Buckeye Trail- Caney Creek Trail Map, Ouachita Mts, Arkansas. The Buckeye and Caney Creek Trails are located in the Caney Creek Wilderness of Southwest Arkansas. The Caney Creek Trail is 9. Cossotot River to FR 3. The Buckeye is 4. FR 3. 8 to the middle of the Caney Creek Trail near Katy Falls. Special Thanks: The Buckeye Caney Trail has been maintained by Tom (aka Ouachita Hiker) and Janet Trigg for several years now. It is a difficult job and requires constant work. If you appreciate their effort, drop them a thank you at the Backpacking Arkansas. Created in 1. 97. Ouachitas is dominated by oak and hickory with minor short leaf pine and beech. You will also see evergreen holly trees, sugar gum trees with their spiked balls and lots of wild flowers when in season. Much of this is due the underlying rock, the Arkansas Novaculite. The Arkansas Novaculite is a white to grayish- black sedimentary rock made of microcrystalline silicon dioxide, i. Deposited in Devonian to Mississippian time, it was formed in a sediment starved ocean basin that existed south of the then North American continent. The term novaculite comes from the Latin for . It is also a commercial source of whetstones. The central Ouachitas feature east- west trending ridges and valleys that were formed during the Ouachita Orogeny (i. During the Pennsylvanian, geologic forces from the south pushed the abyssal plane where the novaculite sediments were accumulating up on the North American continental plate. ![]() And just you get folds perpendicular to the direction of forces when you push two ends of a piece of paper together, the rocks fold and faulted in an east- west direction. About 1. 0 miles east of this trail system is the Eagle Rock Loop, a 2. Ouachitas that features river crossings, a traverse across 5 different ridges and all the beauty of the Caney Creek Wilderness. The Map: Nominal 1: 2. USGS 7. 5 minute quadrangle topographic maps. Printed in color on 1. The Caney Creek Trail is red, the Buckeye is blue and the spur trails are yellow. All were mapped with a WAAS enabled GPS. Other features include forest roads, trailheads, creek crossings, segment mileage, general directions, waypoints and waypoint coordinates. An inset map of the same scale is used to fit the entire Caney Creek Trail on one map. Lines show where the two maps overlap. Buckeye- Caney Creek Video: Click here to watch the video from our 2. Buckeye and Caney Creek Trail Mileage: Click here for pdf. The Narrative: Since the Buckeye Trail utilizes the east portion of the Caney Creek Trail to make a loop and because the loop is the more popular hike, this narrative is in three sections. The first is the West Caney Creek Trail covering the Caney from the Cossotot TH to the Buckeye junction, the second is the Buckeye Trail and the third is the East Caney Trail from the Buckeye Junction to Forest Road 3. The West Caney narrative is based on a hike in December 2. The East Caney and Buckeye were updated based on a hike in April 2. The West Caney Creek Trail: The Caney Creek Wilderness is remote and scenic. Except for all the creek crossings, the trail is very easy, but very pretty. This narrative will start at the west trailhead (WP- 0. N3. 4. 4. 09. 48 W0. County 8. 1/FR 3. Cossotot River and cover the 5. Buckeye Trail. The west trailhead is at the end of quarter mile access road on the south side of CO8. ![]() FR3. 1. Leave the gravel parking lot at the southwest corner and head into the woods following the path (the trail is not blazed). At 0. 4 miles you will be at the bottom of a hill at river level in an open forest ideal for camping. The Cossotot River crossing is at 0. Unless its in the middle of a drought, expect the crossing to be wet. Needless to say, if you have problems with those crossings, you can expect more troubles here (it’s down stream). Also keep in mind there is one more major tributary after the last low water bridge to add to the volume of water. When I'm not pushing a mouse around, you can often find me riding my mountain bike in Middle Run and White Clay Creek State Park. There's over 30 miles of pristine. Adobe Dam Regional Park; Buckeye Hills Regional Park; Cave Creek Regional Park; Desert Outdoor Center at Lake Pleasant; Estrella Mountain Regional Park.
