Moments in Transition

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I woke up this morning to a world of grey.

That cold front from yesterday had decided to hang around, so everything was low overcast clouds and drippy rain.

Still, my rest last night has improved my spirits and I want to see things.





Arkansas is something of an anomaly.

Half the state is covered by mountain ranges, in a part of the country that is otherwise flat plains.

The soil here was incredibly tough to farm, so they were settled by the same types of people who flocked to the Appalachians a half century earlier.

Like in the Appalachians, they lived self-sufficient, isolated, and often materially poor lives; and their descendents are still here (see Mountain Ingenuity).

The end result is that both the scenery and the culture resemble Tennessee to the east instead of the surrounding plains states.

Petit Jean State Park

Reading my guidebook, my hotel is close to a well regarded state park called Petit Jean.

The Arkansas River runs through a valley between the two mountain ranges.

The Ouachita Mountains, the more southern of the two, reaches close in places creating a series of limestone cliffs.

Streams have eroded them to create dramatic gorges.

Petit Jean State Park protects one of the more notable.





The road there first followed the Arkansas River.

It was quite pretty, with the misty rain providing unexpected atmosphere.

Pavement then turned and climbed into the surrounding hills.

The clouds were low enough this quickly became an excursion through fog.

Some of the trees still had foliage, but it was long past peak.

The roadway finally passed a long fence on the left, with just empty fog beyond.

I must be close to the edge of a cliff, with quite a view had the weather cooperated.





My guess was proven right when I reached an open field with a huge stone fireplace in the middle.

The park visitors’ center appeared soon afterward.

According to the park map, the field is the former site of a Civilian Conservation Corps camp, for the group that built the park facilities.





Petit Jean’s most famous feature is a gorge ending at a waterfall, Cedar Falls.

A boardwalk goes to a viewing area.

It passes white boulders showing layers of limestone.

The trail itself is lined with the stone posts that are a hallmark of CCC handiwork, although the rails between are now steel.

The boardwalk ended at a viewing platform where all I saw was fog.

Looking very closely, a ribbon on denser white finally appeared, the waterfall.





I want much more than that.

My park map shows a trail into the gorge, which should have a fog-free view.

The trailhead lies in a bunch of large boulders next to a parking lot.

The entrance has an ominous bright red sign “WARNING: This trail is strenuous!”





The path squeezes between two of the boulders and then drops down the side of the gorge.

It drops quickly and steeply through endless switchbacks.

They go over and around a field of boulders that split from the rim.

All of them contain limestone with ridges of much darker rock.

I last saw rocks like this in the Black Hills!

Like there, the limestone formed under an ancient sea, rose, and cracked.

Molten rock then seeped into the cracks and hardened.

It’s much harder than the limestone, so ridges get left behind as the rock erodes.

The same process formed the boxwork in Wind Cave (see Places of Reverence).





While still in all those rocks, the trail finally reaches a less steep spot, and the hiking becomes easier.

It reaches and follows a stream.

Thanks to all the rain yesterday (and today) the water was high, a continuous cascade from rock to rock.

Lots more boulder stepping reached a point where the stream joined a second one, so two separate cascades now appear in the view.

Unfortunately, enough trees grow in this stretch to prevent a good photo.





Just after the junction, the trail hit the bottom of the gorge.

It was flat, filled with little trees, and the ground was covered in fallen leaves.

I felt an unexpected yearning here.

The scenery exactly resembles what I hike through in autumn in New England, except that this is located in the middle of Arkansas.

For only the second time in the entire journey, I’m missing home right now (see So Far From Home).





On the ravine floor, the trail headed directly for the cliff on the other side, hazy in the fog and drippy rain.

Close to the cliff, it crossed a large stream on a bridge, the one from the waterfall.

Immediately afterward, it forked.





I headed up the gorge.

This part was all too familiar, from hiking similar trails back home.

It weaved through lots of big rocks.

Lots of leaves covered the ground.

Parts offered views of distant limestone cliffs and rapids on the brook.

The cliffs showed some amazing limestone layers.

In places, water spread onto the trail creating nice mud holes to slog through.

One stretch crossed a side stream, with lots of rock hopping.

It was all quite pretty, even in the rain.





The trail finally entered a grotto.

It was filled with rocky slabs.

The waterfall drops over the far side.

To get a descent view, hikers must scramble over the slabs, carefully.

