4/1/02 HOLY SMOKES we have had a TON of rain this past weekend, and the hills around us are FLOODED!!! In fact, the water has gotten up so high that it even flooded Beagle Point across the valley from the Cloudland, producing this monster waterfall (I will get out this afternoon and try to measure it - wish me luck!):

Beagle Falls at Cloudland
(special thanks to our Canadian journal reader friend Jeannette Heinzelmann for this photo)

Is it April 1st already?

For the first time in a very long while we slept until the sun woke us up. It was a glorious spring day today, with clear blue skies and warm sunshine. While I still am hoping for a lot more rain for waterfalls, it was nice to have a day of sunshine.

SPRING PROGRESS REPORT. Around here at least, spring has not sprung just yet. We do have a few serviceberry trees popping out right now around the cabin, but looking over the wilderness I cannot see but a couple of others. The redbuds have not started yet, although we did see lots of them out down in the Ouachitas. The wildflowers are slow to come out up here too. We seem to be two or three weeks behind right now, but I suspect that will speed up this next week as the temps remain warmer and we get more sunshine (darn).

The river below was pure green, a deep green with no bottom. And it was singing a lively tune today, although the wind was making a lot of noise so the music of the river blended with it.

Pam and I spent a couple of hours getting stuff ready for Amber's girl scout meeting tonight. Pam is in charge, and is going to introduce the little ladies to hiking preparation, making GORP, and they are going to each build a bird feeder. Then we went down into the meadow to inspect our strawberry plants - just a couple coming up. We had one with blooms last week, but the hard freeze took care of that.

Then we spent some much-needed down time just sitting in the swing in the gazebo, looking out over the river and wilderness, soaking up the warm sunshine and breezes. For just a little while the entire world stood still and bypassed us. Then one of the kitties jumped up and scratched my legs - that put an end to the peace and quiet.

I took the entire day off from waterfalls - both mentally as well as physically. With the exception of updating the last of the March journal and processing the pictures. The rest of my day I spent on the tractor - fixing a bad spot in the road - and working on the computer doing various searches for information. I found myself outside quite often, just standing there and gazing out into the forest. April is my absolute MOST favorite month of the year, and I plan to spend as much of it outside this year as I can.

As the day began to blend into night I took a short hike out into the woods and sat down and leaned up against an old oak tree friend of mine. I've known this tree for a long while now, and it was the very first tree that I ever sat up against when I first bought this property. I had a good view out to the southern sky as it turned dark blue, then purple, then nearly black.

Up there somewhere a bright star began to shine - the first one that I could see tonight. "Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight." And before I could finish that little mantra, tears welled up inside me. For many years I have always have the very same wish when I saw that first star of the night - that my mom would be OK. Now she is gone, and I guess tonight was the first time I had been able to watch for the first star since she left us, and I was not able to make that wish for her. It just all came crashing down on me. But now I have another sweet lady to wish for - Amber. Pam and I will be just great as we make our new lives together, and will have more than we ever asked for. So it will be towards Amber that I will direct my starry wishes for peace and happiness. And to each one of you who reads this journal - I hope the stars will shine down and bring you great happiness this spring too!

4/2/02 A glorious sunrise today, with several streaks of pink against a pure blue backdrop. It was warm, very warm all morning. Pam put on her green thumb clothes and went up to the Faddis cabin and planted some veggies in the garden. Bob has said that he won't have time to put in a garden this year, so it will be abandoned, other than what Pam is able to do. Putting in a garden that large is certainly a full-time job, and Bob says that he has too much to do this spring to mess with it. So we'll plant a few things and see what happens - neither Pam nor I have much experience, but I do enjoy watching her out there in her floppy white hat digging in the dirt. My speciality will be cooking and eating the fruits, or rather vegetables of her labor.

Pre-dawn today from the loft

We took a leisurely lunch out on the back deck, and soaked up what would be the last of the warm rays of sunshine for a while. We got out the telescope and found several serviceberry trees over on the bluffline at Beagle Point that were just beginning to come out. The ones around the cabin were living up to their name today, and about a dozen of them really did "pop" out. I call them popcorn trees because they seem to pop out overnight, and even right before you very eyes like today. The blooms also look to me to be popcorn kernels glued onto the branches.

One of the many popcorn trees at Cloudland

A short hike through the woods revealed not much in the way of springtime - none of the trees here are beginning to leaf out yet. And wildflowers on the forest floor are sparse. We did find a number of spring beauties and trout lilies, and some toothworts, but that is about it up here. The rest of the forest seemed to still be shut down and waiting for something to happen before springing to life.

Soon after noon the temperature began to drop. It had been in the 70's most of the morning, but by mid-afternoon the temp had dropped 30 degrees. When I was up at 3am working on the computer, the online weather map showed that we would have HEAVY and severe thunderstorms today over much of Arkansas. And while the cold front certainly did move in, we never got a drop of rain - man, they really missed it big-time today. I have learned to keep my plans on hold until something actually happens instead of paying much attention to the official weather forecast.

Amber had another soccer game in Harrison tonight, and while the winds blew and I nearly froze to death on the sidelines, the girls were hot on the field, and her team won their third straight game. Amber is one of the smallest ones on the team, but she sure does give it her all and knocks the fire out of the ball.

4/3/02 It was an even freezing at first light today. Sunshine but also a lot of clouds. Birds EVERYWHERE!!! They had better eat up because by the end of the month it will be time to take down all of the bird feeders. They are one of the main things that attracts bears and get them into trouble. Once bears start raiding bird feeders, getting into the cabin is next on their list. And then they have to be taken care of. So the best thing is to not give them anything that will lure them up towards the cabin in the first place.

Pam says she can tell that the birds are beginning to change into their summer colors - many of the goldfinches are taking on brighter, more contrasty yellows and blacks already.

I won't get to spend much of today here, as I have to venture into town to get a few "civilized" chores done. Seems like the more I stay out here, the less I can stand to be in town. Wilderness sort of gets into your blood and into your bones, and the noise and confusion and glazed look on everyone's faces in town doesn't match up too well with wilderness living.

Oh yea, one note from Pam's girl scout meeting the other night. One that she was trying to teach the girls was what to do if they got lost. Not a single one of the troop knew to stay put if they got lost. That is one of the most important things that we can teach our children, yet very few parents even know that themselves. HUG A TREE if you get lost in the woods!!! And hug a policeman if you get lost at the mall...

WOW, what a rash of birthdays this week! Both my sister and Roy turned 50-something last Sunday, and Pam's dad is 50-something today.

SPRING PHOTO WORKSHOP. For any of you that might be interested, there is still space left in both of my photo tours later this month. You can find out all the details by going to the Photo Workshop info page.

4/5/02 A beautiful sunrise this morning, with just a few clouds here and there in front of a nice blue sky. No wind, but tons of little yellow jewels flying all over the place around the cabin - goldfinches, getting brighter all the time. Seems like the bluffline way over yonder gets hit by the sun early these days, which is GREAT! When that bluff is lit up, that means it is time to get up and out of bed if we have not done so already. You may not be able to see it on this picture, but if you look close on the very left-hand side of the bluff you will see what appears to be a rock that juts out over the forest, sort of like Hawksbill Crag. This point is about a mile from Hawksbill, and even though it looks like it sticks out there quite a bit, it really does not.

The bluffline "alarm clock" (Hawksbill Crag is not visible from this view point on the back deck)

We spent most of the day moving computer equipment from the office down to the library in the cabin, and setting up a new computer system. This area will be where Pam and I work on the waterfall book over the next couple of months - her drawing the maps, and me doing the photos and the test. By mid-afternoon I realized that I had not set foot outside a single time today for pure pleasure, so I had to un-glue my eyes and head out into the woods.

There were three of us on the trail this afternoon - me, Aspen, and the "Trail Cat." I have given up using the cat's real names, and instead call the boy "lazy fat cat" and the girl Trail Cat. Like you might expect from the names, the boy spends most of his time laying around and not doing much, and seldom ever getting out and following me anywhere - more like a normal cat. But the Trail Cat is always ready to strike off with me into the woods, no matter where I may be going.

Today Aspen and the Trail Cat took turns in the lead. The cat is so funny because she will always run ahead with that big fluffy tail of hers sticking straight up in the air, as if using it as a rudder. These two seem to get along just fine now, although once in a while Aspen will turn and make a lunge at Trail Cat, sending her up into a nearby tree, or more often these days standing her ground and arching her back to counter Aspen's bluff charge. I don't think Aspen has ever actually laid a tooth on either cat.

"Hey Aspen, wanna go play on the rocks?".... "Yup, that's my kitty."

The afternoon sunshine was warm and felt great. I was out looking for wildflowers, but really didn't find too many. We still are in a late-winter mode up here on top of the mountain. I have noticed a really nice batch of bloodroot wildflowers that are blooming right at the base of Cave Mountain Road in Boxley - tons of them on both sides of the road. There is another wonderful patch for any of you traveling on Hwy. 16 east of Fayetteville - look along the road between Combs and Brashears. There will soon be an explosion of yellow trout lilies on that same route between Combs and Patrick.

One thing that was up today were what I call "moss towers." These are the tiny shoots that come out of moss that have their spores on the very tip top of (I think). Often the towers are much taller than the moss itself. I will try to get a photo of them, but it will require a bit of crawling around on my belly and playing with the macro setting on my new digital camera. Hum, sounds like a perfect job for me!

Meanwhile, Aspen and the Trail Cat found a nice area to play in. Aspen sat quietly in between two boulders while the Trail Cat jumped from rock to rock over his head. Aspen seemed to be amused. The kitty had a great time. And speaking of time, that was about it for me, as I had to get back to the cabin for more chores.

Aspen supervises the Trail Cat's activities

4/6/02 A SPECTACULAR spring day in the Ozarks! Warm and sunny and just about PERFECT outside! The serviceberry trees around the cabin are really GLOWING WHITE this morning. The river below is singing a lovely tune, although it is dropping to near-summertime levels these days. We sure do need some RAIN!!! All of the wet stuff that we got in March will help out a lot, but once the trees begin to grow they will consume many trillions of gallons of water hourly, so we will need a good bit of rain in order to stay up with it. I am all packed and ready to go if we get the heavy rains that are predicted tomorrow and Monday (since they predicted them so far in advance, I'm counting on clear skies and no rain at all).

I have been up for several hours this morning still tweaking our new computer setup at the cabin. I can hear Pam and Amber making noises elsewhere - sounds like cleaning noises to me. I have made the cabin quite a mess with the move, but plan to have everything stashed away and organized sometime before the end of the decade. I believe that I said something about crawling around on my belly to photograph the moss towers yesterday. Looks like right now might be the best opportunity, since those cleaning noises are getting closer and closer...

The moss picture didn't work out too well (I used my old camera instead of the new one), but I think you can get an idea of what I am talking about.

Moss towers

Just as I was returning to the cabin after visiting the moss towers, Pam and Amber were off to plant flowers in the little triangle area up near the office. I had brought the tractor down to do some work later today, so had them load all of their gear up in the bucket, then we took off up the lane, with Amber at the controls.

My ladies jumped right into the job and quickly had the area cleared off of all downed limbs and debris, then Amber began to dig holes and carefully place little seeds in the earth. Pam selected other sites and planted several seedlings. Their old man did his part - I was sitting up in the tractor seat with the Trail Cat on my lap taking in the view! I was soon dispatched back down to the cabin to get the grill fired up and ready for burgers for lunch. (A couple of zebra swallowtail butterflies joined the ladies as I was leaving - they too were just floating around adding a splash of color to the scene.)

Some of the bloodroot wildflowers along the road in Boxley Valley

4/7/02 A cloudy sky greeted us today, and there was lots of moisture in them! By noon it was raining, and we had put a call in to Pam's mom Judy to see if she could drive down from Missouri to be with Amber while we took off to go chase waterfalls. By 2:30pm we had already received a couple inches of rain, and things were flowing pretty good. We loaded up the truck and headed out, leaving Amber in good hands.

There were cascades everywhere along the highway, and it was difficult for me to concentrate on driving. However, the further east we drove, the less and less the water flow got. It was still raining, but not as hard as before. My target for the day was the waterfalls at Home Valley Bluff. They are so high up in the drainage they needed a lot of rain to get them looking good in a picture. We were really disappointed when we arrived and found not much water running in the ditches, and hardly anything coming down from above. "Just 15 minutes of a frog-strangling downpour is all I ask for!" I shouted into the wind. Pam was more than amused.

