Bearcat Hollow

I've known Zack Andrews and Matt Kennedy now for about 17 years (give or take a few months). They are both outstanding photographers and great friends. We've been out hiking to lots of waterfalls across Arkansas, hitting places like Twin Falls at Richland, V-Slot Falls, Cossatot Falls, Acord Hollow, Compton Double Falls, and Bowers Hollow Falls. And we still try to meet up to do some hiking every year, even if we aren't in as good as shape as we were 17 years ago.

So this time we hiked into Bearcat Hollow, which sits north of Richland Creek. The hike starts out easy enough, following a dirt road and then the Ozark Highlands Trail. But then you leave the well-marked OHT and then descend into the woods. There was a faint trail here, probably mostly used by rock climbers. But the woods were already overgrown with briars and poison ivy, and we lost the trail. We bushwhacked downhill, getting snagged by thorns and attracting the attention of a large number of ticks.

Eventually we made it to the top of the falls. But to get to the bottom required hiking along the bluff line for a bit until there was a decent opening where you could safely drop down. But we did finally make it to the waterfall, which drops 35 feet onto a large rock sitting in a pool of turquoise water.



The sun was breaking through the clouds, so we spent a good amount of time here waiting for the light to change. It gave me plenty of time to pluck off the ticks that were trying to climb up my legs (I found more than a dozen of them on this hike).





Matt and I hiked to this waterfall back in January of 2019, and it was interesting to see how different it is in the Spring. There definitely was a lot more green - there was now a thick carpet of ferns growing behind the waterfall.



While taking a long exposure photo here, the tripod head wasn't tight enough and the camera swiveled just a little bit. I kinda liked how the resulting shot (which was taken completely by accident) turned out.



And one last shot of the ferns behind the falls. After this we made the hike back up the hill, through the thorns and ticks. All together, it was about a four mile hike to the falls and back.