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Waterfalls at Clark Creek Natural Area
Apr. 26th, 2023 06:08 amMississippi Travelog #2
Fort Adams, MS - Tuesday, 25 Apr 2023, 2:30pm
This first thing on our agenda for our brief trip into Mississippi, after taking a photo of the "Welcome to Mississippi" sign— which I'll not did not say "Welcome to..."— was to hike at Clark Creek Natural Area, one of Mississippi's state parks. It's not far across the border from Louisiana on the western side of the state. It was a 2½ hour drive up from New Orleans including a quick stop for lunch.
The entrance to the park is not particularly welcoming. It's on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, and there's a currently a chain link fence in front of the park entrance. It is open; you just have to park 50 meters away.
Once inside the not-welcome-to-Mississippi theme continues with the large number of regulatory signs at a kiosk next to the start of the trail. I guess those are necessary in states like Mississippi where "freedom" is understood as "the right to wreck things if it entertains me, other people be damned." For that matter I'm surprised there are no signs forbidding strip mining or dumping industrial waste in the creek. I mean, we're not that far out of Louisiana, where those are legal and practically considered business civil rights.
But hey, what about those waterfalls?
The first falls on the creek, beautifully named "First Waterfall", is a bit over ½ mile in from the trailhead. The trail is down hill virtually all the way... which means we'd pay on the return trek. We walked in the creek above the falls for the last bit before we reached the lip. There, there's a wooden staircase around the far left side that leads below the falls.
We thought about walking the creek down to the next falls, "Second Waterfall", but decided it might be better to take the marked trail. The marked trail goes up, up, up, then down, down, down to a spot a bit lower on the same creek.
As we arrived at Second Waterfall we noted that the creek above the falls is once again flat, and there's a wooden stair around the far side leading down.
On the trek back we walked the creek. Our feet got a bit wet, but we were prepared for that. And it's a warm day, so we didn't mind too much. Walking the creek between the two fall was so much easier than the official path.
There are more than two waterfalls in or near this park. According to maps there are nine. The others are much harder to reach, though, involving primitive trails and/or walk creeks through tough terrain. And trail notes from people who've been there say the first two are the best anyway.
We did try to visit one of these more remote falls. After slogging up over a hill then down the far side— it seems every leg of trail in this park requires going up then down again— we found the trail dropped down the side of a badly eroded hill about 50 feet tall. We decided not to risk injury going down that ravine.
Fort Adams, MS - Tuesday, 25 Apr 2023, 2:30pm
This first thing on our agenda for our brief trip into Mississippi, after taking a photo of the "Welcome to Mississippi" sign— which I'll not did not say "Welcome to..."— was to hike at Clark Creek Natural Area, one of Mississippi's state parks. It's not far across the border from Louisiana on the western side of the state. It was a 2½ hour drive up from New Orleans including a quick stop for lunch.
The entrance to the park is not particularly welcoming. It's on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, and there's a currently a chain link fence in front of the park entrance. It is open; you just have to park 50 meters away.
Once inside the not-welcome-to-Mississippi theme continues with the large number of regulatory signs at a kiosk next to the start of the trail. I guess those are necessary in states like Mississippi where "freedom" is understood as "the right to wreck things if it entertains me, other people be damned." For that matter I'm surprised there are no signs forbidding strip mining or dumping industrial waste in the creek. I mean, we're not that far out of Louisiana, where those are legal and practically considered business civil rights.
But hey, what about those waterfalls?
The first falls on the creek, beautifully named "First Waterfall", is a bit over ½ mile in from the trailhead. The trail is down hill virtually all the way... which means we'd pay on the return trek. We walked in the creek above the falls for the last bit before we reached the lip. There, there's a wooden staircase around the far left side that leads below the falls.
We thought about walking the creek down to the next falls, "Second Waterfall", but decided it might be better to take the marked trail. The marked trail goes up, up, up, then down, down, down to a spot a bit lower on the same creek.
As we arrived at Second Waterfall we noted that the creek above the falls is once again flat, and there's a wooden stair around the far side leading down.
On the trek back we walked the creek. Our feet got a bit wet, but we were prepared for that. And it's a warm day, so we didn't mind too much. Walking the creek between the two fall was so much easier than the official path.
There are more than two waterfalls in or near this park. According to maps there are nine. The others are much harder to reach, though, involving primitive trails and/or walk creeks through tough terrain. And trail notes from people who've been there say the first two are the best anyway.
We did try to visit one of these more remote falls. After slogging up over a hill then down the far side— it seems every leg of trail in this park requires going up then down again— we found the trail dropped down the side of a badly eroded hill about 50 feet tall. We decided not to risk injury going down that ravine.
