Adkins Canyon
September 24, 2006
Each wilderness stream I visit has a
distinct personality, I’m realizing. I imagine if someone
were to blindfold me and somehow drop me into the middle of
Adkins Creek canyon in the Upper Buffalo Wilderness, it
wouldn’t take me long to recognize where I was.
I came to the area primarily to locate a
route down to the Buffalo River. I still intend to explore
every mile of the river upstream from Ponca, but the access
points are few and far between. As I set out from the Dahl
Memorial Trailhead I snapped a couple of photos to document the
look and feel of the woods that fine morning.
I hiked along a wooded jeep road for
three-fourths of a mile until it came to an area of scattered
old fields. The plan was to find a knob one-third of a mile
above the mouth of Adkins Creek on the Buffalo River, then
simply bushwhack downhill. I wandered around the fields for a
while then got back on the jeep road to continue toward the
knob. Problem was, I had somehow picked up a second road and
was unknowingly heading east when I needed to be going north.
That road soon became blocked by a jungle of downed trees. I
tried going around them, but there seemed to be no end. I must
add that these trees - most of them less than six inches
in diameter - had been cut by chain saw. I turned on my GPS
receiver and discovered I was off-course, and decided to
bushwhack north until I hit the correct jeep road. After losing
an hour in the jungle I finally came to open woods and crossed
the stream above Tim
Ernst’s Leaning Log
Falls. A short walk up the hill had me back on the correct jeep
road.
The road fizzled out near the knob but all
I needed to do was keep heading in the same direction. I turned
on my GPS so that it would tell me when I had reached the very
top of the knob, and when I was about there I noticed out of
the corner of my eye the remains of a homestead fireplace. I
headed downhill toward the Buffalo. I had to choose my path
carefully because the steep hillside was almost vertical in
several places.
Soon I could hear the music of rushing
water and through an opening in the trees saw the Buffalo down
below. I took a lunch break on the bank, enjoying the view
upstream. Less than a hundred yards downstream was the mouth of
Adkins Creek. Way, way up on the steep mountainside above
the mouth of the creek was a small bluff overlook. I imagined
how great it would be to enjoy a foggy morning on top of that
rock.
I had reached my intended destination for
the day, and could have headed back to the truck, but it was
only noon. There was quite a bit of water coming out of Adkins
Creek, due to the five inches of rain that fell there three
days earlier, so I decided to go upstream a short ways and
investigate.
I hadn’t gone very far before I
reached a small waterfall on the creek. I wondered what was
upstream, and soon found a second waterfall. Adkins Canyon had
ensnared me; would not let me turn around. I kept answering the
call to see what was up around the next bend, and met one
little scenic waterfall after another.
One distinct trait of the creek was that
its descent was gradual. I never felt like I was walking uphill
as I followed it upstream. Another trait was that the stream
bed was wide and flat, and except for the occasional fallen
tree it was easy to navigate. It was indeed a canyon in most
places, with a sheer vertical bluff on one side and an
extremely steep wooded slope on the other.
I had done my homework on the area and knew
I could possibly get back to the trailhead by following the
stream for two miles. After I returned from the short climb up
a side hollow to Tim Ernst’s Adkins Canyon Falls, (which
weren’t running well enough for photos) I made the
decision to take the upstream route. I continued to meet small
yet beautiful falls on the creek, but was spending a lot of
time stopping taking pictures. Several times I told myself
“That was it. NO more pictures!”, but then
I’d come to a waterfall I couldn’t pass up. For
ever spot I photographed, there was at least one that I wanted
to but didn’t. I will definitely be coming back to Adkins
Canyon.
