Extra Day at Steel Creek

---

After rising early, we actually loaded up in the car and drove to a nearby trailhead afforded us the opportunity to hike to Big Bluff, Granny Henderson's Cabin, and Snead's Creek. All of which were on our original itinerary, although we would have been hiking/canoeing to them from starting points along the river. But as it turned out, it provided us with mostly downhill hiking, and by returning to our camp (at Steel Creek campground) via the Old River horse trail, we actually got to see a small portion of the Upper Buffalo that we were now not going to get to canoe down due to the low water level.
And by staying the additional night at Steel Creek, we also ate up one of the camp meals I had planned for the whole group (all nine of us) and I was able to ditch a lot of weight before we actually hit the river.

---

Photos

Steel Creek Campground
Still a little misty as we get an early start on our hiking trip. "We'll be back by noon" we said. "Better to beat the heat" we said. All I can say is that it's a good thing we started when we did because it was nearly 7pm by the time we made our final wade across the river back into the campground. Boy was I tired!

Leaving the Trailhead
Started off in the middle of the woods on a fairly level horse trail, but we knew the view when we finally reached the river would be worth it.

Big Bluff
And Boy was it!
See the river down there? This is looking back upstream.

Max
OK, time to pose for pictures to prove we were here.

Goat Trail
This is why they call this the Goat Trail

View Looking Down
We couldn't really look straight down off of the bluff. Or maybe I should say, "I" couldn't see straight down because I was too scared to get that close to the edge of the bluff. I did manage this picture from the safely of a cedar tree.

More Photos
After we got all the pictures we wanted, we just sat there on the bluff and ate our lunch. What a beautiful view from our makeshift cafe. We were actually looking down on several large buzzard hawks flying below us hunting for their lunch.

Granny's Cabin
After lunch we continued on down the main trail to Granny Henderson's old place.