Buffalo River Compton Loop Trail 3/21/2009
For the first part of my spring break 2009 I hiked the Compton Loop trail down to Hemmed-in Hollow Falls, which is the tallest waterfall between the Rockies and Appalachians. The trail down to Hemmed-in Hollow is steep and rocky, and with a 35lb pack on I went REALLY slow. It would have been a long crawl back to the car if I had broken a leg or something.
It's been a while since the big ice storm, and the trails were pretty clear, but the broken trees made for a better view on the hike down.
Further down, I started to see the bluffline that makes Hemmed-in hollow.
The trail followed the edge of the bluff I was on, and it was raining (of course), so I tried to stay clear of the edge as best I could.
Woodpecker Camo. This guy was following me down the trail.
Once I got most of the way down into the valley, I started to see lots of little birch trees. You can tell which trees are birch, because they don't lose their leaves in the winter like the others.
The trail back to the falls was relatively flat compared to the hike down from the trailhead, but it did have a few small waterfalls along the way.
Hemmed-in Hollow falls is 209' as measured by Tim Ernst, which makes it the tallest waterfall between the Rockies and Appalachians. This is only the beginning of the wet season, so I wasn't sure how much water would actually be coming over it. Luckily, it rains every time I go camping, so there was plenty of water. Some guys who were down there the day before told me that it was dry when they hiked back to it.
The trail back to the falls was washed out, so I had to just hike up the creek bed. It was slick, but I had my trusty walking stick made from a Home Depot broom handle (the metal tip keeps it from splintering in the rocks). I did find out, however, that my 6 year old Danner Gore-Tex boots are no longer as waterproof as I had remembered. The water was freaking cold! Luckily, I had bought some new SmartWool Merino wool socks for the trip, so my feet stayed warm even though they were wet.
Down by the falls is all a no-camping area, so after I got done seeing it and soaking my feet, I hiked back up the trail to camp. I stopped to cook dinner along the way, and it started to get really foggy.
I learned during my last Buffalo Wilderness trip that the Gore-Tex bivy cover I use will keep me dry, but it falls down against my face at night and bugs the crap out of me. This time, I worked smarter, not harder. I whipped up a little tripod out of my walking stick and a couple of downed branches and threw a poncho over it. It wasn't raining when I went to bed, but (of course) it started shortly thereafter and rained all night. My little "face tripod" made it so that I could still have my head out of my bag and not get soaked. I slept much better than the last trip, and took a picture of my setup the next morning.
When I got up the next morning, it was foggy. I decided to take a detour down a canoe trail to the Buffalo River. This trail is for paddlers who want to hike up to see the falls. It was flat, but pretty, and gave me a chance to fill up my water bottles.
After I hiked back up from the river, I continued down the Compton trail. The scenery changed a bit.
The trail crossed Sneeds creek right where it runs into the Buffalo and followed the river up an old road bed for a while. There wasn't much to take pictures of.
At the top of the road is an old cabin called "Granny Henderson's Cabin". It was kind of cool, but I didn't go upstairs or walk around all that much. Falling through the floor would have ruined my trip.
Past the cabin, the trail started to hit some big rock slabs.
This is called "Rocky Bottom"; the whole creek bed is lined from bank to bank by one slab of rock. My trail guide says that it is over 100' wide and much longer. I hung out here and ate lunch.
Further upstream on Sneeds Creek is another early homestead called the Evans-White home. The crossing to get here reminded me, yet again, that my boots are no longer waterproof.
This side of the trail loop had some waterfalls as well. They gave me a good place to fill up my water bottles again.
I was planning on staying another one or two nights on this loop of the trail, but something catastrophic happened... I ran out of TP. Major planning fault on my part. The hike out is a very hard one, especially with a pack, and the bluff faces are so sheer that once you start the hike out there isn't anywhere to camp. I didn't really want to start the hike this late in the day (about 3:00), because I knew it would take at least 3 hours of solid uphill scrambling, but I also didn't want to have to find a TP substitute and THEN scramble up the hill. The hike out was pretty bad, and I was tired enough that I didn't bother taking any pictures of it. There were lots of muddy old road beds along the way that added about 30 gazillion pounds to my boots. I got back to the car at around 6 and drove straight through to Eureka (about 8.5 hours).