Coming out of the river you will head up a small flat valley following and crossing a little creek. The valley narrows a little as it climbs about 1. Caney Creek watershed (1. The trail drops into a shallow open hollow, crosses a picturesque rivulet and then climbs up a little hill. After another 0. 2 miles, the trail drops off the hill bears left (east) and finally comes to the first Caney Creek crossing (2. As with all the numerous crossings, this is a simple boulder hop under all but high water conditions. Caney Creek is flowing westward and the trail will head up stream. Check out the clarity of the water; crystal clear because of the novaculite rock. Including the first crossing at 2. Buckeye intersection. The crossings are at 2. The trail itself is usually easy to follow. It runs along the creek, below bluffs, above the creek on the natural terrace and in bottomlands. The latter, around mile 3. At 5. 2 miles, the trail heads up along the hillside north of the creek, passes the spur trail to the designated campsite (5. Buckeye Trail (5. ![]() ![]() ![]() The spur trail is a little over 0. Caney Creek. The campsite is large and marked with a small sign (1st picture). The easiest way to get to Katy Falls (2nd picture) is to go up the Buckeye Trail about 0. For the remainder of the Caney Trail, jump to the West Caney Creek Trail narrative. The Buckeye Trail: The Buckeye- Caney loop is 9. To make a complete loop it utilizes Forest Road 3. Buckeye Trailhead and the East Caney Creek Trailhead, the Buckeye Trail and the East Caney Creek Trail. This narrative begins at the East Caney Creek Trailhead, an goes counterclockwise beginning with a walk up Forest Road 3. Buckeye- Caney junction. Mileages in this section are all based on beginning at the East Caney Creek Trailhead and include the hike on FR 3. The East Caney Creek hike is in the following section. The parking area for the East Caney Trailhead (WP- 0. N3. 4. 3. 96. 98 W0. Head north on the FR 3. The forest road is wide gravel and usually well maintained and accessible with a regular car. Near the top of the hill, the Buckeye TH is on the left (WP- 0. N3. 4. 4. 08. 79 W0. There is room for several cars to park in case you prefer to finish the hike with that up hill climb or want to drop your packs, drive to the Caney TH and hike the hill a little lighter. The Buckeye Trail spends most of its time on the crest of Buckeye Mountain, a long east- west trending ridge supported by the Arkansas Novaculite. The trail begins at the small parking area, stays fairly level for about 0. At 1. 5 miles it intersects an abandon forest road that leads to an old mine site. I haven't visited the site but in doing a little research to determine what was being mined I learned that there was a gold . The assay indicated there was no gold, but that does not mean that the mine wasn't a gold prospect. Alternatively, there are several well established occurrences of barite, copper and manganese within 1. The trail continues uphill, rounds the nose of Buckeye Mountain and begins to climb the crest. At 1. 7 miles there is a standing rock of vertical novaculite and a nice place to take a break. There is a good view of the white rocky slopes of Mc. Kinley Mountain to the north and Tall Peak to the south. At mile 2. 0 there is a trail- side vista with more great views of the central Ouachitas. At mile 2. 1, you will hit the high point of the hike. The next 2. 4 miles is on top of the ridge, with a few brief excursions down the slopes to either side. In fact, there is no water until you get down into Caney valley, so plan accordingly. At 4. 2 miles the trail comes up to a big outcrop on your left and veers off to the right. There is a tempting path the takes you along the outcrop and then begins to head downhill. At mile 4. 5 the trail drops across a rocky saddle. Once again, it looks like the trail should drop over the north side (and I think it once did) but it actually begins to climb out of the saddle until it takes a u- turn to the left and begins to go down hill. The trail is narrow in this area but it soon turns back to the right below the saddle and broadens. The rest of the trip to the Caney Creek Trail junction is downhill. It is one mile and a 5. Katy Falls spur. Most of the hike is a gradual descent along the side of East Hanna Mountain. You will know you are near the bottom when the topography begins to fall away on your right. Soon you will encounter a crude cairn (a pile of rocks) marking the Katy Falls trail spur (mile 5. You should definitely check out the falls on your trip. At mile 5. 6 is the junction with the Caney Creek Trail. If you are on the loop, turn left (east). If you are heading for the official campsite, turn right, go about 0. East Caney Creek Trail: Conveniently enough, the Buckeye Trail plus FR 3. West Caney Creek Trail to the Buckeye- Caney Junction. Therefore, the distances in this part of the narrative can be used as either a continuation of a west to east hike on the Caney or as the last part of the Buckeye- Caney (plus FR 3. Loop. After the Buckeye junction (WP- 3, N3. W0. 94. 0. 81. 43), the trail drops into Katy Creek and then pops up to a wooded terrace for 0. While this area is flat and a tempting area to camp, it is marked in many places as no camping. Since the Forest Service can't mark every tree, I figure the entire area is off limits until you get to about mile 5. Here is a large, well established campsite on the right (south) side of the trail and there are no signs. The trail crosses to the south side of Caney Creek at 6. It is quite possibly a wet crossing. There is a big flat rock in the water inviting you to take a break. At 7. 2 miles, a secondary channel separates the trail from the main flow. Just upstream and on the north side of the creek is a campsite. This is the last Caney creek crossing. On my solo trip in April 2. I headed off into the flat area east of the trail and set up a leave- no- trace camp. The nice thing about the Caney Valley, is that besides being one of the prettiest areas in Arkansas, it has lots of camping opportunities.
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