We dropped on down to the top of this magnificent bluffline, and I went on over to the top of Tea Kettle Falls just to see how it was flowing. Much to my surprise it was flowing GREAT! OK, job was on!

As we began to make our way down through the bluff, it began to rain. Someone up there was listening to me. This area is always gorgeous, but with all the moisture in the air the moss-covered boulders were rich with color and texture. Pam had not been here before, and was drooling over the prospect of being able to climb some of them.

We made it to the base of Tea Kettle Falls, set up and shot our first picture. This waterfall is actually a double-drop falls, come to think of it, it is really a triple-drop falls. The middle drop where we were was the tallest.

Tea Table Falls - the middle (left) and lower (right, with middle in top of photo)

Next we made our way on around the bluffline to Latin Falls, passing another really nice waterfall along the way, and more and more grand views of the massive bluff. This falls was really tall and I had trouble finding a good spot to shoot it from. Poor Pam - she had to strip down to shorts and a thin shirt and stand there motionless in the wash of the waterfall while I took pictures. It was rather chilly, especially since we both were soaked. She is a good egg - the best ever!

Latin Falls (left), French Falls (right)

The guy who owns much of the land around Home Valley Bluff told me about another waterfall that is located on his property at the opposite end of the big bluff - it was our next target. Quite frankly, I didn't expect much. You know, everyone has a great waterfall, or cave, or view on their property, but most of the time they don't turn out to be much. But this waterfall turned out to be really nice! And he has agreed to allow me to list it in the guidebook, so all of you will be able to go see it for yourself. The guy is Edd French, and he owns Buffalo River Realty in Jasper (www.buffaloriverealestate.com). He is the guy that I send everyone to when I am asked about property in the Ozarks. This waterfall will bear his name - French's Falls.

It took us a good while longer than I had expected to shoot these pictures and hike around a little bit, and I was shocked when Pam told me it was already 6pm - we still had another waterfall to go find today, so we high-tailed it out of there and raced through Deer and on to Cowell, where we turned off the highway and headed down a forest road. It was getting dark, and we were trying to find a spot that a friend (Kevin Middleton) had told us about. We finally found the correct road and parked.

I gathered up my camera gear and ran into the woods, leaving Pam behind. It was already almost too dark to take pictures, but I was determined to find this waterfall and see if it was good enough for the guidebook. Kevin's hiking directions were right on the money, and within five minutes I was standing right next to a really neat waterfall. I didn't have time to look around, so I set up my camera and took a couple of pictures of myself next to the falls, splashing right on through the base of the falls in order to get into position. Man, it was getting DARK in a hurry, and I was really surprised that anything showed up on the disk. It appeared to me that there was no longer any color left, which would be fine since the pictures in the book will be in black and white.

The upper part of Hudson Ridge Falls, taken when it was nearly dark!

OK, got that one done, or so I thought. I packed up the camera and turned around to see where I was, and low and behold there was a second part to this waterfall right below me, and I believe I found a spot where I could photograph both drops in the same frame. But that would have to wait for another day, as it was really getting dark, and I still had to make it back out to the truck. My friend says this waterfall pours over what he considers the deepest overhang in the Ozarks. I was not able to take the time to explore it, but could tell there was something really interesting down in there - next time!

It was after 9pm when we got back to the cabin and got to fix dinner. Another couple of inches of rain had fallen while we were gone, and the radar indicated that the rest of the Ozarks were getting pounded as well - YIPPIE!!! We put all of our rain gear in the dryer, camera batteries in the chargers, boots on the boot dryers, and I printed out directions and GPS info for some other waterfalls that I wanted to go find tomorrow. It was very late when we finally were able to crawl into bed. I was like a little kid on Christmas Eve, listening to all of that RAIN going on outside - I was going to have a barrel of fun the next day!

4/8/02 This day began around 4-something, and we got up and packed our gear and headed up the drive. The rains had stopped - more than five inches had fallen - and we had a nice drive on over to the Sylamore forest area. They were calling for rain on and off all day, and I couldn't have been more happy.

I had been told about this next waterfall by Helen Elsner, one of the gurus of waterfalls now, but she was not sure of the exact location. It was just off of one of the main horse trails there, and while I got several maps and info from the forest service, none of that really helped out all that much - gosh, they really do need a GUIDEBOOK in order to find their waterfalls! But we were able to piece together enough info that I had a good idea where to look for the falls.

We parked the truck and began to hike down the horse trail through a lovely forest area. All of the area up to our left had recently been burned, while the area to our right had not. I agree with the forest service's policy of controlled burns and wish they would do more of them. It really only clears out the dead timber and thick brush, plus help control ticks!

It was warming up nicely, the trail was wide and clear and easy, and the forest was just wonderful - a perfect day!

Before long we came alongside a waterfall off to the right. But wait, this could not be the really big falls that Helen had sent me a photo of - it was nice, but not quite large enough. I decided not to photograph it, so we simply admired the view and pressed on. Within minutes we had found the big falls, and oh brother was it impressive!

We hurried to find a good camera position, then Pam got into position while I dug out the camera. I swear - just before I was ready to shoot, the sun appeared. THE SUN??? Yep. We looked up and saw nothing but sunshine and blue sky. How could that be? They said it would be clouds and rain all day. I had been planning a trip to this waterfall when conditions were just right for the past two months - it was a major waterfall and I needed to do it right. We had driven three hours in the middle of the night, then hiked on down to it, and now, SUN!!! I was fit to be tied!

I managed to shoot from a couple of different angles and got something that would be OK in the book, but I was still grumbling. Then I climbed up to the top of the falls and measured it - a very nice 66 feet tall. And just upstream is the source for all of the water - a large spring was gushing out of the hillside. For the time being I am going to name this waterfall after a forest service guy who works on the district and knows more about it than anyone - Jim Steele. He was also working there back in 1973-76 when I worked there. I remember one day when he and I went on down to the Buffalo River at the edge of the forest land to check on members of the Rainbow Family who were camping out for their annual 4th of July celebration. The Rainbows are nudists. Jim was there to see what they were up to and make sure they were staying within the law, and I was there as the official forest service photographer. Goodness, but a bunch of people they were! And trust me on this one, all of those folks covered in poison ivy, tick bites, and sunburns, were not all that attractive - I would much rather they had all been clothed!

So anyway, this falls is called Jim Steel Falls, and it is one of the most scenic in the Ozarks, and pretty easy to get to as well.

Jim Steele Falls

*If you ask Pam what she remembers most about this particular waterfall it will be that she was being soaked to the bone by blowing water from the falls where I had her stand for the photos, and it was streaming down her face and soaking her shirt and shorts. Umm, frigid spring water early in the morning - that will wake you up!

The hike out was very nice as well, and while I did stop and measure that first waterfall (39 feet), I did not take a picture. The wildflowers were popping out all over the place - mostly because of that darn sunshine.

Just as we arrived back at the truck a couple of things happened. First, the sun went away and the clouds returned - thank goodness. I still had several waterfalls to seek out today and I did not want to have to abandon the trip.

The second thing didn't actually happen until we were at the general store in Fifty-Six getting a sandwich. I realized that I did not have my hat. OH NO, I had LOST my hat!!! It is probably sitting next to the stream crossing down by that big waterfall. I've had many hats over the years, but none that I have kept as long as this one. In fact, I believe that I've had this hat since 1995 when I lost my last one at Crater Lake in Oregon. I was there in July that year, taking pictures for my WILDERNESS REFLECTIONS book. Most of the roads were closed and still covered with several feet of snow. It was snowing hard that day, and I took off my hat to cover up my camera (which was on a tripod) while I went back to the car to get another roll of film. When I returned my hat was gone, and it was no where in sight. There was a strong wind blowing right on out towards the lake, so I figured it ended up at the bottom of Crater Lake, where it remains to this day. I immediately went to the nearest pay phone and called for a replacement to be Fed-xed to me, and my mom sent me the hat that I just lost today. Seven years - man, that is a long time to wear a hat!

There were a few dark clouds gathering as we parked at the old Push Mountain fire tower. The trees have grown up over the years and are actually taller than this little toy fire tower. The forest service stopped using fire towers around here 20 years ago (they fly observers in small planes during the fire season these days), but they still have a couple of them left that are used as radio repeaters.

The next three waterfalls were ones that Helen Elsner told me about as well. She didn't know it at the time, but I had asked her what her favorite waterfall was - I planned to name that waterfall after her, because she has done so much to help me with this project, and to aid others in finding all sorts of neat places in the Buffalo River area with her great book. So the soon-to-be-named Helen's Pouroff was the first one on our list this afternoon.

We hiked along what is known as the Barkshed Extension road that goes deep into the Leatherwood Wilderness. The road is gated but is still used by folks who own property inside the wilderness boundary. It was a delightful, easy hike, through an emerging springtime forest. Several dogwood trees were beginning to flower - the first I had seen all spring. Plus all sorts of wildflowers popping up everywhere. And nothing but CLOUDS as far as you could see!

Helen had given me the GPS coordinates for these waterfalls, so it was easy to tell where we needed to leave the road to strike off into the forest to find them. We dropped on down a small drainage past several little springs. These springs formed together and ran on over to the edge of a bluffline and hurled themselves out into space. This first waterfall was not one of the big three, but it was a really nice falls, and 40 feet tall. I will recommend a visit to it, but won't include a photo in the guidebook.

From there we worked our way on around the top of the bluffline - through increasingly THICK briar patches- until we came out next to our first target. And man was it a nice waterfall! We measured it at 71 feet, and today it was actually a twin falls. This is Helen's Pouroff, and is fed by more small springs in the drainage above. What an impressive bluffline! A really nice spot, and I could see why Helen likes it so much. (To get info about Helen's book "THE BUFFALO RIVER AND SURROUNDING WATERSHED" go to www.buffaloriverbook.com and order a copy - I HIGHLY recommend it!)

Helen's Pouroff (you just have to go visit to see how wonderful it is!)

A couple of neat other features of this falls - there were several chunks of rocks - perhaps five or six feet long by three feet tall, up on top of the bluff. And they were shaped just like PIZZA slices! If I didn't name this waterfall after Helen, I would have called it "Pepperoni Falls." Very unusual.

And right next to one of the streams of water, out near the edge of the bluff, there is a hole about a foot in diameter that goes down through the upper rock layer (2-3 feet thick) - and you can see all the way down to the bottom of the falls. You have to be careful when you walk along this spot!

We made our way further along the top of the bluff until we could get down the bluffline (past another pizza rock), then we split up. I had Pam hike on over to the base of the big falls while I investigated a falling water noise that I could hear off in the distance.

Both of us would state that this little area below the bluff contains the THICKEST and MEANEST batch of green briars that ever existed! Pam talked about getting trapped in the stuff and turning around to retreat only to find her path had been blocked by even more briars! On more than one occasion I was forced to get down on all fours just to go any further. And once my rain pants got ripped open by the briars and they scratched my knee so it looks like a wildcat had attacked. These briars were serious about not wanting us to get through!

The water noise that I went searching for turned out to only be the creek below and not another waterfall. But brother did I pay for that knowledge, especially since I now had to make my way back up through the briars.

As I got close to the top of the steep slope below the waterfall where Pam had made it to, I encountered a five-foot tall bluffline. For some reason this short stack of rock refused to allow me to pass. I made several attempts to climb up onto it, and each time I slipped and slid and fell back down to earth, once landing on my back. It was very silly I'm sure to witness. I also broke off a piece of my tripod. And ripped my rain pants even more. I finally got the message, and gave up and moved on along the base of that little bluff until it finally gave out and I was able to make my way up to the base of the big falls and join Pam.

The waterfall looked really nice from down below too, but I couldn't find a good picture spot where I could get the entire waterfall in, so we simply admired the view and moved on.

Our next waterfall I'm going to call "Woodsman Falls" after the guy who pointed Helen towards many scenic things in this wilderness area. His name is Gene Boyd, also known as "Jake The Woodsman." It was an easy route down to the base of his falls - we used a very old road trace that made its way down through the bluffline. How in the world did they ever get wagons in here?

There was a small cave of sorts about half way up the back wall behind this waterfall, and I had Pam climb up there so that her white shirt would stand out against the dark background. She reported there had been much critter activity in that location, and that there were piles of bedding materials all over the place.

