Triple Falls

Back in March a round of storms dumped a lot of rain across the state, resulting in some pretty bad flash flooding. And the Buffalo River was hit especially hard. At St. Joe, the river is at flood stage at 27 feet, but back in March it reached 48 feet. At Steele Creek, the river flooded the campground and made it all the way up to the ranger station. It's now been several weeks but you can still see evidence of the flooding there, like the fences that are far from the river that were knocked down (or still have pieces of debris stuck in them). Closer to the river there are a lot of downed trees, which were pushed down by the force of the water.

Steele Creek was busy that morning. The campground was back open and completely full. The put-in at the river was full of people loading up canoes and kayaks.



From there I drove over to visit the famous Triple Falls. But along the way I pulled over and got a picture of this red barn, sitting in a foggy field.



And the fog got thicker as the dirt road makes its way down towards the river.





As I continued on, a guy driving a truck coming uphill tried to wave me down as we passed each other. I didn't manage to stop in time, so we just kinda awkwardly looked at each other for a few seconds. But luckily there was another truck right behind him, and the driver stopped to talk. He said that I might need to wait a bit. A car got stuck trying to drive up the steep hill, and was being towed out. He said there was a long line of about 30 cars waiting behind it.

Triple Falls is a popular waterfall, which sits within a Boy Scout campground. And that weekend just happened to be a big Scout campout, and the families were all trying to get home that morning. The road to the campground is steep, and can be rough. Especially after heavy rains. And apparently someone in a little sedan attempted to take on the dirt road and got stuck. I headed down the road, and soon enough saw a little car being slowly towed up the hill. And beyond, a long line of cars and SUVs sat waiting like it was rush hour in a big city.

Eventually I made it to the small parking area for Triple Falls, and then started the short and easy hike to the waterfall.



The falls are beautiful, falling 48 feet into a small pool before flowing off towards the Buffalo River.



It is definitely worth the drive to reach the falls (as long as your car doesn't get stuck).





By then, all the campers had departed and were on their way home. I guess no one else got stuck since the road out was clear and empty (except for the fog).