Can’t Beat A Rainy Day For A Good Hike

When I woke up at 7:30 a.m. Sunday, the sky was clearing after a night of off and on rain and I was so bummed I almost just went back to sleep. I hadn’t gone to sleep until around 4 a.m., which made actually getting up that much harder. (I think I’ve developed insomnia.) Sunny skies spell poor conditions for shooting waterfalls. You need the even, reduced light of overcast skies to make that silky water effect.

But, as we will see, Lady Fortune is a fickle traveling companion.

I headed west on I-40 toward Graves Canyon north of Russellville with the clouds I needed behind and clear blue sky ahead. I decided to keep going because I could at least count on a good hike, if not good photography conditions, and the rain from the day and night before promised to make the waterfalls worth seeing even if I couldn’t get any good photos.

Graves Canyon is home to Graves Creek, which flows into Big Piney Creek. The Big Piney is a favorite of canoers and kayakers. Adventurous souls also run Graves Creek after a huge rain. Forever Falls drops off a bluff straight into Graves Creek. The top photo is a small waterfall a few yards upstream of Forever Falls.

The hike to Graves Creek is pretty arduous but not long. There are two routes in, from the north or the south. Both routes are straight down going and straight up coming back. And with no trail a lot of bushwacking. The south route is shortest but puts you on the wrong side of the creek if you want to see other waterfalls downstream. If the creek is up you might not be able to cross it. Tim Ernst rates it difficult in his Arkansas waterfall bible and recommends using a GPS unit. He provides the coordinates. I’ve been to a couple of the hard-to-get-to waterfalls, but they were easy to find, no GPS needed. For this one, though, a GPS would have been very helpful.

If you don’t ever plan to see Forever Falls, you can skip the next paragraph. If you do, I’ve got a tip that will save you some trouble and the need for a GPS. I took the south route on the recommendation of a fellow Flickr user. I followed Ernst’s directions to get to the jumping off point. The maintained road ends on the top of a mountain and an unmaintained road heads down into the canyon. A four-wheel drive could easily make it down, but I think a full-size two-wheel drive could make it down the road as well. The condition of the first hundred yards of the road made me decide to walk, but I think my little 2WD Nissan Frontier could’ve handled it. I’m not recommending doing it in a smaller vehicle. I’m just sayin’. The road heads down the mountain and then makes a switchback and pretty much levels out. The road crosses a medium mud hole and goes up a slight rise. On the other side of the rise an old roadbed heads off to the left. Hunters on ATVs use the old roadbed. After the roadbed peters out an ATV track continues on almost to the creek. If you follow that ATV trail, you’ll get almost to the waterfall itself. It’s off to the right of the trail. I hit the ATV trail on my way back up the mountain and, figuring it must lead to the road, followed it back.

By the time I got to the parking spot, the skies had clouded up and I began to hope that conditions would be good for photography after all. Ernst’s directions don’t really say where to leave the 4WD road and I went farther than I should have before plunging down through the woods. After awhile I hit the creek way downstream from where I wanted to be. I ended up on the creek bank, but the bank was about 20 feet tall and I couldn’t see any way down. I could see a nice waterfall directly across the creek. That would be Graves Canyon Falls, which meant I had badly overshot Forever Falls. Heading back upstream across the steep mountainside, I finally came to the top of the waterfall, 47 feet above Graves Creek. Just upstream of the waterfall, there’s a place to get down to the creekbed. As I was making my way there the skies darkened and I heard thunder in the distance.

It’s rapids like this one that make Graves Creek a good kayak run, though I imagine the water has to be much higher. The hike in carrying a boat and gear would be a bitch, and I have no clue how you’d get back out unless you just floated down to the Big Piney and then to a regular take-out spot.

Coming right atcha.

Soon the thunder got louder and lightning flashed. I worked my way to an overhanging rock ledge above the creekbed just as it started to pour. This is the view of Forever Falls from my shelter. The storm lasted for about 20 minutes and the rain continued for another 20 minutes or so. Forever Falls is not high volume, so even that little bit of rain made it run somewhat better than when I first came to it.

Just upstream from the waterfall, Graves Creek plunges into a hole and flows under a huge rock. I just used the rock as a bridge and didn’t even get my feet wet. It’s hard to tell in the photo, but the hole is big enough for a person to go down. It’s what your kayaking types call a strainer. This one is unusual. Strainers generally form where logs or other debris create an obstruction to the water flow. The water wasn’t high enough for a kayaker anyway and at higher flows a boat would probably just go over this one or around the big rock another way.

The rain finally slacked off and I made it to the bottom of Forever Falls and took my shots. By the time I was through, the clouds had broken up, the sun beating down.

Does anyone know what this is? I saw seven of them during my hike. It looks like an atomic-powered centipede.

Although the dogwoods are pretty much done in Little Rock, they were still putting on a show in the hills of Pope County.

Fun with signs.

More fun with signs.