Buffalo River Trail
to Arrington Creek
February 13, 2005
Sunday I hiked the Buffalo River Trail near
Boxley to where it crosses Arrington Creek. I'd read about some
nice waterfalls and cascades along the trail, and I was hoping
that the inch of rain we'd had in the past week - including a
half inch we got last night - would be enough to get those
falls and cascades running.
The trail wound through beautiful Beech
tree woods on its one-and-a-half-mile descent to the creek. It
felt like spring instead of winter, with temperatures in the
70s and a mostly sunny sky.
I found plenty of places that would be
spectacular in the rainy season, but they were all dry, so I
won't go into any detail about them - I'll save that for a
return trip after a big rain.
The picture at left is looking upstream at
Arrington Creek from where the trail crosses. The picture at
the top of this page is looking downstream from the same
location. It was tough finding a spot with enough boulders
above the water for me to hop across. It will definitely be a
wet crossing in the Spring.
On the other side of the creek the trail
crossed a dry ravine filled with moss-covered boulders.
Then the trail hung a left and went up a
short rise to a really neat area overlooking the creek. This
area, about 30 yards wide, was perfectly flat and shaded by big
Beech trees. It looked like a great place to camp. (When I
returned home I learned from Kenneth Smith’s Buffalo
River Handbook that this flat area is known as a stream
terrace, and that at some point in geologic history the
stream bed was located there - thus the cause for the
near-perfect flatness.)
The trail ran downstream along the stream
terrace for a short distance, then made a right turn and headed
up the side of the valley, where I snapped the photo of the big
Beech tree at left.
I continued up the steep trail for about
another quarter-mile, until it leveled out and headed away from
the Arrington Creek valley. The reason I came up this side of
the valley was to check out a side canyon Tim Ernst mentions in
his Buffalo River Hiking Trails book. (That book has detailed
descriptions of the entire Buffalo River Trail, and driving
directions to get you there.) This canyon was barely visible
from the trail, so on the way out I ventured off trail and got
a quick look from above it.
Once I was back across Arrington Creek I
noticed just off the trail a small stream joining the main
creek. There wasn’t much water in this small stream, but
I unpacked the good camera and took a bunch of shots anyway.
When I thought I was finished and in the process of stowing
away the camera, I realized the boulder I’d been leaning
against was covered with some really nice green moss. So I got
some photos of it too.
The sun was close to setting as I made my
way uphill towards the truck. The sunlit hillside on the
opposite side of the Arrington Creek valley kept getting more
red by the minute, and I started looking for an opening in the
trees on my side where I might be able to get a picture.
Finally just when it seemed that the warm glow from that
hillside couldn’t get any more vivid, I found an opening
and frantically started setting up my camera and tripod. The
colors were holding but I realized I had to change lenses on
the camera. It took me no more than 15 seconds to take my
eye off the hillside and change lenses, but in that time the
colors went from brilliant to, well... The photo at left says
it all.
As I neared the trailhead I was surprised
to hear the chorus of a multitude of frogs in a nearby pond.
Didn’t these guys know it was only the second week in
February? I put my point-and-shoot camera in movie mode and
made a recording of the frogs, so for a special treat you can
click on the photo below to hear the Arrington Creek Frog
Chorus.
Click on the picture to hear the frogs!