I was finally rewarded with a view of the water falling from a notch in the opposite cliff.

It looks much smaller from here than it did from above, probably because I can actually see it here.

According to the park write up, this is the most popular waterfall in the state.





The trail ends at the waterfall, so the only way out is the reverse of the way in.

I felt the climb on the final section, which is the steepest.

Unlike New England trails, at least this one has switchbacks to make it easier.





Thanks to the short days, I had time for only one other area of the park.

I went to Bear Cave, which was close to the Cedar Falls trailhead.

‘Cave’ is something of a misnomer; it’s actually a large collection of enormous boulders which have eroded to form shallow caves and other formations.

A well marked trail goes through them.

In places, it squeezed through long splits in the rocks.

In another, it scrambled through a natural tunnel.

One section became a rock maze, with possible paths going everywhere.

Thankfully, the actual trail was very well marked.

This hike felt like a smaller version of Rock City, the natural formation turned tourist trap outside Chattanooga (see Stress, Danger and Discovery), and incredibly fun.

Going Home

Near the end of his book Travel’s With Charlie, John Steinbeck (see Historic California) wrote about the point where every long trip stops.

It stops not when the traveler reaches wherever they are ultimately going, but when the desire to go further vanishes.

As I sat in my car after the hike, looking at my road atlas, rain dripping on the convertible soft top, my trip finally stopped.

I looked at the United States, and felt no desire to see any more of it.

The short days and increasing cold certainly don’t help.

Winter arrives very soon, and I hate driving in winter.

I suspect the map itself was an even bigger reason.

Until this moment, I could look at it and see places I didn’t know, undiscovered territory to explore.

Now, all I can see are places that in some sense I’ve already been.





The final factor is the calendar.

Thanksgiving, one of the most important American holidays, is three days from now, and I haven’t missed it with my family in over a decade.

Hiking today reminded me of home, and I really want to be there.

With at least fifteen hundred miles of pavement between me and that goal, it’s going to require a long haul (over half the country!), but I should be able to make it.





The road out of Petit Jean rolls through the hills for a while, before a long descent back to the Arkansas River.

That’s about all I got to see, because night fell along the way.

After that it was a blur of Interstate until the sprawl of Little Rock.

That led to a roadway that was straight and empty.

Most of eastern Arkansas contains the Arkansas Delta, a flat floodplain like its more famous relative in Mississippi.

Crossing it was a long featureless haul.

The rain decided to go from drippy to sheets here too.





Things finally improved when I started seeing buildings again.

The rain let up.

They improved even more when I saw a sign for something I haven’t seen in almost six months, Waffle House!

Beyond the promise of a really tasty, and cheap, meal, it means I’m getting close to Tennessee, and closer to home.

Dinner was as good as I remembered (see The Nation’s Attic).





Soon afterward, the road climbed a long arch of concrete under steel trusses.

Looking over the rail showed a wide expanse of water, and a city glittered in the distance.

The water had to be the Mississippi River, which I last saw in St. Louis over five months ago (see Arch Madness), and the city Memphis.

On the far side I decided to pull off the highway and see the river one last time.

The exit led to a road next to a park on the Memphis waterfront.

The bridge glittered in the distance, with the truss arches lit up by lights.

I missed this view the last time I was here, because the park was closed due to flooding.





After the view, I pushed on east.

I’ve driven the roads before, but between the darkness and the still present rain, it wouldn’t have mattered in any case.

I can’t see a thing beyond the road and highway signs.

I just knew I had to get east, deeper into the night, closer to home.

I finally stopped when I saw a sign listing a number of hotel chains, which I believed was my best chance for a descent price short of Nashville.

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Photos

Cedar Falls
The most popular waterfall in Arkansas, in high water

Arkansas River
Fog shrouded river valley in Arkansas

CCC campground
Site of the Civilian Convervation Corps camp that built Petit Jean park

Cedar Falls Trail
Steep switchbacks on the way to Cedar Falls

Side brook cascades
Cascades along a side brook of Cedar Creek

Cedar Creek Trail
Hiking along the creek to the falls

Bear Cave
Hiking along the boulders at Bear Cave

Eye of the Needle
Hourglass shaped crack between two huge boulders

Rock maze
Trail through the boulders of Bear Cave

Memphis bridge
Double truss bridge from the Memphis waterfront, my last view of the Mississippi River