High Bank
January 25, 2004
We had received .8 inches of rain at home
Saturday afternoon and evening so the top thing on my list was
to get the elusive photo of the High Bank Twin waterfalls. But
I could tell way before I got there that the area had not
received as much rain as we did at home. Pig Trail Falls and
the nice little waterfall behind the Turner Bend store were
only running what I call "so-so". Still, it was
overcast, which is preferable for taking waterfall pictures, so
I decided to make the short walk up to the High Bank Twins.
Sure enough they weren't running much - I didn't even attempt a
picture. But there is a small waterfall downstream that feeds
into the High Bank stream and it was looking good so I took a
few photos there.
Afterwards I drove back to Highway 23 and
headed North towards Fly Gap. I turned left onto West Fly Gap
Road and went down the road a little ways and parked the truck
at a big gas well. My destination was a geocache 3.25 miles to the north on Allard Mountain,
and I had to hike the whole way there and back on a muddy jeep
road. To make matters worse it was foggy and I could only see
about 30 feet in any direction. I'll say one thing about the
trip - I have never seen so many deer tracks in all my life.
Every 50 feet or so there would be a few sets crossing the
road. Sad to say I've also never seen so many beer cans in all
my life. They were scattered everywhere along the three miles.
About halfway to the cache I could hear a
lot of running water downhill and to the West of my position. I
marked the spot on my GPS receiver 'cause I'd like to come back
someday and hunt for waterfalls.
The road is a popular path for off-roading,
and a large convoy of jeeps and trucks passed me on the way
back. The highlight of the trip was seeing a Hummer get stuck
in a pond-sized mud puddle about a mile before I got back to
the truck. There were some guys in water up to their waists
walking around the Hummer when I passed them, and it was cold
outside!
My day still wasn't finished though. I
drove to Fayetteville and got some lunch and cleaned off my
muddy shoes at a car wash then drove to Prairie Grove State
Park to do the geocache there. It was a multi-part geocache
placed by the State Park people. They gave you the coordinates
for one location, and when you found it you'd have to look
around for a small metal dog tag attached to a nearby object,
like the underside of a sign. The dog tag would have the
coordinates for the next stage, where you'd find another dog
tag with coordinates. Finding all these stages led you on a
tour of most of the park.
