Adventuring in The Buffalo River Valley
Last year when we were living in Rolla, MO we came down to Arkansas for a trip. Our initial plan on the trip was to float the Buffalo River, but the water levels were too low. When we found out Arkansas was our next location, getting out on the Buffalo River became one of the top ticket items for our time in Fort Smith, AR. The Buffalo River valley has tons of amazing hiking opportunities and the river is the first National River recognized by the United States Government. This designation has protected it and maintained significant stretches of pure wilderness floating, making it one of the most beautiful slices of Arkansas.
Mile: 40,452
Quote of the Blog: "Days of slow walking are very long: they make you live longer, because you have allowed every hour, every minute, every second to breathe, to deepen, instead of filling them up by straining the joints." - Frederic Gros
Song of the Blog: :The Cave” - Mumford & Sons
We planned to camp out at spot called, Dogwood Springs Campground, next to Jasper, AR. Jasper is known as the HQ for the Buffalo River Valley. This gave us the opportunity to do some exploring away from that area and into some of the deeper spots of the valley. We set our sights on hiking Lost Valley and Eden Falls trail. We had heard about some caves and cool rock formations along this hike. Little did we know what we were walking into.
The trail followed a creek bed along a valley. The thick forest around the trees were vibrating with the sounds of the Cicadas. The sounds was more memorizing than annoying. As we walked along the trail, we came across our first waterfall coming out of a cave mouth. As we were standing around the base of it, I could see that you could climb up into it, but we opted to continue up the trail. This took up to the top of the cavern entry, which we were then able to climb down into the tunnel and get to the top of the waterfall. This put us in a cave that was above a waterfall, while we were still hiking up to another waterfall above us. I know it’s a lot, because we were also blown away already.
We continued up the trail, which began to take a more dramatic climb along some built in stone stairs. A waterfall became visible alongside us, and we eventually hike up to the top of the falls. We realized this was another cave mouth in which this waterfall was coming out of. This was a much bigger cave, and the end to it was not visible to the naked eye without a light. I started to walk up it. As the cave went back, walking quickly turned into army crawling through a slot in the cave that was no more than 3ft tall and hundreds of feet long. I found myself to be feeling quite claustrophobic very fast. I could hear people further back in the cave, but I couldn’t go further. I rolled and flipped myself around and headed back out of the cave. Amity was still at the mouth of the cave talking to people and taking it all in. I told her what I experienced and she was initially very against trying to go back. As we were talking, the group I could earlier hear back in the cave came out. They informed us of what was back there and what to expect while climbing back in. We got the motivation we needed. It was much easier to get back there after knowing how far we had to crawl, now knowing there was a massive waterfall back in the cave and the fact that we took our backpacks off to slim down.
As we crawled back into the cave, we found ourself conquering fears and pushing ourselves mentally further back into the cave then we ever thought we would be able to. When we were first able to stand up, it all started to make sense why this was all worth it. The cave walls shimmered with small crystal deposits in the rocks. The sound of a gushing waterfall was now radiating throughout the cave. Amity led the way back into the cavern, and her initial impression said it all. She was blown away. When I got into the cavern and saw the waterfalls, it was amazing! The waterfall was about 30-40 feet tall and was coming out of a small hole in the cave’s wall. The water then ran down the entire cave and out the original cave mouth creating the larger waterfall. This was truly a special experience! As we climbed out, we were on Cloud 9! Never did we expect to see or do something like that today, or ever! We could have finished up our day there and been good, but we had one more hike on our list for the day.
We got back to our car and headed down the river valley to the trailhead for Triple Falls. This waterfall was a much closer and easier hike. What was nice about it, was that we were able to get up there with only a couple people, who ended up leaving and giving us this beautiful area to ourselves. We hike up to the top of the falls, and explored around the creek bed above. It was very noticeable that this was a rain feed waterfall, and we were only seeing a small version of it. Still, it was beautiful and another fun experience! We took some time to chill and take it all in.
Our camp was not far away. We stopped in Jasper to hit up the Jasper Pizza Company for dinner. A little takeout pizza around the campfire is something we love, and it makes camping that much easier! The campground was nothing fancy, and was pretty quiet. In the morning, we were ready to boogie early. We wanted to get out to the river as soon as we could, so that we didn’t feel rushed on our float time. We had signed up to do a section that ended up being closed due to low water levels. This meant we had to drive back down the river another 40 minutes to get to the section we were able to do. We had rented our kayaks from Buffalo River Outfitters. They did a rad job of taking our car from the put in and driving it down to the take out for us! Made our day so much easier!
Getting out on the river was amazing! Floating is both of our happy places! Right away we found ourselves coming into a zone where I started noticing people ahead of us falling in. I couldn’t help but to comment and laugh at them. As we came up to the feature, we found that the river took a 90 degree turn to the right and the current smashed you up against the wall. I casually turned my boat and bumped up against the rock, thinking that I was solid and confident. I pushed myself away from the rock with my paddle, but did not think about the tilt in the boat and the fact that the current was now hitting me perpendicular to my boat. This was an easy recipie for a flip. Just like that, I was down in the water, and thinking to myself, “You just made fun of these people, and here you are. You stupid Jerry!” I was lucky to grab my hat and sunglasses before the fell off. My other stuff stayed relatively dry as it was in my backpack and a dry bag but unfortunately, I did have some pockets open so I did take on a lot of water. We recollected myself with the dozens of other people who had either flipped or were sitting at the river bank enjoying the entertainment. We laughed some more, and I ate my pride while I dried myself off. Lucky to me, a person was helping people collect items, and pulled my fishing pole off the bottom of the river. What a Jerry!
We continued down the river. The river meandered along gigantic bluffs and thick forest. The crystal clear water allowed for you to see to the bottom. Being this far south, it is unique to find water like this. It made for some fun fishing opportunities. I was able to land one good sized Small Mouth Bass while floating. Big thanks to the person who helped get my pole back to me!!! As we went along, we saw an assortment of animals. We regularly heard bird sounds I have never heard before. Snapping Turtles and Box Turtles are a couple of our favorite midwestern river creatures. My personal favorite is the Alligator Gar fish. These are massive predatorial fish that have the head of an alligator and the body of a fish, and they can grow up to 6-8 feet long!!! We saw some tanks under us as we floated down. It is always amazing to see what it living down in the depths of a river. The one thing that still freaks Amity out is snakes in the river. She will head to the other shore line if she sees anything, and we saw a couple along a float.
We soaked in all the sun and ventured through countless miles of pristine river wilderness. We couldn’t have been happier to actually be back here making this trip happen. It lived up to all expectations. With sun kissed skin, and dehydrated from the heat we got back to our car at the takeout. Using an outfitting company to float is quite nice at the take out. All you have to do is make sure that you have all your belongings off the boat, and you leave. Makes it so quick!
On our way back to Fort Smith, we had one of the most bizzarro encounters with a man from Arkansas. I had gotten tired driving and pulled over to switch with Amity. We had pulled off the highway on a small side road, and were getting ready to get back onto the road to continue when a large truck driving the opposite direction pulled infront of us and started yelling towards us from his window. He was wondering if this highway took him to North Little Rock. We had no idea. My radar was going off, and spiked out even higher when this man’s parrot climbed out of the passenger seat and onto his shoulder. Luckily, we were not in a “Deliverance” kind of situation and the man drove off, but we were nonetheless very much weirded out!! We quickly hopped back on the highway and headed safely home. Just in time to lather the body in Aloe Vera and cool off in the air conditioning! What an amazing weekend!