Woodsman Falls

We made it back up to the main road and headed towards the third and final waterfall in this area. As we hiked along a bright yellow tiger swallowtail butterfly started flying right next to me. Pam was in the rear and marveled at how long this little guy kept flying in formation. "You two sure are having a long conversation!" I find that happens a lot - butterflies will come alongside and just follow me through the woods. I do believe that is a sign of good luck. (Helen sent me the following photo of a batch of zebra and tiger swallowtail butterflies that she shot in the same area the next day.)

Zebra and Tiger swallowtail butterflies, Photo by Helen Elsner

To reach the next falls we left the old road and dropped down another steep hillside, following a stream that got larger and larger. And then holy cow, we came out onto the top of one of the most magnificent bluffs I had ever seen! And the waterfall was going right over the edge of it. It topped out at 87 feet, making it one of the tallest in Arkansas (currently 6th). I had to get to the bottom of this falls, but the bluffline was so tall and it didn't appear there was a break. Pam rolled her eyes when I motioned "this way." We were off on another adventure!

We followed a game trail that ran along the top of the bluff - the views from up there out across the wilderness were simply spectacular. I had thought about naming this falls "Longview Falls" or something like that. On and on and on we hiked, until finally the bluffline did break down enough to allow us to slide on down the wet surface until we hit bottom. My pace quickened, and Pam didn't bother trying to keep up. Few things will slow me down when I have a beautiful waterfall in my sights!

Along the way we passed a number of GIANT pine trees. It took both of our wingspans to get our arms completely around them - that's a 12 foot circumference! And these babies towered up and over the bluffline.

When I reached the base of the falls I was speechless. Certainly because of the height of the falls, but also because of the great beauty of the place - I felt like I was in a holy place, a perfect example of the handiwork of God. It was a grand cathedral. I had to name it Cathedral Falls.

The bluffline curved back in behind us and swept up over our heads. It was painted many colors. And way up high, just below the very top, there was a small cedar tree growing out of the solid rock. It was just hanging up there in out in space What an incredible place.

I set the camera up and took a few pictures of Pam and the falls, then we packed up for the hike back out to the truck. But I was not ready to leave. Something about this place kept me there. My feet would not move. I stood there in awe, humbled by the powers much greater than me.

Cathedral Falls from below and above (can you find Pam in the one on the left?)

I've never considered Pam to be a great navigator, especially out in the woods. But once we got back up on top of the bluffline and I struck off into the woods, she made note of the fact that I was going in the wrong direction! Boy was she right. We made it back up to the old road and hiked nearly an hour back to the truck.

By the time we reached it we both were tuckered out and sore from bushwhacking and climbing around through the sharp rocks and even sharper greenbriers. There was a couple of guys there loading up horses into a trailer - they had been into the wilderness setting up a turkey camp. I got to talking to them about waterfalls. "Well if you go just up the road and head down into that hollow you will find several really nice ones" one of them said. Oops, more waterfalls for my list! (They may be in volume two of the guidebook.)

It was a long drive home. As we were approaching the Ponca area I nearly drove off of the highway a time or two because of waterfalls that I would spot off in the distance. These were all just pouroffs from the heavy rains of the past two days, and I won't include any of them in the book, but when you have the waterfall FEVER, you just have to react that way. Pam says that my foot gets rather heavy on the gas as I get closer to a waterfall, and my hiking pace quickens, and perhaps she has even seen foam coming out of my mouth a time or two. I certainly was fogging up the windows on our drive home today.

A few miles before we reached the cabin I stopped to investigate what I thought might be a very tall waterfall. I've seen the water heading towards what I knew had to be a nice bluffline for many years, but had never taken the time to take a look at it. To say that I was stunned at both the waterfall and the view from on top of it would be an understatement. It was beautiful. You can look up and down the Buffalo River for miles in both directions, and you can even see Aspens Meadow. Being completely worn out and exhausted from the past two days, and with the sun already having gone down, I decided to come back another day to measure and photograph this falls. Besides, I was not exactly sure it was located on government property, as there is a lot of private property in the immediate area. As luck would have it, the very person who I thought might own the land was sitting in his pickup truck about a mile up the road. Yes, it was his land, or it USED to be his land. It now is part of the Buffalo National River. Yippie, I can put it in the guidebook!

4/9/02 I had nightmares all night - starry skies kept running through my head - that would mean SUNSHINE in the morning - bah, humbug!!! Even though I was exhausted and mentally drained, I didn't sleep much. I had my sights on another prize in the morning, and just couldn't wait to get there. I left the cabin in the wee hours of darkness and drove over to the Compton Trailhead. I sat in the truck double checking all of my gear, and waiting for it to get light enough for me to be able to hike. There was a strong wind blowing, no rain, and NO stars! It was cloudy for sure, at least for a little while.

As soon as I could make out a bark pattern on a nearby tree, I hit the ground running, literally. I had no idea how long the clouds would last, and I wanted to make sure that I got a photo of the big waterfall in Fishtrap Hollow. The trail was wet and muddy, and my feet were soaked within minutes (so much for Gore-Tex boots), but I didn't care. I flew past Wild Vic's Cabin and hiked along the Bench Trail for awhile. At just the right point I left the trail and headed DOWN into the woods. There is no trail into this area, and the terrain is extremely steep and rugged. That's one reason why few people ever see this place. I could hear the waterfall running a long way off, and my feet began to shuffle.

I had been to this spot twice before, but never when the water was flowing good, and I was really anticipating a nice falls. Down through the bluffline I went, then around the base of it and up towards the head of this box canyon. And then there is was - a great beauty of a waterfall! This one actually starts out as a twin falls up high, and the two flows come together and leap as one down into the canyon. I was able to find a spot where I could get the entire height of the waterfall in the picture, thanks to the wider-angle lens on the new Minolta digital camera that I was using.

When Roy and Norma helped me measure this falls last month the 71 foot height did not include the lower part of the falls - which is actually a separate waterfall in my book - nor the top part of the right-hand falls. So what you are looking at in this photo is actually much taller than 71 feet. That upper part adds another 14 feet to the height - which is legitimate - so I am going to list this waterfall at officially 85 feet tall. There is also another part just above that right-hand falls, but I won't count that height as it is separated by a small pool.

Fishtrap Falls - much taller than 71 feet

Speaking of pools, I guess that is why they call this "Fishtrap Hollow" because there are several places where the waterfall has pound out a hole in the canyon floor. If you were a fish swimming along you would tend to get "trapped" in those holes, especially when the water levels were low. I got to experience some human-sized holes in the bottom of a rushing stream like that once - deep in the bowels of Blanchard Springs Cave. The current would suck you down into them - they were perhaps 8 or 10 feet deep - and you would swirl around in the bottom for a few seconds before being spit out. I was wearing scuba gear so there really was no danger, and after the shock of the first one, the rest of them were actually a lot of fun.

On my way out of the canyon I came upon several Indian paintbrush wildflowers in bloom What a pleasant surprise they were! These are some of my most favorite wildflowers, and while they are native to the Ozarks, you really don't see them very often (the highway department is now planting some of them along the interstates - which is GREAT!). They normally grow only in the most scenic spots - like along the tops big bluffs in the Buffalo area. I took some time off from my waterfall chasing to photograph these beauties.

Indian Paintbrush

The trip out from Fishtrap is steep no matter which way you go. Today I decided to take a more direct route out to the top, and while I figured it would probably be even steeper than the way I normally go, though it might save me some time - as long as the sky remained cloudy, I had waterfalls to find!

The first part of my journey went off without a hitch and pretty much as expected - it WAS steep and rocky, but I was able to make it. Then I ran into a bluffline that I could not get up through, so I had to waste time finding a way around it, which I did eventually. It was another VERY steep climb up slick and rocky slopes. My head was pounding and I was soaked with sweat.

Then my heart stopped dead cold. As I was struggling to maintain my balance and not fall flat on my face, I looked up just in time to see a monster charging down the mountainside right at me - holy cow! Well, actually it was a bull. A bull elk, just beginning to get a few nubbins of antler on top of his head, all in velvet. I'm not sure who was stunned more - me or the elk. The poor guy was coming down the hill and just sort of ran into me, and he really did not know what to do next. His front legs were splayed out so far that he nearly fell flat on his face too. I swear there was steam coming from his nostrils. And that look of terror in his eyes was priceless. In a flash he had that giant and gangly body of his turned around on a dime and headed off in another direction. Crash. Crash. Crash is all I heard for several seconds. Then I began to breathe once again. Wow, that was interesting.

Still clouds above when I got back to the truck. OK, let's get to the next waterfall, and quick!

To get to the next waterfall - which I had never been to before - I had to make four creek crossings. Two of them were thigh deep, and that water was COLD! As I started up the side canyon where the waterfall was located, I heard the sound of a jet flying overhead. I thought that was odd considering how low the cloud cover was. Turned out it was the stream making that noise. There was a short two or three foot tall falls that spilled into this neat little miniature canyon of smooth rock.

At first, the hiking was easy, and there was nearly a trail to follow. But soon the canyon walls closed in and it got very steep. I had to cross the creek and climb up onto the other side, where I found another wall of greenbriers. The further up the little canyon I hiked the more neat stuff I saw. At one point I was back down alongside the creek and measured off more than 100 feet of what I call a "waterslide." The thing was probably 2-3 feet wide, smooth rock, and about 2-3 feet tall, with water rushing several inches deep down it at a slight angle. What fun place to be in the summertime! Of course, the water probably isn't that deep in the summer. But it was a most interesting spot. I had planned to photograph it on my way out, although my plans would soon change.

As sheer rock walls high above began to come down to my level and close in tight, my anticipation of what lay hidden within them grew and grew until I was probably running and stumbling as fast as I could upstream. Then I came to a big rock overhang that came out over the stream, and while I could hear a great deal of thundering water, I couldn't see anything yet. And then I stepped around the corner and a chill ran up and down my spine, and I was breathless and speechless once again.

Before me was one of the most wondrous sights I had ever laid eyes on. No kidding! It was just incredible! No words to describe it really, and I knew there was no way I could photograph it. The tall canyon walls came together - part of one of them actually towered over the stream, cutting off the sky. And a waterfall way in the back seemed to come out of no where, and spilled into what I would later learn was a very deep pool of water (no, I didn't fall in, I lowered my tripod down into it and never hit bottom). Amazing. Wonderful. Spectacular. Gorgeous. There just are not enough words.

But there were a lot of very SLICK rocks, and I had trouble walking around in front of the falls trying to set up my camera equipment. There was only a narrow ledge around the edge of that pool, and not only was it also very slick, but it sloped down into that pool, so I would not be able to put myself in the photo. No matter, I had to get a picture of this place. So I set up right in the middle of the stream and snapped away, not really believing I was standing there in the first place. I guess part of my disbelief comes from the fact that this scenic canyon is located along a very popular hiking trail, one that I had hiked many times before. Yet I never had a clue that anything like this was here.

Thunder Canyon Falls - you MUST go stand right here!

I could not see the top of the falls, so could not even estimate the height of it. What I could see was probably 30 feet plus or minus, but it was so hard to tell. I will have to get Roy and Norma in here with ropes to get any sort of an accurate measurement.

As I made my way back out of the canyon I decided to climb up high and see if it was easier going. I got up high alright, and before I knew it I was standing on top of the bluff in the canyon! Wow, what a view! I could see down into the waterfall area, but the falls I was looking at did not look like the same ones I had just been to. I made my way on over towards them and discovered that it was indeed a different part of the same waterfall, an upper portion no telling how far above the lower one. I got into position at the edge of the dropoff and snapped a picture, then tried to get to another vantage point where I could see the top of the lower part of the falls. I never was able to see them, so still don't have a clue how tall they are. Boy, they are going to have a lot of fun in there on ropes!

The upper part of Thunder Canyon

Above this second area I had taken a picture of there was more neat stuff, including one spot where two creeks came together. I would later learn that the one of the left came from a large spring higher up on the hillside.

I followed the spring creek on up to where it created a hillside covered with moss-covered boulders. Obviously it runs all year at some level. The forest all around was open and soft and inviting. What a nice place to come and visit, and stay for a while.

I found an old road which took me on out to the main road and back to my truck. Still mostly clouds above, so I headed off towards my next waterfall to find. Little did I know that with just six inches less luck it would have been my last waterfall.

The next falls was up a side canyon off of a very popular trail too, but by the time I arrived and started my hike the sky had begun to clear, and my hopes of getting one more waterfall today were fading. I had not been to this falls though, so I was game for the hunt, and really wanted to see what it looked like, so off I went.

