Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Petit Jean

As I was driving home on Easter Sunday, I made a quick detour over to Petit Jean Mountain. It was a nice Spring day - with the trees starting to pop out with leaves and splashes of white from dogwood and bradford pear trees. I didn't think that I would have enough time to do the trail to Cedar Falls - or enough time to do those falls any justice. So I opted instead to take the Cedar Creek trail, which runs along the creek above the falls.

I like this trail, but it doesn't seem to get many visitors. It doesn't have a 95-foot tall waterfall on it, but the trail does pass by some other small falls. I hardly ever see any other hikers out there, it seems like this trail is a bit under-appreciated.

The trail is a loop, which drops down a hillside by the old pioneer cabin. I went down one part of the trail, crossing over the creek by a bridge and quickly finding this waterfall.
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The water of the creek shoots over some boulders and then zig zags through a rocky course.
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The flow of the creek as it moves downstream:
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I kinda cheated on the trail that day, from here I turned around and headed back up the hill to the parking area. Then I went and took the other part of the loop, which heads back down the hill by a small stream that is filled with several waterfalls.
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This was actually the new camera's first-ever trip out to get waterfall pictures. I think that it made it through with flying colors (which were then promptly over-saturated in Photoshop).

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