Natural Falls State Park - 2020 Vacation pt1
So the journey begins! We left on September 18th, and headed south to begin our 2020 vacation. We had a few locations that we wanted to see, but we also wanted this to be a relaxing trip. With that in mind, we did not want to spend less than two nights in any given location, that way we would not be spending an excessive amount of time setting up, and tearing down camp. We also did not want to drive more than 4-5 hours on a drive day. So, our first stop of the trip was Devil’s Den State Park, in Arkansas.
Although we were spending the first weekend of the trip at Devil’s Den, we really weren’t spending much time there. That was fine, however, as we would also be back there the following weekend. The main activity planned for the first weekend was to drive about an hour over to Oklahoma, and visit Natural Falls State Park.
Natural Falls State Park has been on our list of places to visit for quite some time. We had seen several pictures and articles online, that showed the waterfall(s) in the park, and it looked amazing. We knew that since we were camping so close by, that we would have to make the trip there.
We arrived at the park late in the morning on Saturday. We paid our $10 parking fee, and picked up a trail map. Our assumption was that we couldn’t go wrong with any of the trails, since we also assumed that the entire park was full of water features. From quickly glancing at the trail descriptions, the Ghost Coon Trail looked pretty reasonable, based upon the length and difficulty level. That trail’s name is also a reference to the movie “Where the Red Fern Grows”, which was partially filmed at this park back in the 1970’s.
The trail started in the woods, but soon opened up into a grassy area. After hiking a little while, we spotted the yurts in the distance, but still no water. As we got closer to the yurts, we did come to a cliff, and looking over the edge, we could see some water down below. Although, it didn’t appear that the trail we were on went that way. Pretty soon, we came to what appeared to be an access road, and it also seemed that our trail disappeared. Fortunately, some other hikers were coming up the road (which ended up being the Dripping Springs Trail). We asked them if they knew where we should be going, and they informed us that the waterfalls were down the hill, where they came from. We quickly abandoned the idea of finishing the trail we were on, and headed toward the waterfalls.
Near the bottom of the hill, we came to the first “waterfall”. It was actually a spillway for the small pond that we had spotted from the cliff above. We took a few pictures, then headed upstream. A bridge crossed the stream, and the trail continued for a short distance until we came to the big waterfall. This waterfall was 77ft high, and was impressive. Walkways provided several viewing angles of the falls. Unfortunately, at this point in time, it was a little after noon on a beautiful Saturday, so there were quite a few people gathered in this area.
It wasn’t far after leaving that area that we ended up back near the parking lot. We took a break to eat the lunch we packed, and decided to head back to Devil’s Den. At this point we had seen everything that we were interested in at Natural Falls.
We ended up being a little disappointed with Natural Falls State Park. Primarily because our expectations were so high, and we really hadn’t done much research to know what to expect. We would probably still recommend checking out this park, if you are in that area, but I don’t know that it is worth a long drive to get there. Honestly, if you were just there to see the waterfalls, as we were, you could start down the Dripping Springs Trail, see them both, and be back to your vehicle within an hour.