Bankhead Day Two

Still raining. It’s suppose to stop soon, so I’m going out to find the waterfalls. Asked camp host, she didn’t know. I asked the desk people at the camp entrance, they didn’t know. So I went with something I found on-line and boy was that a big mistake. It was sixty miles. That was okay, it’s a BIG forest and I knew it wasn’t close.  One thing cool about the trip were these orange flowers. They were everywhere. Big giant clumps of them. This wasn’t the biggest, but I couldn’t find a place to pull over till this group.

A bit over halfway into the GPS route the road became a single lane gravel road with giant potholes. I drove 15 - 20 mph for about an hour. My poor car. At one point I had to get out and move a log. This is actually a picture of the better section.

I would have turned around but I didn't have room, plus I figured the GPS was just giving me a back route and once I got there I could leave by the better road.
Surprise! No better road. It dead ended at a bridge with parking for about four cars. I parked and walked across the bridge.
                              

And the view from the bridge.

 There was a faded sign and two marked trails one had a horse sign and one a hiker sign. I headed up the hiker trail, it was rough going. Branches and logs and big rocks everywhere and it was muddy. I went a little way in but after crawling over my third log and misstepping on a rock, I was afraid I’d break a foot and be stranded as no one else was there at all.

There wasn’t much to see anyway. Here’s one view of the trail.

So I went back, got in my car and headed back up the road from hell. 

About half way down the gravel road I came to a truck heading toward me. He pulled over to the side and stopped to give me room to pass. I noticed it was a Forest Ranger. I asked him about the water falls I was looking for. They were on the other side of the forest. He told me where the ranger station was (still about 30 miles from my camp site) and said they had maps and directions to all the falls and hiking trails. 

Wasted most of a day.🙄

  So I went to Walmart to get the stuff I forgot last time, and went on back to camp. I will go to the ranger station tomorrow and try again.