Buffalo River

This has been a strange year for fall colors. It was really wet and cool in the summer, which made me hopeful that we would have a spectacular fall color season here. But then in late September and early October, it got hot and we didn’t get any rain. As a drought set in, many leaves started to turn a lackluster brown. The oak trees were hit the hardest, and most of them never recovered. It looked pretty doubtful that we’d have any fall colors again this year, just like last year.

But lo and behold, some trees really popped with color last week. So to take advantage of the colors, I met up with Zack and made a trip up to the Buffalo River. Zack has spent the past year driving around the country in his converted school bus, but is back home in Arkansas for a bit. We met up and headed north, and eventually ended up driving down this dirt road that ran deep into the woods by the Buffalo River.



We then headed to an overlook on Red Bluff, which provided a spectacular view of a horseshoe bend on the Buffalo River. Unfortunately, I think we were just a few days past the peak of fall color here.



We tried to be really careful here, since the overlook is not very big and a fall would result in an unhappy descent of about 200 feet through the trees and into the river. I tried to get a few pictures without getting too close to edge. This is the view looking downstream, with some bushes and trees along the river exploding in bright color.



And the view looking upstream. There was some strange moss or lichen growing on the trees here, which looked more like Spanish Moss.



From there we headed over to Tyler Bend and made another visit to the Buffalo River, but this time without any danger of falling off a bluff. Luckily there was still some good fall color along the river.



And one last shot from Tyler Bend, showing the bluffs along the river. We took a few pictures here and enjoyed the view before heading back towards home.