As I left the main trail and climbed up through the forest I passed quite a few wildflowers, including lots of Ozark wake robins, richly colored. There were bellworts, phlox, spring beauty, violets, bloodroot, and all sorts of wildflowers, all loving the blue sky and bright sunshine. I, of course, was still hoping for a cloud or two to drift past the sun.

Up and up I climbed, following a tumbling stream. It led to a bluffline, with a small overhang on one side sheltered a nice cascade. And at the far end of the overhang was the falls - 24 feet of it. It was nice enough to justify the climb, but that was just the beginning. From one vantage point out in front of the falls where you can climb up a steep slope, you can see a second, third and fourth waterfall up the canyon. Behind are towering bluffs perhaps 75-100 feet tall.

The second drop was really just an upper part of the lower falls, so it was no big deal, but I wanted to see if I could get to the next falls, which did look interesting. I found my way up along the lower edge of the bluff, and in a minute was standing - no actually holding on for dear life - right in front of the next waterfall, a 15 footer. From there I could get a good look at the last falls up the canyon, and it really looked like a great one. Only problem was that I could find no way at all to go any further, so I would not get to view it up close. No matter, it all was a spectacular setting. AND, part of the falls that I was at was in the shade, which meant that it would all be covered up if I just waited long enough.

I sat down to admire the view and wait for the sun to move. Way back up behind me the sun just barely peaked over the top of the tall bluff, looking down on me to see what I was up to. And then a cloud passed in front of the sun and I jumped into action. The camera had already been set up so it didn't take my long to trip the shutter and run into the picture. The cloud hung around just long enough for me to get the photo that I needed.

The middle falls

Since I could go no further up the canyon, I made my way on back down to the lowest waterfall. Along the way, near tragedy struck, and only a fine bit of luck on my part saved my life.

I'm not exactly sure how or why I did it now, but I remember reaching up and grabbing a poison ivy vine. I was traveling at the base of a 25 foot tall bluff - a small bluff under the really large one there. The next second happened in slow motion and lasted an eternity. I recall seeing a flash of white - it was a large slab of rock passing within inches of the left side of my head. Then I felt pain - a great deal of sharp pain - as the rock landed on my elbow. I remember thinking "what the heck is a rock doing crashing down on me - how dare it!" Next thing I knew I was on the ground, grasping at my arm to see if anything was broken - the force of the blow had thrown me to the ground. I instantly rolled back under the ledge in case there were more rocks on the way. I laid back in pain and realized that my life could easily have been snuffed out by that rock - if only I had been standing a few inches to my left, it would have hit right on top of my head, causing certain death. At least it would have been quick I thought. I was not in any hurry to get up.

The vine must have been growing around that rock and the rock was just loose enough that a good tug sent it off from its resting place. The darn thing must have weighed nearly 100 pounds, and had a sharp edge on one side. At once I cursed the rock and thanked it for sparing my life.

My arm did not appear to be broken - I could still move my fingers and my wrist, although only with a great deal of pain. So many things raced through my brain in those first few minutes after the rock came down. I though about giving it all up right then and there - "we have enough waterfalls for the damn book!" Perhaps I would retire from the outdoors and sit back and write adventure stories without ever leaving the cabin again. Or maybe romance novels. I missed my wife and my child more than ever, yet I would be afraid to face Pam with yet another story and battered body. Then I thought about rodeo folks, who come home nearly each week with different broken bones it seemed. My life was MUCH more safe and tame than that! At least Pam had not been here to witness this mishap like she had been the last time I messed up.

Once I decided that I was indeed alive and able to function, I made up my mind that I was going to go ahead and photograph that lower falls - heck, I was all the way up in this canyon, the water was running well, and it really didn't take TWO hands to take a picture. And besides, the lower falls was now entirely in shadow.

It took me longer than usual to set up the tripod and attach the camera. I set the self timer and ran/scrambled/stumbled down the rocky hillside trying to get into the frame. I did not make it the first couple of times. The distance was not all that far, but those rocks underfoot made controlled travel difficult. And to make matters worse, I had to run right past the one rock that had caused me all the pain. But I was determined, and by the fourth or fifth try I was able to get into position fast enough. One shot - that is all I got. And then I called it quits and packed up and headed on down the canyon back towards the truck.

The lower falls - my arm hurts...

Each jarring step brought on a new level of pain. But no swelling in my fingers, nor purple color, so I felt assured it was merely smashed muscle or something like that. I had on my standard-issue capeline long-sleeved shirt so I could not see the actual spot where the rock hit. But I could not move my elbow much either. Finally I made it down to level ground, and just as I had gotten across the main creek and back on the trail, I realized that way back up at the far waterfall where I had sat and waited for the sun to move, set my GPS, faithfully trying to grind out the position of the waterfall with just a tiny bit of sky to work with. I was not a happy camper at that point! I thought about leaving the darn thing and coming back when I felt better, but then thought, what the heck, I am here, I might as well go back up and get it.

So I turned around and headed back up into the canyon, passing a sleeping copperhead along the way. I left all of my camera gear back down below, and removed the strap from my tripod to use as a makeshift sling to help keep my poor arm in place. That helped out a great deal - it only hurt when I moved my arm. But I became a one-armed climber in the process, so had to be much more careful where and how I placed my feet.

I made it back up to the spot where I had left the GPS unit just fine - I picked it up to see if it had ever made a fix on the position - it only glared back at me "Lost Satellite Reception."

I thought about that copperhead a lot on the way down, and now plugged that particular color and pattern into my optical brain - I spent the entire way down the hillside scanning each leaf in front of me and on both sides for that copper pattern. When I passed by the rock where Mr. snake had been sunning himself, he had gone back indoors, the hot afternoon sun just a little too much for him.

So there you have it - another three day run at waterfalls. We've  had some terrific rain and weather for waterfalls this spring - really just a normal year for them, but the last few years have been rather dry so it seems extraordinary. My list of "priority" waterfalls is now down to just eight, with another eight or ten that I would like to photograph and include in the book, but could live without if I don't make it to them. Plus another dozen or so that I would like to return to to get better photos of. So I guess that means that I WILL continue with my search, at least until another rock hits me square on, or I get all of the waterfalls on my list, or the water plays out.

4/10/02 I took today off. At least from chasing waterfalls. The pile of e-mails, paperwork and phone calls kept me home all day. My arm is doing OK, sort of. You should have seen how funny and mis-aligned it looked last night! When I got home Pam asked if I could straighten it - I had not done so since the rock hit it. It took me a few minutes and only a few shouts of pain, but I did get it straightened out and man did it look weird! But today after a great deal of pain killers and lots of ice, it isn't all that bad. It has turned this neat shade of purple...

A spectacular crystal clear spring day in the Ozarks today. Many more like it and all of the trees and flowers will be out in no time. I think that even though it may be a couple or three weeks late in coming, we will have one splendid spring, and it will explode with color.

Pam and I spent most of the entire day sitting side by side - me at my computer, and her at hers. This system has worked out great so far. The only time that I did venture out - up to the office to process some poster orders (the mice ate another two stacks of posters!) - there were a couple of hawks soaring overhead and screaming down at me. They did not appear to be red-tailed hawks, but I could not get a fix on exactly what they were. I think we get a lot of hawks migrating through at this time of the year.

It is later in the day now, I am almost done with my journal chores, have eaten a fine dinner that Pam prepared, played one-handed teather ball with Amber (she beat me), watched Aspen eat some cat poop, and am about ready to go for a stroll in the evening woods. My arm has begun to swell back up again, but I have managed OK with it, thanks to Pam doing a lot of my chores for me. Hum, I wonder if I can milk just a little bit more sympathy out of her - "Oh honey, I'm in the shower, and you know my arm really hurts - could you help me wash my back?"

4/12/02 The first thing that I saw in the early dim light before dawn today were odd shapes right outside my window - the beginnings of DOGWOOD FLOWERS! Spring was truly on the way, at last. I have not seen a white one yet, but they often do come out yellow first, which is what this one was doing. I'll take them either way (the yellow ones normally turn white very soon anyway). When the light of day had arrived I could see that several entire trees had begun to bud out over on Beagle Point. None of them up on top of the ridge had come out yet, or were even giving a hint of doing so, but several in the middle of the hillside were out, as were others down low. As the day wore on more and more of the trees over there popped out. Spring is here and coming on strong.

Pam and I spent most of the morning working on our twin computers. This setup is working out just great as we are able to talk back and forth when needed, or simply work in silence, knowing that the other is just an arm's length away.

While we were breaking for lunch out on the back deck, a small hawk came drifting by, with his wings folded tight against his body. There must have been more of a breeze than we realized because this dude was moving so slowly in the air, working the currents, almost hovering. Then he twisted his body just a little and darted into the timber, landing on a branch of an old oak tree. He sat there a while and gave us a good looking over - as we were doing to him through the telescope - then with one little twitch of his wings, he rose up and took off on the wind and soared on across the valley, headed for Beagle Point.

Just before dark I met Pam over near this big waterfall that we have been studying (she had to make a quick trip up to Missouri to deliver Amber for the weekend). Pam hiked on out to the top of the waterfall while I made my way down along the bottom of the massive bluffline.

I encountered a great deal more than I have ever anticipated. From the road the bench that runs along under the bluff appears to be rather level and open and lush and lovely. I quickly discovered that it was none of those things, accept it definitely was lush. There were boulders of all sorts everywhere, from typewriter size on up to house size, most of them covered with thick carpets of moss and plants of all shapes and sizes. In fact I came across this one plant that I don't recall ever seeing before, growing in great numbers along the forest floor. Know what it is?

Virginia waterleaf plant (thanks to Don Kurz for the ID)

And speaking of typewriters, I think there was one of those down there, along with a tv, radio, stove, many tires of all sizes, quite a few bodies - most of them just bones now, but at least one still had skin and hair attached - and bottles, cans, and of course, a large sign that read "No Dumping Allowed," still attached to its tall steel post. None of this stuff was piled up in any one place - it was strewn out all over the place, in between the mossy rocks and wildflowers that were blooming like crazy.

Spiderworts

And right near the base of the big waterfall was an old whiskey barrel, obviously thrown over the edge at some point in time many moons ago. This property used to belong to a sheriff of Newton County. I wonder if the barrel was full or empty?

From the good old days

Our radios were not working, so I had to holler up at Pam and it took us several minutes to get everything organized, but before too long the big measuring tape was over the edge and I had it planted right at the surface of the little pool of water created by the waterfall (a pool that was filled with boulders that were covered with some of the slickest stuff I had ever slipped on!). We pulled the tape tight. "Take the measurement now!" I yelled up.

It wasn't until later that I learned we had just measured the brand new 3rd tallest waterfall in Arkansas - 114 feet! Actually at the moment it is tied for 3rd with Kings Bluff Falls, but I plan to go back and re-measure that one and double-check the height. I bet one of them will be just a little bit taller or shorter than the other. Or perhaps we will have a tie. Either way this new one is a bit of a surprise, and I know of no one who has ever noted it before. I took a few snapshots of it today, but will wait until there is more water to do the official picture for the guidebook. In fact I have a really neat idea in mind for this picture, but we will need to get a good bit more rain in the next couple of weeks before I will be able to do it, plus will have to have some help from good old Roy!

The dogwoods were beginning to pop out in the forest here, but not enough to revel any of the brilliant white flowers. Some of the redbuds were coming out too, including this one right up against the base of the bluff. Looks like we are going to have a classic spring this year when the dogwoods and redbuds are in bloom at the same time (see the cover of my ARKANSAS SPRING picture to see what it looks like when that happens). I do believe we are in for one mighty spectacular and colorful show this next month, and I can't wait.

Redbud and sandstone bluff

Arm Update. Pam seems to get a big kick out of the color of my injured arm. It has gone from purple to dark blue to red and back to purple. She has kept ice packs on it, which has really helped keep the swelling down and much of the pain away. I have been trying to keep the movement up so it doesn't forget how to do so, but I have been unable to really do much with it. Today it has felt much better, and I thought I was really getting there, until I reached out and braced myself against a boulder that I was falling towards on the little hike today. OK, I'm not going to do that again.

It is late at night now and both of us are back at our computer stations in the cabin. I just went outside to take care of some personal business and found the sky above to be filled with a million stars. It is quite warm now - as it has been all day - and the open windows throughout the cabin are allowing a nice breeze to pass through. Pam is hard at work on the new HikeArkansas.com web page, typing in information about every hiking trail in Arkansas. And me, well, I am writing in this journal, which has become my new hobby.

