Hawksbill Crag
January 29, 2005
Saturday was full of good surprises. I
enjoyed snow-filled vistas and forests as beautiful as any I'd
ever seen, and in separate instances I bumped into my two
favorite Arkansas outdoor photographers.
Due to uncertain weather forecasts, I went
to bed Friday night not knowing where I'd be going the next
morning. When I looked out the window first thing Saturday,
there was a dusting of snow on the ground (totally not
forecast) and a light drizzle falling from the sky. I turned on
the TV, put it on a local station, and learned that a small
system had just moved through north of us and possibly dropped
some snow in some places. I decided to head for the Buffalo
River Trail but take the long way via Highway 23 because that
route goes through more mountainous terrain.
As I started driving up Whiting Mountain
north of Cass suddenly I started seeing snow, and soon found
myself in a wonderland of white. The snow was sticking
stubbornly to the trees and branches, making it look like the
area had gotten a foot of the white stuff instead of the actual
fraction of an inch. As I neared West Fly Gap Road I remembered
I still had not found a particular bluff overlooking the Cove
Creek valley that Randy
Wilson had told me about. I
knew there’d be some great views from the bluff, so I
decided to make the detour. As I neared the parking spot I saw
a vehicle already there. Turns out it was Randy and his
sidekick Junie. I knew they were anxious to get out and enjoy
the great scenery so I rolled down the window long enough to
exchange hellos then headed down the road.
As the highway descended the mountains into
the White River valley the snow disappeared, yet I could still
see it in the mountaintops high above. Realizing the snow was
only in the highest elevations, I started going down that list
I keep in my head of places I’d like to visit,
determining what was both nearby and way up high. Cave Mountain
Road north of Red Star leads to a bunch of places, so I took
it. As I thought more about where I might possibly stop, it
dawned on me that I had a good chance of having a dream come
true: seeing Hawksbill Crag in the snow.
One of my favorite Tim Ernst photographs
is of a group of hikers atop the Crag, suspended over a
white sea of snow-covered tree tops. I’ve always said
that some day I would get to take in that scene for myself. As
I drove closer and closer to the Hawksbill Crag trailhead the
suspense begin to mount. Would there still be snow there? The
answer was Yes, and I quickly strapped on the backpack and
headed down the trail.
I had a feeling the snow would start
melting any minute, but the snow, ice, and copper Beech leaves
were doing some neat stuff so I stopped a few times to snap
some pictures.
The first half of the 1.5 mile trail was
through dense woods, but then the path started following along
the top of a tall bluff. The view across a frosty white
Whitaker Creek valley was amazing. I stopped again to take a
few photos, just in case it was my only opportunity.
I was in view of the Crag in no time. The
snow cover on the nearby trees wasn’t so perfectly thick
as a few hundred yards up the trail, but I’m not
complaining. As I was setting up the tripod, camera and timer
in such a way that I could walk out to the Crag and get a
picture of myself, I heard footsteps coming down the trail
beside me. I looked up to say hi to whoever it was, and
exclaimed “Tim Ernst!”
Tim and a couple of companions were toting
photo gear, and wanted to take shots from the spot I was
occupying. At first they were going to wait on me to do my
thing and get out of their way, but once I was out on the ledge
they hollered to ask if I’d stay. Pictures of the Crag
are just so much better if you can get a person in it. They
positioned their tripods next to mine.
Posing there made me stop and take a better
look at everything. I looked down past my feet, way down to the
tree tops below, and noticed a striking scene. The trees,
already bright white with their snowy covering, really looked
cool in combination with the copper beech trees underneath.
When I got back to the camera I made an attempt to tell Tim and
his friends about the scene below the Crag, but of course it
was one of those times when the right words wouldn’t come
to mind and I think I sounded like an idiot. Still, Tim heard
me and minutes later he peered over the edge of the Crag and
told his buddies that I was right, that there was a scene they
had to shoot.
After they left I hung out on the Crag for
a while to take a few pictures, then slowly walked along the
trail back to the truck. And I mean real slowly, because I had
to stop every few hundred feet to set up the camera and tripod
at another spot that just had to be photographed. I never tire
of our Ozark sandstone boulders with their pale green lichens,
and they really steal the show in winter.
