until it crosses the creek feeding Train Trestle Falls.

Old concrete pillars and truss bolts
at the top of Train Trestle Falls.
Boomer is about two feet from the top edge of the falls.

Along the way, the OHT runs around the top of a hollow that has a waterfall just below the sharp curve in the trail.  You can hear it and see it as you go around it on the trail.  When the trail crosses the creek with Train Trestle Falls (Access Point A), there are a couple of small waterfalls above the trail, and a couple more downstream of the trail before the creek spills over the top of Train Trestle Falls.  You can bushwhack the short distance downstream to the top of Train Trestle Falls, where you will find the old concrete pillars that the trestle was built on to span across the top of this gorge.  A lot of the big iron bolts that were used to tie trusses together to form the trestle are now piled on top of the pillars.  You can also continue on around the OHT to the opposite side of the drainage, and there is an easy route down to the top of the waterfall and the area where the old concrete pilings are.  There is also a route on the opposite side of the drainage down to the base of the waterfall.  See the maps below.

Old concrete pilings and truss bolts

When he heard that I was
 hiking out to Train Trestle Falls today, my friend Danny Hale sent me a small local area map.  With his permission, I'll include that below, along with the map of the GPS track and waypoints.  Danny was a professional surveyor for several decades before retiring, and that gives him the perfect background for map work.  He is extremely good at it.  He has led the local Takahik hiking group for years and has also published a guidebook, Takahik, Hiking the Arkansas Ozarks.  Danny mapped out the old train trestle site with the thoroughness I have become used to seeing in his maps and guidance.  I'll use Danny's notations in my explanation, and I have listed GPS coordinates for them above.

Stick to the base of the bluff
on the way to and from the base of the waterfall

Access Point B is where you can break off the trail and head down to the top of Train Trestle Falls and the area where all the old trestle pilings are.  Today, Boomer and I continued on around to Access Point C and turned left off the trail to head down to the bluffline break.  Danny marked Access Point D on his map as the bluffline break.  In my coordinates above, I have listed Access Points D1 and D2, with D1 being the point to angle down to from where we turned off the OHT, and Access Point D2 being the actual bluffline break.  This is where the sheer bluff 'breaks' to a slope that you can step/stumble/slide down, instead of falling off a cliff.   Once down through the bluffline break, hook around and follow as close to the base of the bluff up into the grotto to the base of Train Trestle Falls.

Falls #5
Note the old concrete piling
and bolt in the creek
in the left bank

Boomer and I did our best working with the harshly bright sun to get some photos of the waterfall, then headed back up the break to the trail.  Then from Access Point B, we went back down to the top of the waterfall, which is where all the old trestle hardware and concrete pilings remain.  Old stuff like this fascinates me, and the history behind it is fascinating as well.  This railroad was built in the early 1900s to haul timber out of the area.  Thanks to a lead from Micheal Bean and Dave Eichenberger, I believe this to be the Combs, Cass, and Eastern Railroad Company, formerly the Black Mountain & Eastern Line.  Referring to The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture article on the rail line, I believe this is the trestle 12.8 miles south of Combs (assuming rail lines, not as the crow flies).  Where this line rolled through Summit it was at 1891 feet elevation, making it the highest rail line in Arkansas history.  Today, Summit is just a weird 5-way junction of dirt roads about 3.1 miles down Rag Town Road from where we parked today.  The rail line was only 16 miles long and was abandoned sometime between 1925 and 1929.  This would have been the largest of four trestles on the line, at 345 feet long and 77 feet high.  If I have any of this wrong, please comment below and straighten me out.  The other thing I always find interesting is how quickly even large construction works like this can get swallowed up by the Arkansas jungle.  If you look at the base of Falls #5, a small waterfall just upstream of Train Trestle Falls, you can see where one of the pilings is now half covered up by the bank on the left, along with one of the big iron bolts.  The pillar itself is almost below the creek level.  It's a little sobering to realize that in the big scheme of things, we have only been here a short time, and whatever mankind does is, in the end, temporary.  

Train Trestle Falls

After we had absorbed all the old history and scenery we could, Boomer and I made our way upstream to Access Point A, got back on the OHT, and started our hike back.  The trail back rises immediately and zig-zags up the hill, climbing a couple of hundred feet fairly quickly.  I was a little winded by the time we got up to where the trail levels out.  The good news is, it's almost on the level after that point and we made good time getting back to the FJ.  All in all, it was a beautiful day to be in the great outdoors.  Boomer and I had a great time, got a little exercise, and we still wrapped up the day in plenty of time to drive home and have a lot of daylight left.  I would highly recommend this hike.  The trail is as good as any you will find, and except for the climb at the very beginning of the return hike and the bushwhack down to the bottom of Train Trestle Falls, this is easy hiking.  Just take your time on the climb and be very careful if you go down to the base of the waterfall.  As always, leave no trace and leave the old train stuff as you found it.

New Trailhead Information and Registration Box

Hmmmm.  Boomer filled out the registration card.  He thinks highly of himself.

Detail Map of Train Trestle Area
Map by Danny Hale

Dashed Red line - where the maps show the Ozark Highlands Trail
Red - GPS track for Train Trestle Falls (along the OHT today)