4/14/02 A classic spring day in the Ozarks today. Pam and I and the dogs and the Trail Cat took off on a hike around the loop trail. That darn cat is something else - she has almost become another dog in that she is always ready and willing to head out with us for a hike. The other cat has been dubbed the "Fat Cat" because he never does anything other than sit around and get fatter.

First thing we found was a mini-city of mayapples coming up out of the ground. Dozens and dozens of them to a bunch, and there were many bunches. Looks like its going to be a great year for mayapples. And even some of the flower buds were beginning to come out. Funny, but they first come out as this little round shape, which will soon open up into a glorious flower, but then that flower will drop off and be replaced by the "apple," which will be about the same round shape as the original bud. I can't wait for them all!

A mayapple city, and the beginnings of a flower/apple

The sun was shining brightly and I had my sunglasses on, although I find that they reduce the colors of the forest to just a few instead of many, so I normally end up taking them off. The woods are so colorful at this time of the year, even if it is only browns and greens - those greens really stand out. The trees themselves up here on top of the ridge had not begun to bud out yet, at least most of them had not. We spent yesterday down in central Arkansas attending an Arkansas Trails Council meeting and man, everything is out and lush green down there! It was like driving back up into the winter woods when we came home. It will only be a matter of days here though before the green explosion takes place.

As we passed through the orchard we found a large redbud tree that had been knocked over by the ice storm last December. It all but completely cut off the tree several feet up in the air. The only thing that was left attached was a small part of the bark several inches wide. Apparently that was enough to continue sending the lifeblood/sap up to the rest of the tree because the darn tree has burst out into a gorgeous redbud, as full as any other one up here on the mountain. Only problem was that the tree was laying down on the ground and not up in the air showing itself off. No matter - we were able to revel in all its glory.

Everything was wet this morning, very wet from a heavy dew. The Trail Cat had no problem keeping up with all of us, but she did not seem to like all of this wet stuff too well!

We passed through the Faddis Meadow and re-entered the woods once again, passing more mayapple cities that were cropping up all over the place. I found this pair up against a lichen-covered boulder that seemed to be singing in the morning sunshine.

Young mayapples greeting the morning sunshine

The trout lily population never really seemed to get going up here this year. We had a few blooms, but than lots of cold weather and rain, and while there were still hundreds of plants evident even now, most of them never bloomed. We did find lots of spring beauties and a few other small flowers, but the forest floor remained brown.

Once we got back from our little hike (which, by the way, the Trail Cat completed in the LEAD - a full mile of hiking), the phone rang, which sent us into a scramble. A committee was on the way out to inspect the cabin for possible inclusion in the fall Newton County Home Tour. Yikes, we have both been really busy with chasing waterfalls and working on the HikeArkansas.com web page and other stuff that the cabin was a mess. But we put it into high gear, and by the time the ladies from the committee arrived Pam and I were lounging out on the back deck, munching on hot fajitas. The ladies sort of gasped when they first walked into the cabin (a common reaction), and I think we passed with flying colors (later when Amber got home, she commented that a "cleaning tornado" must have been here).

A few more trees over on Beagle point popped out in the sunshine today, but still most of the trees remain dormant. It won't be long now though.

4/15/02 It was still dark when Pam and Amber headed out to catch the bus. I rolled over on my sore arm and tried to go back to sleep. Seems like that arm is getting worse instead of better. And it had taken on this dark purple and black hue with tinges of green and yellow around the edges. I had never noticed the bottom color of it until Pam pointed it out to me yesterday - man, that thing is ugly! I would post a photo of it, but know some of you log on and read this journal while you are having lunch, so I will spare you.

They are calling for clear skies and no rain today. Naturally it is cloudy with a feeling of rain in the air. That light is soft and inviting, and the air is filled with the sounds of spring. Our alarm clock this morning at 5am was the first whippoorwill of the season, just outside our window. And now there are happy birds flying around and chirping away like crazy, and singing songs of love. And the river below is sending up its own music, a lovely melody of running wild and free.

And across the way up on Beagle Point, about half of the trees have EXPLODED overnight, and are GREEN! There is an overall green cast to the forest as far as we can see, sort of like the place is growing hair. Spring is springing right now high in the Ozarks!

The first dogwood flowering outside Amber's window

But along with all of that new growth  comes a sad note. One of our favorite friends that has been with us since last November is leaving us today - the big bluffline over there on Beagle Point. It has been our constant companion all winter, harboring not only neat rock formations that we have studied through the telescope, but also ice formations and waterfalls. But now it will disappear today as the trees that guard it leaf out. It is nearly half gone now already this morning, and I suspect that we won't see much of it at all by the end of the day. Farewell good friend, have a grand summer, and we will see you after the color drops off in October!

Beagle Point and the disappearing bluff

On another note, I wanted to pass on an Emerson quote that a journal reader sent me awhile ago, and that I was reminded of when speaking with "The Wildman" this morning. An enlarged text of this hangs right next to the front door of the cabin. I have had to refer to it often of late after being stabbed in the back by a few folks that I thought were my friends. I pass it on to you in hopes that it will help brighten your day, and that of others:

Oops, I almost forgot to mention that our good friend Don Kurz immediately identified the mysterious plant that I had posted the other day (he has quickly become the new wildflower and plant guru for the Ozarks, and is working on a brand new tree book right now - I can't wait for it to come out!). Here is his note:
"Plant I.D.: The basal leaves appear to be Virginia waterleaf, Hydrophyllum virginianum. Those blotched leaves and pinnately shaped leaves look right. See p. 184 in my OZARK WILDFLOWER book for the flowers. It is called waterleaf because the leaves look stained or blotched by water."
His wildflower book is always close at here at Cloudland, and it my main reference manual for wildflowers - AND the pictures are TERRIFIC! If you don't have a copy yet, I highly recommend it.

BY THE WAY, we have been unable to access our e-mail accounts for the past 24 hours, so if you have sent us something, please forgive not getting a response - we're trying to work with our service provider to get the problem solved, but so far, no luck. Once we get it fixed, there will be a backlog of 100 or more notes no doubt for us to take care of.

E-MAIL UPDATE: Turns out that all of our e-mails from late Saturday night to Monday morning were lost when the internet provider updated some software and deleted them. So if you sent anything on Sunday or early Monday morning, you will need to re-send it please. Thanks. (On the other hand, it was GREAT to not have any e-mails on Monday morning!)

By the middle of the afternoon today I had gone without waterfalls long enough, so I packed up the truck and headed on down the hill to Lost Valley. It was sunny and HOT. I had two goals - one was to measure Eden Falls, and the other to try to take a picture of the waterfall inside the cave there. I could do both no matter what the sun was doing!

This is the first time I had been out since my little mishap with the boulder the other day. My arm ached as I hiked past the entrance to that little canyon where the accident happened. My arm was really black and blue today, but I could use it just fine (well, somewhat anyway).

I didn't pass any other hikers on the way to the cave, but I did pass thousands of giant bloodroot plants - not a single bloom though. There were a few other flowers blooming here and there, but mostly it appeared that the canyon floor was in the middle of the early spring bloom and the normal spring bloom, which I hope will arrive in a few days.

I had been to this cave entrance many times, but never have actually crawled back into it to look at the waterfall that is touted to be 35 feet tall by the Park Service. I was a bit skeptical about that height, and have never seen a photo of it before. I intentionally have waited until the water levels were lower before attempting to get a photo because I knew a lot of water would really cause too much moisture in the air to be able to get a good picture.

It was easy to crawl along the slippery but smooth limestone bottom of the cave - the room was only about two feet tall, but plenty wide. All you had to do was follow the sound of the creek below you, and the increasing sound of the waterfall up ahead - there was really only one route. I came to a spot where I could actually stand up - a tiny room really, that had a big cave formation growing in the middle of it. Lots of bats hanging around in this area - mostly eastern "pip" bats I figured - they are very small and like to hang around in groups of one.

And then just a few feet farther I came out into the waterfall room. It is a room perhaps 20-25 feet in diameter, and son of a gun, that waterfall was nearly 35 feet tall, and pouring out of the very top of this cone-shaped room. I was impressed!

Even at this reduced flow rate there was a great deal of spray in the air, and I was unable to find a good spot out of the direct fire to take a picture of the waterfall. I did manage to get partway up one side of the wall though and shoot a couple of pictures. The flash on the camera picked up every single water droplet in the air and lit them up as bright spots - no way to see anything past several feet away with all of that "noise." So I resorted to using my headlamp as the sole source of light, which wasn't very much. I put the little digital camera on "bulb" setting which allowed me to get a 16-second exposure, and I moved the flashlight back and forth  and up and down the waterfall the entire time, trying to light up as much of the falls as I could. What I ended up with is what I think is the very best photo of this waterfall that I have ever seen! (Its kind of small, but I think you will get the idea of what a waterfall inside a cave might look like.)

The waterfall inside the cave - hey, I finally don't look too bad in this one!

As I got back out to the entrance I met a guy who owns a frame shop in Fayetteville, and a group of three Amish girls who were with a couple of non-Amish looking guys. The girls all had the traditional long dresses and stuff, but they were all three barefooted! And they were having the time of their lives, whispering to each other and laughing (they had probably never seen anything like me before, especially how muddy I was emerging from the cave). They had never been in a cave before, but were willing to give it their best shot. There was only one flashlight between the five of them, but since the waterfall room is just barely out of sight of the light from the entrance, they would probably still be able to find their way out if that one light gave out - it was a really big one.

OK, so I made it to the waterfall, now my chore was to measure Eden Falls, or actually the lower and middle sections of the falls. The waterfall that comes right out of the cave is what I call "middle" Eden Falls, and I measured it out at 39 feet. It is a beautiful waterfall that spills down moss-covered ledges, although you have to get down into the canyon below before you can really see it - something that is a bit tricky and I don't recommend most people do.

Then I made my out to the very top of the lower part of Eden Falls - this is what most folks see. I was thinking this falls was about 30 feet or something like that, and I was stunned when it came out to be 53 feet! And that doesn't include an additional 8-foot falls at the top of it that I am not going to count in the height. This really is one of the most beautiful waterfalls in the Ozarks.

Back behind me, still farther up the canyon, is what I call the "upper" falls area. It is actually two or three waterfalls pouring into a narrow rock canyon that is clogged with several really large boulders. No way to get up to these waterfalls unless you repel down from above. This upper falls is probably 75 feet tall or something like that. I have never taken a photo of it, but will come back one day to see what I can get. I found one spot where I can get a good view of two parts of the falls, although I will have to be tied off on the side of the canyon wall!

One of the best things about a trip into Lost Valley is the fact that the hike out is ALL downhill, and very pleasant. I recommend this hike to anyone, large or small.

4/16/02 I was busy at the computer while a terrific light show was going on outside at first light this morning. The wind howled and blew and made all sorts of noise most of the night - and not all of the noise was from the wind - a lot of it was from objects flying through the air and impacting on the side of the cabin or on the deck. Outdoor furniture has to be really tough to stand up out here.

No rain, but once again it sure "felt" like rain. There were a lot of clouds today and not much sun, and the wind continued to blow all day. I took time off from my computer chores to go get the tractor and take a bag of cement and enough water to mix it up down into Fox meadow. I dug a hole in the rocky soil and placed the bottom portion of a martin house pole in it. Just as I was leveling the pole up, the dogs began to bark. Hikers approaching.

I turned around and saw five ladies emerging from the timber. They had been on a hike out to Hawksbill Crag and stopped by for a visit. Pam came down and joined us and we gave them the grand tour of the place, beginning at the gazebo.

The meadow is beginning to green up nicely, and while there are only a few wildflowers here and there in bloom right now, the ladies were noticing all sorts of plants already popping out of the ground.

I love to see small groups of good friends like these ladies getting out in the woods and having a great time. No doubt all of them lead hectic lives most of the time, but out here the pace is much slower and they are able to soak up all that good old momma nature provides.

Here is our group of hiking ladies enjoying a break at Cloudland.
Note in the top center of the photo a group of dogwoods that have popped out down on the other side of the river.

After they left I remembered that I forgot to have them sign the Cloudland Lampshade, which is the official guest register here. It just so happened that I had to head on out to the main gravel road to pick up Amber from the bus anyway, so I grabbed the lampshade and took it with me. They had taken the road on back to the trailhead to see what the top of the ridge looked like. I caught up with them out at the mailboxes and got all of their signatures - an honor for me!

