A couple of weeks ago, I shared an article from onlyinyourstate.com called The Ultimate Alabama Waterfall Road Trip.
Viewed and shared many times, I thought, hmmm…..people dig waterfalls. I dig road trips. Maybe I should do it. So I did.
My son Zach was off work, the weather forecast was good, so away we went to see the seven featured waterfalls that, according to the good folks at onlyinyourstate.com, can be done in a day.
Their itinerary starts you in Hoover at Moss Rock Preserve, but since we’re close to Noccalula, we started there and planned on making the loop backward.
Since we’ve been to Noccalula 100’s of times, the trip started well. We snapped the obligatory photo and head to Moss Rock Preserve.
Once we found the parking, which incidentally is behind a school, we found a small trailhead and set off to the right to follow the creek. I mean, c’mon, if we follow the creek we’ll find the waterfall. So we walk along and discover this:
Ummm…..not too impressive. While Zach insisted this was it, I thought it must be further along. After all, this was the photo from the article:
Zach pointed out had he known we were going to see a waterfall located in a neighborhood off of Hwy. 31 in Hoover, he could have told me it wouldn’t be much. He also insisted that the photo is photoshopped. You can be the judge.
Next stop, Turkey Creek Nature Preserve in Pinson.
This is a little far off the beaten path but was a pretty cool spot. The falls were beautiful, just as expected from the pics. Not too much time to explore since it’s almost noon, and we are only on waterfall number 3!
Since we’re going backward, the next stop is Fort Payne for Little River Falls and De Soto Falls. We make it to FP and put Little River Nature Preserve in the GPS. Judy (the name of my car) announces we have arrived at our destination, a Waffle House. OK, you may have got me in Hoover, but I’m pretty sure there isn’t a waterfall at the Waffle House. We resort to the GPS on the phone and resume our journey until this…
Shit! Now what?
No detour sign, so we backtrack and try for new directions. How is it that two people with GPS in the dash and two smartphones can’t seem to find a State Park and National Park? Sheesh!. So, we do what any reasonable people would do, we head to Wildflower Cafe in Mentone and have lunch. We get our directions the old-fashioned way by asking the server, and she tells us first how to get to DeSoto and then to Little River. She looks at us quizzically and tells us Little River is about fifteen miles away. If she only knew we’d already gone over 200!
It’s 3 PM, and we have only seen three of the seven waterfalls. We quickly come to DeSoto. Fabulous! Check it out.
We arrive at Little River Preserve at about 3:30 and go into the visitor center. Helpful volunteers tell us about a trail we can take to the falls and then about Grace Falls (a 133-foot seasonal waterfall cascading off the cliffs) that we can drive to after we visit Little River Falls. We walk down to the beautiful falls. By the time we get back to the car, it is almost 4:30 and beginning to get dusky. We decide to drive to Grace Falls and are not disappointed.
It’s almost dark, so we decide to scrap the last two falls, particularly after reading that number 6 is located on private property, and you should ask the owner’s permission before going to see. Really? We’ve barely been able to find these falls with all of our technology. Probably not a great plan, especially in the dark!
So that ended our Ultimate Alabama Waterfall Road Trip. 5 out of 7 is not too bad, and we did get the bonus of Grace Falls, so I’m calling it a success.
I had a great day, but I prefer to explore places when I visit rather than just rushing to the next stop. While I’m sure this can be done in one day, I don’t know how enjoyable that would be.
I hope that you’ll plan a road trip in your near future, and if you get lost, stop, grab a bite, grab a beer and talk to real, live human beings! That’s when the real fun begins.