A little while later, while I was busy typing up this journal, and Pam was in the kitchen making supper, it began to rain, finally, after nearly two days of "feeling" like rain. Oh, brother, did it ever rain! It quickly turned into one of those "frog strangler" rains, and we got more than two inches of rain in less than one hour. I had a really difficult time of it - I was trying to type, but the rain got so loud I could hardly think. When the total got up over an inch, I began to get my things organized just in case I need to go out and chase a waterfall. As the rain continued I was really torn because I knew there would be waterfalls, but darn whatever Pam had in the oven sure did smell great! And believe it or not, I also was really enjoying sitting here at the computer and writing - I pretty much loathe writing, but somehow this journal has changed all of that. So I was in quite a quandary - write, EAT, or go out and chase waterfalls? It continued to pour buckets.

Well, I ended up doing all three. I wrote a little bit longer, then sat down and had dinner with my family, and then jumped up and ran out the door - two inches of rain was just too much to dismiss!

It was close to dark anyway, so I knew I was not going out on any lengthy trip. It was possible that the rain was localized too. So I decided to visit a waterfall nearby that I did not have a really good shot of, and no shot at all with me in the picture for scale. So I parked the truck and slipped on down the hillside and soon was standing at the bottom of the lower Haley Zega Falls. Lordy was it running!

The rains had let up, in fact eventually stopped, but mist and spray from the bluff next to where I had the camera set up kept getting everything soaked. I had the umbrella strapped onto the tripod with velcro, but it was facing the side and not overhead - looked pretty funny.

One thing that kind of shocked me here was that the umbrella magnolia trees were already starting to BLOOM! Wow, we have some great magnolia blooms up here in the Buffalo area - the past two years have been wonderful. And from the looks of the trees at this waterfall today, I think we are going to have another stellar year.

Haley Zega Falls - lower (left) and upper (right)

Once I got the picture taken, I remembered that I did not have a really good picture of Thousand Kisses Falls with a person in the scene either, so I packed up and hustled on over to it - about a 15 minute hike along the base of the bluffline, and past Mule Trail Falls, which was really cooking too.

Thousand Kisses Falls is so named because I kissed my lovely wife under it once and told her that I had planned to kiss her under at least 1000 more waterfalls before I was through (not finished with the guidebook, but with life in general). Little did she know how TRUE that statement was going to be - I have already dragged her to many dozens of waterfalls in some pretty difficult places to get to.

This falls was running nicely too, and I was able to find a good spot to get a picture from. But the rain was really coming off of the bluffline here, and I had a great deal of trouble keeping it off of the front of the lens. I was there perhaps a half hour and ended up getting only three images shot. The run after I tripped the self-timer on the camera was a long run - right at the far end of what I could physically do. And I didn't realize it until I got back to the cabin later and loaded them up onto the computer, but I never actually made it to the place where I had picked out to stand, and so all three exposures have me blurred and turned sideways. No matter, it will look just fine in the guidebook.

Thousand Kisses Falls

OK, I had my three waterfalls pics taken. But heck, there was still just a hint of daylight left, and I would LOVE to get a photo of what we are now calling Sunrise Falls, which is tied for 3rd highest in the state at 114 feet. This falls is only about a ten minute drive from the cabin. Only problem was that I was still out in the middle of the woods, so I put it into high gear and raced up the hillside to the truck, then sped off down the slippery, muddy road towards Sunrise Falls.

As I got closer to the falls I realized that the ditches were not running much with water. Neither were the streams that crossed under the road. And when I got to the stream that feeds this monster waterfall, it didn't look like it was running any more than it had for the past couple of days. I guess it was possible that the big storm that dumped all of the rain on us simply missed the far end of the mountain. It was basically dark anyway, so I turned the truck around and headed back home.

4/17/02 It was a pretty rough night around here - a great deal of heavy winds, thunder and lightning. I was up several times checking the weather channel, but I realized that they really don't give out too much real info at 2 in the morning on there. A giant storm was passing just south of us, and I spent some time out on the back deck just admiring the view. The air was quite dry - not a drop of rain all night - and the decks were literally blown completely dry. The rivers below were singing loudly from the downpour of the night before. Deck furniture was all over the place, and no telling how much of it ended up out in the yard/forest. Just one of the perks of living at Cloudland! This morning when we three were all getting up and on the way, Pam and Amber noted that they did not hear a single thing all night - must be GREAT to sleep that soundly!

The sun rose at the normal time today into a mostly-blue sky - just a few clouds here and there. The overall color cast of the wilderness was GREEN today! Wow, so much new growth in just a few hours. Each day this next few days will bring dramatic changes on the landscape. Heck, even from morning until afternoon it will look different. I just hate to miss a single moment of it all. Before long there will be nothing but green, which will remain until October.

A very green Beagle Point this morning\

It feels just delightful outside this morning - everything was swept clean yesterday, and all is fresh and new. I haven't seen a single bird today. Hum, I wonder if they all got blown away with the deck furniture?

4/18-19/02 Most of the past three days were spent in town dealing with my mom's house - moving stuff out, cleaning, etc. We ended up hauling off four large trailer and four truck loads of stuff to various places - 54 years worth of life that had to be put somewhere. It was a long and exhaustive process, both mentally and physically. One of the last things to be loaded up was a giant iron kettle that I think originally came across the ocean and wound up on my mom's family farm in southern Minnesota. They used it for making soap back in the 1800's and beyond. It was hauled down to Arkansas on top of one of our cars in the 1950's or 60's, where it has stood in the front yard of our family home ever since, filled with flowers of all sorts. It would now live at Cloudland, once again to be filled with flowers. This thing is large enough that Amber can get down inside it and not be seen. Anyway, just after I lifted it into the back of my vehicle and secured it for the ride to the woods, I made one last pass through the house that was now empty, yet still filled with, no overflowing with the memories of my own 46 years of life, the first 20-some odd spent in this house with my family (mom remained there until we were forced to move her into a nursing home a year ago). I spotted a tiny object on the floor of the garage, walked on over and picked it up. Some of you know that I have a fascination with the number 33 - always have. So many things in my life have included this number, and sometimes it is very odd (the address at Cloudland is "HC 33" for instance). I reached down and picked up a gold medal that my dad had won in his youth. He was a world-class swimmer, with national and even one world record to his credit, was picked for the Olympic team (they disqualified half of the team that year - him included - because the guys had worked as life guards and they considered that to be "professional"), and helped develop one of the four main swim strokes that is still in use today - the breast stroke. He had won hundreds, perhaps even thousands of medals and trophies in his career, but this single one was about to be left behind. I turned it over and the inscription read "First Place, 100 meter backstroke, G. Ernst, 1933." One last treasure that I will keep forever.

Oh yea, we also got a few living treasures from the house - flowers that my mom had planted, including one wild azalea bush. One entire side of her house was lined with these azaleas, and while they have always bloomed nicely, they literally exploded with color this year, as if to say goodbye to my mom. This is not the best time of the year to transplant things, but I hope this one will make it at Cloudland - we'll have to wait until next spring to see.

4/20/02 Today was a photo workshop day, and while the weather service predicted gloom and doom and three inches of rain overnight, not a single drop fell. (We were all prepared for rain most of the day, but still not a single drop.) During one of our stops a workshop member came running up to me saying she has just startled a "very large bird" that had a nest on the ground. I went to take a look and found a nice dozen wild turkey eggs, right there on the side of a very steep and rocky hillside, being guarded by a batch of ferns.

Wild turkey eggs

We also came across dozens of morel mushrooms - for those of you who love these things (I can't stand them!), you should take note that NOW is the time to get out and hunt them!

After the workshop was over we were all down at Hawksbill Crag. A giant dog came lumbering down the trail, dragging a family with him. He walked right on out to the edge of the Crag and posed for a few pictures. These dogs are large for sure, but this guy was HUGE even by St. Bernard standards. A little while later the dog and family showed up at the cabin - lost like so many people who hike this trail are. "Someone told us this was a LOOP trail." We get that all the time. READ THE GUIDEBOOK!!! Pam was nice enough to give them all a ride back out to the trailhead - the lady was having to carry her little boy. Too bad they didn't have a saddle rigged up for that dog!

A big dog visits the Crag

4/21/02 We were all up and out the door early today. Pam and Amber were leading an "OHTA Otters Kids" hike on the Indian Rockhouse trail down in the lower Buffalo area. Lots of black clouds swirling around, but it didn't feel much like rain. We all set out on the trail with rain gear handy, just in case.

It was a beautiful day for a hike, and of course, no rain ever fell. The wildflowers were out in full force - perhaps 15 or 20 different species of them. We spotted a single wild orchid - a yellow lady-slipper. It was the small variety, but beautiful pure yellow. Then we saw another. And another. And another. Perhaps 15 to 20 in all scattered along this neat trail.

Wild orchid along the trail

One of the highlights of this trail is the large overhang at the turn-around point. This thing is massive, much larger than even Cobb Cave at the end of Lost Valley. And in the very back there is a stream and emerges briefly, then goes back underground once again. A couple of guys drown in this short run of the creek last month during flood waters, and a couple of memorials had been placed high up on the back walls in their honor.

The view from inside Indian Rockhouse

The total loop is three miles, and includes a long uphill grade back out to the trailhead. The kids were up to the task today, although it was about as much as they cared to do in one hike. Pam and Amber and I will be hiking many of the shorter trails in Arkansas this next year while working on our Kids Dayhike guidebook that will be out, well, when we get it finished. Speaking of getting books finished, I suspect it will be this fall before the waterfall guidebook will be on the market. Once we get all of the work done on it, the printer will take a couple of months to process. As an avid journal reader you will be the first to know when it is ready!

When we returned from our hike all three of us spent the rest of the daylight hours planting the flowers and azalea bush from mom's house. I bought Amber a special little shovel to use, only problem was that it fit both mine and Pam's hands too!

4/22/02 HAPPY EARTH DAY! I hope that each of you get the chance at some point today to get out and enjoy at least a minute or two of good old momma nature outdoors. Spring is in full swing here now, with the forest about half leafed out. The dogwoods are at about 80-90 peak, with the redbuds on the way out. Wildflowers are exploding all over the place, with many of them on the way out too. We'll have different species of wildflowers blooming from now until early fall. Birds all over the place, and Pam reported seeing a Martin at the cabin the other day. We just installed a martin house down in Fox meadow, so I hope we see a lot more of these guys in the future (they eat a LOT of mosquitoes). Beagle Point across the way is wearing its summer coat, along with the rest of the wilderness.

We have a ton of office work to do here today, then will be off to Conway to give a couple of slide programs at Hendrix College this evening as part of their Earth Day celebration. We have "hired" Pam's mom to come down and stay with Amber while we are gone. She doesn't seem to mind making the trip down from Missouri at all. Although I did think I heard her say that I would have to promise to take her to the morel patch tomorrow before she headed back up north!

4/23/02 BOOM! BANG!! CRASH!!! Those are the sounds of the wilderness that greeted us early this morning. We were pounded by a major thunderstorm that shook us all out of our beds, or at least out a deep sleep. The first time that I opened my eyes I saw the bright flash of a bolt hitting a tree just across the way over near Mossville. The boom came just moments later and shook the cabin. What the heck, it was time to get up anyway.

While the ladies were waiting for the school bus the hail came down hard - good thing Pam took my old truck instead of her new one! By the time Pam and her mom had returned from the bus duties, it had already rained over an inch an a half in about two hours. Those are the sort of totals I like!

Judy had planned to go mushroom hunting with us this morning, but decided the storm would continue, and I would be out chasing waterfalls, so she headed north. Pam and I suited up for a quick trip out to the end of the ridge, and down to Lost Valley. We didn't return until nearly 3pm.

The first stop was just a quick one. I wanted to get a pic of the 114-foot tall Fowler Pouroff (or perhaps I will call it Sunrise Pouroff, I'm not sure yet). It was running pretty good, and so I got a couple of images - I may use one in the guidebook. My plan for this waterfall is to have either Roy or Norma repel about half way down and shoot a picture from the bottom of the falls. I need both a lot of water (which we had today), plus either Roy or Norma on rope. This waterfall will get a five-star beauty rating in the guidebook not so much because of its height (currently tied for 3rd tallest in the state), but for the incredible view from the top of the falls. Here is just a glimpse of the view, which extends back to the left, covering at least three times as much. If you look close here, you can see the Buffalo River in a couple of spots. And Aspen's Meadow is on top of one of the last ridges way out there.

Fowler/Sunrise Pouroff (lower right), with the Buffalo River in the valley

About the time I finished this picture, the sun popped out. Good grief, it was supposed to rain all day! We made the decision to go ahead and hike into Lost Valley in the hopes that we would get a cloud or two passing in front of the sun. Just for those of you who have not been following, sunshine will KILL a good waterfall picture! In fact, most people (even veteran photographers) continue to be surprised when I tell them that you really DON'T want SUNSHINE when you are talking nature photos, UNLESS the sky will be included in the picture. That bright light is way too contrasty to produce nice rich, colorful images of our wonderful outdoors.

It was a delightful hike on up to the far end of Lost Valley, and Clark Creek was running pretty high, and even was a bit muddy - a sure sign of waterfalls ahead! Eden Falls is the main waterfall here, and is indeed one of the most beautiful in all of Arkansas. Plus it is an easy hike to get to. I shot a picture of it for the guidebook more than a year ago, but after measuring it last week and discovering that it was more than 50 feet tall, I decided that I needed to get a person in the photo for scale, something I did not do when I first started shooting pics for this book. This waterfall simply does not LOOK more than 50 feet tall! But it is, and then some.

I rushed on ahead of Pam and climbed on up to near the cave, hoping to drop down into the little canyon there and photograph what I call the "upper" Eden Falls. It was running well, but the sun was still shining when I arrived. After waiting about ten minutes I got lucky and a cloud passed in front of the sun, and I was able to get four or five shots of this multi-tiered waterfall, which is actually much taller than 50 feet itself - perhaps 75 feet (I won't try to measure it - you can't even see all of the falls from down below).

Upper Eden Falls (left) - 50'+ - those boulders are HUGE, and Middle Eden Falls (right) - 39 feet (much of it is above and out of sight  this is the falls that comes out of the cave)

Then I climbed out of the canyon and went down to join Pam at the base of the lower falls. While it was all blue skies and sunshine above, we decided it was worth taking the time to hang around a while and see if we could scare up another cloud. Besides, we just happened to be standing in one of the most incredible spots on the planet, so we might as well soak a bit of it up.

Within a few minutes several dark clouds approached, and we were able to get the picture - perfect timing! Looking at this photo with Pam at the base gives you an idea of how tall this waterfall really is.

Lower Eden Falls, 53', not counting an upper 8'drop that is shown in this image

Just as soon as we got our photo, the clouds vanished and the sun came out again. We had a leisurely hike on back to the truck, passing tens of thousands of wildflower plants along the way - very few of them with blooms on. This is a lush, LUSH, little valley, but I guess most of the blooming had already taken place, although I'm sure there will be other flowers pop out in the coming weeks.

What the heck - we were out, so we might as well go find another waterfall. We drove on over and down towards Triple Falls (AKA Twin Falls). I may use a photo of this waterfall on the cover of the book, and since I had a smiling model-type in the truck with me, thought it would be a good time to shoot the cover. The waterfall was running just great, and there were a few more clouds overhead, but the main creek was muddy, and so was the pool at the base of the falls, so I decided not to shoot the color today. We did a trial run though, and found a good spot for Pam (and Amber?) to stand part was up the bluff.

After a bit of pizza at the quick stop in Jasper, we decided to take a scenic drive up through Parthenon and Wayton, and out to Deer. I had never been all the way through on this road before. There were tons of dogwoods in bloom, and lots of houses along the way. It was a beautiful drive through the springtime forest.

I delivered Pam back to the cabin, then headed out once again to take a few pictures. I wanted to get some shots of morel mushrooms with my "real" camera, plus some of the most perfect dogwood tree in the wilderness, both for my new ARKANSAS WILDERNESS picture book.

This morel mushroom patch contains far and away the largest concentration of them I had ever seen - something like 60-75 of them, and most of them were up right now. When I arrived at the trailhead, there was already a truck there, and footprints leading down towards the patch. No problem, there will still be plenty of mushrooms to photograph even if someone else has picked a few. But I was a little surprised to find that nearly every one of them had been picked! Of course, these things ARE for eating, so I could not be upset. I was unable to find a good batch to photograph, but perhaps will later in the spring.

Nearby is the great dogwood tree - actually there are several of them. The guy who had a bag filled with the morels is also a photographer. We stood side-by-side for the next hour trying to get the wind to stop blowing, the sun to go behind a cloud, and butterflies to land in front of our cameras. Seems like most of the bright yellow tiger swallowtails liked the spot in front of his camera best, and I only got a couple of shots with yellow on the white blooms - I hope one of them is good enough for the book. I also had my little digital camera with me and got one shapshot of a zebra swallowtail on the tree.

Dogwood bloom and zebra swallowtail butterfly

4/24/02 The original forecast overnight was for a 70% chance of rain and the same thing all day today - the PERFECT forecast for me! Needless to say, it did not rain a drop, and daylight found clouds with blue sky swirling around overhead. That's OK - I had plenty of things to do at the cabin today, so I elected to stick around and get some work done inside today. The heavy rains from yesterday did not cover a very wide area anyway, and it appeared that the storms predicted during the night went far north, so no hopes for great waterfalls today.

But goodness we sure did have a magnificent light show here this morning! The swirling clouds produced beams of sunshine that lit up far away hilltops, first one, then another, then the beam of yellow/green would streak down a valley and up another hillside. It was one of those sights that you just had to take a seat and watch, and I was happy to do so.

Right now the light show is still going on - good thing there is a bank of windows right in front of our computers! Actually that is a good thing and a bad thing - I find myself looking out the window a lot more than I am typing!

There are many soaring birds out this morning - lots of buzzards and hawks. The hawks are circling and playing and darting all over the place, passing right in front of the buzzards. They all seem to be having a grand time. Pam is right next to me on her computer, trying madly to get the next section of the HikeArkansas.com site finished. There were just several birds of some sort that buzzed by close to us, and Pam looked up and said "There certainly is a LOT of bird activity here today!" My thoughts exactly. Sometimes it is tough to concentrate with so much going on outside, and with a dog in your lap, but we manage.

NEWS FLASH!!! I just got off the phone with Carol Gable, who is the DATELINE NBC producer who is doing THE SEARCH FOR HALEY story. And we NOW HAVE AN AIRDATE, FINALLY! It will be June 11th (barring any other major story that pops up that day). More details on this later, but put this date on your calendar, and be sure to be tuned into NBC! I'm not sure exactly what they will be showing in the program, but there will be no doubt at least one or two views of Cloudland, since a major part of the story was filmed here.

4/25/02 A bright, spectacular, classic spring day in the Ozarks today! Crystal clear blue skies, and that wonderful fluorescent green covering all over the hillsides. Birds singing, dogs romping. And me, I spent most of the day inside working on our hiking club's newsletter. Most people would be upset by this circumstance, but I rather enjoyed it. Thank goodness it wasn't raining - now that would have made me upset!

Pam and Amber left early for school (Pam was teaching first grade today), so I had the place to myself. There were long periods of typing away, hardly even looking up to see what was going on outside. But there were also many times when I just had to go stand out on the back deck and take it all in. It was just a beautiful day.

I did manage to sneak out a time or two for a couple of outdoor chores that needed doing, including spending an hour or two on the tractor working on the road. And we got a new bench for the front porch that needed to be built (we can now HIDE all of our muddy boots!). And then I took one short hike out into the forest.

My hike didn't last too long - I plopped right on down beside the very first big old oak tree that I came across. Man, there is just NOTHING on the planet as good as a spring day in the Ozarks! Just something about that green and blue that gets your attention. I sat there and watched the world go by, with warm breezes across my face (the temp was down to 51 at daylight, but warming up nicely).

And then a pair of butterflies came floating by. I've seen this happen a lot lately, and kind of wonder what is going on. One of them was a bright yellow tiger swallowtail, and the other one was a spicebush swallowtail. They were obviously traveling together, and spent a great deal of time flying circles around each other. I've seen a dozen or so pairs just like this in the past couple of weeks. They did not appear to be fighting, and certainly not mating (or were they?). No matter - they both added a great deal of color and happiness to the day.

Just about the time I was ready to doze off, I realized that I had better get back to the computer and get to work, so I got up and headed back to the cabin. A nice little refreshing vacation right in my own back yard.

Once the girls got home I put away my work and spent time with them. First, with Amber out at her play area. She beat me at a couple of games of teatherball, then  we spent some quiet time swinging, all the while being closely watched by both cats. Aspen and Lucy were off chasing a lizard or two.

Next Pam and I wondered on down to Fox meadow. Good grief this place has come ALIVE with wildflowers in the past couple of days! There were red ones and blue ones and purple ones and yellow ones and orange ones, and about a million others that were about to pop open. These are all from seeds that we planted last summer, or ones that are just here naturally. We are hoping that this area reseeds itself and continues to bloom for many years to come (plus, we will be adding new seeds each year).

An afternoon cloud bank on the eastern horizon

4/26/02 No thunder boomers during the night, but it did rain for several hours - one of those slow, soaking rains that you love to sleep to (great for the forest too). We had gotten about a half inch by daylight.

One funny thing that happened when I crawled into bed around midnight - there was a whippoorwill singing out loudly near the cabin. Pam woke up briefly and asked "is it 5am already?" That is normally when this bird begins to speak. "No honey, you've still got five more hours of this before you have to get up!" And the bird did sing most of the night, and it was really odd to hear it while the rain was coming down.

What a contrast this morning to yesterday! Heavy, low clouds hanging around, odd-shaped fog banks and/or steam clouds swirling in the wilderness below, and everything was WET. The rain had stopped by daylight, but it felt like a lot more was on the way. I did not get too excited like I normally do when the rains are coming down, nor got up several times in the middle of the night to check the weather channel. I still have a ton of work to do with the club newsletter this morning, and will be going into town later today to get it to the printers and to teach a photo workshop. I knew I would not be out looking for waterfalls today, and so I have actually been able to ENJOY the delights of the rain without having to scramble around and chase waterfalls (which I love to do, but it is nice to just sit back once in a while). We will be out all day tomorrow with the photo workshop folks, so I'll get my share of waterfalls. And, of course, there is always SUNDAY!

The temp is 45 outside this AM - a bit chilly for this time of the year. I just stepped out on the deck and spent a good twenty minutes looking at the rising clouds. Dozens of them are being born here today. They begin as a tiny puff of smoke way down in the valley. They begin to rise up into the moist air, growing larger as they climb and twist higher. Some of them look a lot like Casper the Friendly Ghost as they move around. They are easy to see against the dark, lush green of the hillsides. Eventually the clouds reach the tops of the ridges and disappear into the white ceiling above. Ahhhhh, the Cloudland nursery is at full operation today!

Clouds being born this morning

Pam just reminded me that she got bombarded several times yesterday by hummingbirds looking for a quick snack. There is one outside right now, making a fuss and wanting something to eat. There is a pot of sugar water on the stove, and soon the little guys will get a sweet drink.

I have noticed quite a few black and white warblers around the cabin of late. Plus other small birds too. I think some of them are just waiting for the huge batch of wild sunflowers that will be blooming down in the meadow soon.

I forgot to mention about all of the soaring birds there were working the airways yesterday. Most of them were buzzards, but there were several pairs of hawks too. All of them were getting quite a kick out of the windy day - some of their acrobatics were quite impressive, even the old buzzards! No soaring birds out this morning.

Time for this old bird to get back to some real work. It is going to be one terrific weekend in the Ozarks, rain or shine. I hope all of you local folks get a chance to get out and enjoy!

4/27/02 Before I get to my day I wanted to tell you what happened at the cabin overnight. Pam was there all alone as I was staying in town for the photo workshop and Amber was in Missouri. Soon after dark a thick fog bank rolled in and was so heavy that Pam said she could not even see to the end of the railing on the lower deck when she turned the light on - that is really thick fog! Long about midnight something woke her and the dogs up from a deep sleep - there was something out there in the front yard, in all of that thick fog. Both dogs took off for their dog door, but Pam had closed it to keep the cats out during the night (Lucy ran head-first into it!). The dogs barked and growled and snarled. Apparently whatever it was outside was making all sorts of strange noises, and was moving around the outside of the cabin. The sounds kept changing, and Pam could not tell exactly what it was, but it sounded large and not too friendly. A coyote, wolf, elk, wounded dog - many unusual sounds were coming out of the dark, foggy night. When she was telling me about it later my first thought was “Hound of the Baskervilles!” (You can tell that book was one of the first, and few, that I had ever read since I refer to it often, but of course, with all of the foggy days and nights we have here it really does remind me of that scene, especially when spooky stuff like this happens.) The critter continued howling/screeching/grunting for more than an hour, then stopped, then struck back up once again later in the night. Pam and the dogs held tight inside, trying to get a few winks in, but always with one eye open. Hum, no telling what in the world this thing was (could not find any tracks for clues). While we are armed and prepared for bad critters and/or people out here, especially if they get inside the cabin, we aren't the types to go off into the night shooting at sounds.

My day began early and with another gloom and doom forecast, that included tornadoes and all sorts of bad things. Of course, we never saw a drop of rain all day, although it did mist a time or two. We ran into a lot of that same thick, fog, which made driving really slow, even in the middle of the day.

It remained overcast and moist most of the day, and perfect conditions for outdoor photography. We had lots of waterfalls and wildflowers to photograph. It was a great group (as always), and I think everyone got some great images.

We came across a mayapple that was in transition from a flower to an apple - I had never seen this before. I guess I always thought that after the flower bloomed the petals fell off and then the apple came on. But this one dude along the trail had it all - a flower AND a tiny apple!

A mayapple flower/apple

At one stop there was an umbrella magnolia tree that was backlit up against a dark bluffline. I zoomed in close and isolated one of the branches and got this photo of it which makes the leaves appear to be floating out there in the air. I love umbrella magnolias, and now is the time for them to bust out with incredible blooms that will last the next couple of weeks.

Umbrella magnolia

We dropped by the cabin later in the afternoon for some homemade cookies and sassafras tea (I have such a wonderful wife), then some of us hiked on down to photograph the yellow lady-slippers over at Bob's place. We also found a patch of showy orchids nearby that were as pretty as I had ever seen them.

Workshop participants and yellow lady slippers

Showy orchids

At one point during the day one of our photographers, who had his camera equipment set up right at the very edge of a 100-foot tall bluff, moved away from his equipment to do something and had a gust of wind pick up his camera and tripod and launch them over the edge of the bluff. It took him a while to find the remains below, and low and behold the camera STILL WORKED! After a 100 foot fall. I doubt the same thing would have been true if the photographer had gone over instead.

As I was driving back to the cabin late tonight, it was really quite strange outside in the sky above. The nearly-full moon was out and shining brightly. But the rest of the sky was filled with huge, black thunderheads and there was lots of lightning. Bright moonlight, constant flashes of lightning - I didn't have any trouble see the road. By the time I reached the cabin the moon had been joined by several stars, and the black clouds had moved on to the south, but the moonlight lit up the tops of the thunderheads and it remained a strange sight indeed.

4/28/02 A brilliant sunrise today, but I'm afraid I merely glanced at it then rolled over and went back to sleep. I was one tired puppy. It is one fabulous day outside - another textbook spring day in the Ozarks. Birds are everywhere! Singing, playing, eating (the hummers are attacking the feeders already), and flying down the chimney - we had to let one out this morning. The poor fellow bumped his head on several windows before I was able to pick him up and get him outside.

We have a ton of outside work to do today around the cabin (as always), so will try to soak up as much of that sunshine as we can. With still more waterfalls to shoot for the guidebook, I'm hoping for some good rains later in the week - please don't stop those rain dances yet!

I was telling someone yesterday about how I picked out Aspen from a litter of twelve cute puppies. I found the breeder on the internet and drove up to Kansas to pick one out. It was a tough choice, but something that I had just read in a book helped out a great deal. It said to pick up the prospective puppy and lay it on its back in your lap. If it squirms and flops over and runs off, then select another one. The right puppy will be the one that simply lays there, looking up lovingly at you. I went through a couple of puppys before picking up Aspen, and he did exactly that and I knew he was the one. (By the way, the same thing worked when I found Pam.)

By the way I got a note from journal reader T. Ferguson about the odd pairs of butterflies that we have been seeing: "The female swallowtail often mimics the spicebush - similar to the mimicry of the monarchs/viceroys.  The spicebush doesn't taste as good to birds as the swallowtails do!  You were probably seeing mating pairs of swallowtails - light colored males and much darker females."

I spent most of today working outside, cutting down a few small trees and older stumps in the circle drive area, moving brush, and playing up on the tractor. It was a perfect day to be outside for sure.

I did manage one short hike in the afternoon, just out into the middle of a maple grove. I sat down and leaned up against a rock and soaked up the sunshine. There wasn't any breeze at all on this side of the hill, and only the sounds of a hundreds birds playing in the trees above. Actually, that wasn't quite right. I could hear Aspen and Lucy racing back and forth on the hillside up behind me. And once when the birds stopped and the dogs were far away the forest got really quiet. My ears perked up when this happened as that often means that there is something about to happen - birds will tend to stop what they are doing when something or someone else approaches. So I perked up too, and strained to hear the slightest sound. And that is exactly what I did hear. I swear that what I heard were the sounds of thousands of tiny plants emerging from their winter slumber - the actual plants pushing up through the leaves has to make some sort of noise, right? And multiply that by hundreds, perhaps thousands of little plants on the forest floor - certainly that would make a sound. And I do think that is exactly what I was hearing.

However, that is not what the birds had stopped to listen to. Several moments later I heard some sort of wailing/howling/screaming coming from way off to my left, deep in the forest. I just heard it once, and then silence. The eerie noise echoed through the wilderness and all who heard it stopped dead in their tracks I suppose and listened. I looked around and saw my own two dogs at the top of the bench - they had heard it to and were both on point, straining themselves to hear more. Neither took off in their normal fashion, at least not right away. They looked at each other, then both jumped up and sped off in the direction of the sound. I did not see them for another ten or fifteen minutes. By that time I had returned to my chores, not knowing what the heck I had heard. I wondered if this is the same critter that had visited Pam the other night? We have received several e-mails since that post from folks who either had lived in this area a long time ago, had relatives who did, or who had heard stories from long ago. All of them had pretty much the same story - about a creature who had visited homesites along the Buffalo - a "Buffalo Bigfoot" if you will. I had received similar notes before from others. Seems there was some sort of activity going on around here a few decades ago. Hum, I certainly don't discount any of that, but am not ready to declare such a critter exists now. But I plan to carry my little digital camera with me from now on my hikes and perhaps we will get a photo one day! In the meantime, I have taken the trusty 30-30 off of the wall in the cabin and placed it within easy reach just in case some critter, or human, decides to pay us a closer visit in the middle of the night!

4/29/02 It was one SPECTACULAR sunrise this morning! The sky turned many shades of red, orange, purple, and yellow. I was too lazy to actually get out of bed and go get the camera, but stayed awake long enough to have a good look. For some reason I was really tired this morning - perhaps I was dreaming of Buffalo Bigfeet all night.

When I did finally get out of bed I discovered that the valley below was filled with clouds, and those clouds wanted to hang around as long as they could. I don't recall seeing a more beautiful morning at Cloudland ever.

A classic Cloudland morning!

A little while later Pam yelled out "Where did our mountains go?" It was a total whiteout here at the cabin as the cloudbank began to break up and move on, engulfing the cabin. A minute later the air was clear once again, and not a cloud in sight!

By noon most of the blue sky was gone and there were lots of clouds overhead, producing a nice glow to the day. We went down into Fox meadow with camera in hand to see how many different flowers we could photograph that were blooming. So just for the record, here are the flowers that we could find today down in the meadow. We plan to have a special page where we will post photos of all the flowers that bloom there, and keep the page going all summer, adding new blooms as the appear - just to see how many different species we have. Some of them are native, others are not. There is even a weed, and a couple of wild fruits. All produce beautiful color and add personality to our little wilderness home.

It was a year ago today that one of the worst days ever happened here. It was the day that Haley Zega got lost, and the search for her began. I spent a lot of time thinking back on that day, what my brand new bride and I were doing, how I first got the word that a little girl was missing, and how scared I was when I first searched the bottom of the tall bluffline - HOPING, no praying that I would NOT find the body of a little girl down there. Soon the sky was filled with helicopters, and a chill ran down my spine at the thought of this little girl lost out here. And even now, as I am typing this late at night, I recall every second of the late hour when the weird quiet of the cabin was broken by the dazed faces of Haley's parents Kelly and Steve arriving for what would become several days of terror for them, and finally, elation at the return of their most precious child. What an ordeal that all was. And what would become a great journey for so many people who were involved with it. So many lives were changed forever. So it is a happy anniversary here today, but still a guarded one because it could have turned out so very bad.

4/30/02 Lots of thunderboomers at first light, and heavy rain. Well, I think we actually only had about a dozen drops, but they were really BIG drops! Not a single drop of rain the rest of the day. Several folks called or e-mailed to see if we were OK, but heck, we were out in the sunshine playing. What thunderstorms? They must have flown right on past us. That happens a lot here at Cloudland.

Just when those few big drops did come down I was looking out the window and saw several hummingbirds fly in under the patio roof to take cover. It was sort of comical, but I guess some of those drops were as large as they were and might drown them if hit!

And then a few minutes later the sun touched the top of a hillside way up the valley and all the hummers and other birds came out and went about their business. It was just another spring day in the wilderness.

Pam and I spent much of our day at the computers, working on maps for the new waterfall guidebook. Or should I say MAP. Pam is going to draw most of the maps for the new book, but before she can do anything we have to figure out exactly how large the maps are going to be, what size each specific item on the maps is going to be (will the roads be 2pt or 3pt, how about the rivers?, what font?, how large will the north symbol be?, what will the trails look like?, and what about the bushwhack routes?, and on and on and on.). There are so many things to figure out before we can draw a single map. But we did draw a sample map today - actually it will probably end up being one of the real maps, but we were just playing just in case - using a new 6 x 8 inch drawing tablet that we bought (WONDERFUL!).

Right after lunch Pam headed out with the mail on foot - its a three mile + trip, and these days she usually returns with a mudball instead of Aspen. Today was no different. Pam came running into the cabin yelling "You must come play with me up at the Faddis meadow!" Hey, I seldom ignore calls to go play with a lovely lady in a meadow! So we hiked on up the hill to the Faddis meadow - all six of us, including the two dogs and both cats. The Fat Cat doesn't hike much, but he was up for one today. It would turn out to be his longest hike ever.

The Faddis meadow was filled with many different kinds of flowers, but one large patch in particular was what we were after - crimson clover that was bright red and really, really lush. As we approached I could see what had gotten Pam so excited - there were dozens and dozens of butterflies on the clover. It was a magical scene for sure. A scene made rather humorous when the cats decided to take a stroll through the clover, which was much taller than either of them.

We spent the next hour or so playing in the clover - Pam and I trying to get pictures of the butterflies and bees - and the dogs and cats just playing, and/or laying around.

There was this one butterfly that both of us had noticed and probably spent most of our time pursuing. We called him Old Blue Butt. He was a yellow tiger swallowtail with a lot of blue on his back. Looked to me like he was the product of one of those dances with a tiger and spicebush that I had seen before. Anyway, he was large and beautiful and we enjoyed chasing him around the clover patch.

This is old Blue Butt, although the bright yellow wings did not show up at all in this photo

Speaking of those mixed pairs, after getting a close look at the dark butterflies that have been flying around with the bright yellow tigers, I'm not sure what they are at all. Here are a couple of looks:

Are these spicebush, or female tigers?

The old Fat Cat was simply worn out by all of this play time, and he was reluctant to leave the clover patch - he knew we had a bit of a hike to get back to the cabin. But we finally managed to get him to come along. The Trail Cat was already half way home by then.

The Fat Cat in the clover

The air out in the wilderness this afternoon was very smoky, like there was a bit fire someplace. I guess they could have been doing a controlled burn, but I wasn't sure. Near sunset the blue smoke turned yellow and orange and then very dark grey.

So now we have come to the end of another terrific and wonderful April, the finest month of the year. It has been a grand one indeed, filled with waterfalls and wildflowers and kitty cats and muddy dogs, and lovely ladies that live with me. And, oh yea, the bigfoot critter, which has not shown up lately. As much as I hope each and every one of you who read this journal have enjoyed the words here these past four weeks, it is my great wish for you that you have been able to get OUTSIDE and enjoy a bit of springtime for yourself, and are able to do so again and again and again in the weeks to come. Thanks for allowing me onto your computer screen. Until we meet again...

May 2002 Journal

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