The rain stopped soon after daylight this morning, making it a good day to hit the road for some backwoods exploring. Today’s destination: Honey Creek, on the southern end of the Big South Fork NRRA.

I’m a little biased, because my branch of the Garretts hails from the Honey Creek and Mt. Helen communities of eastern Fentress County, but I think that the Honey Creek area is the most beautiful area of the BSFNRRA. And the Honey Creek Loop Trail (formerly the Pocket Wilderness) is by far the most underrated trail in the park.

Today’s trip actually required little “exploring.” Unlike most of these trips I take, this one didn’t require a GPS and a map to find my destination. I was looking for the waterfalls along Honey Creek, and they’re located on or near the hiking trail. But it was worth the trip just to see the backcountry of the Honey Creek area once again. It’s amazing how many folks from our community have never hiked this spectacular trail. The southern pine beetle infestation of 2000 greatly diminished the aesthetic beauty of parts of the trail that used to travel through dense pine forests, but wasn’t too detrimental to the trail as a whole. Whenever visitors call my office asking for ideas on can’t-miss areas of the BSF, I always tell them to hike Honey Creek if they don’t do anything else. It doesn’t get a lot of promotion from the National Park Service, but have I mentioned that it is a spectacular trail? What I’m telling you is that if you have never hiked it before: DO IT.

The trail’s gentle start shouldn’t fool anyone. It doesn’t take long before it drops down to Honey Creek and becomes the rugged trail it is famed to be. Numerous creek crossings, crawling up rock faces, through rock tunnels, up staircases and down ladders make this a trail not recommended for children or pets. But it does take you up close and personal with many of the geological formations that the BSF is known for. Rock houses, cliff lines, arches and waterfalls are all present along the route. It was the latter that I was in search for, specifically Boulder House Falls. It is just about six-tenths of a mile from the trailhead, as the crow flies. As the hiker walks, it is over a mile. But adventurers with a GPS unit will manage to find ways to trek cross-country and make the route shorter. In fact, there’s a foot trail (unsanctioned by the NPS) down an old roadbed near the trailhead that lops off a good chunk of the distance.

Spring is the best time to hike this trail, simply because the waterfalls are flowing good. During the summer, they become trickles . . . and what fun is that? In addition, the entire Honey Creek area is covered in dogwoods (which are still in bloom) and redbuds (which aren’t), and you’re as likely as not to hear a wild turkey’s gobble as you trek through the open hardwoods on the first leg of the trail.

Immediately upon beginning the descent down to Honey Creek, you come upon Honey Creek Falls. It isn’t located on the main trail, but a short spur will take you to a deep pool at the base of the falls. Honey Creek Falls is the most powerful of three waterfalls on a three-tenths mile stretch of the creek. It drops around 20 feet and empties into a cool pool of water encased by rock walls.

If Honey Creek Falls inspires you, prepare to be more awed. This is a wild creek, unbridled and quickly dropping towards the Big South Fork River, and there are more waterfalls. The nature of the creek shouldn’t be too surprising, since it empties into the wildest section of the entire Big South Fork of the Cumberland — shortly below the ‘Big Three’ rapids (Double Drop, The Ell and the Washing Machine). Just a short distance below Honey Creek Falls is Ice Castle Falls, a 40-ft. waterfall that isn’t located on the main creek but on a branch flowing over a bluff line. It is seldom more than a trickle; more of a wet-weather falls than anything. But it’s drop into Honey Creek is spectacular. The creek flows beneath a large bluff line at this point as it drops towards the river below.

Just a couple hundred yards on downstream is perhaps the most spectacular of the three waterfalls. It’s only about half as tall as the waterfall upstream that draws its namesake from the stream and the community, but the geological makeup of the falls is incredible. Boulder House Falls is aptly named: It drops into (and throws through) a jumbled house of boulders. Just getting to the base of the falls is pretty cool. The trail climbs through a tunnel comprised of several large boulders. There is no pool at the base of Boulder House Falls. The water hits the solid sandstone rock and rushes through the rock house.

There are more waterfalls, and plenty more scenery, but those three are enough for me for one day. Besides, that business about the rain ending? It was a lie. Even as I’m chatting with a group of hikers who happened by and snapping my last photos, I hear thunder in the distance. By the time I get back to the top of the bluff lines, the skies are threatening to open. And they soon do. Back at Ice Castle Falls I was tempted to stand beneath the water to cool off. I got back to the vehicle looking like I had gone swimming instead.


Honey Creek Falls is the first waterfall encountered along the loop trail.


Looking up at Ice Castle Falls.


There’s no way pictures can do this justice, but this is where Honey Creek flows underneath a towering bluff line directly below Ice Castle.


Part of the tunnel you crawl through to get to Boulder House Falls.


Here’s Boulder House Falls. There is no way, no way, that pictures can do it justice. Not even close. It’s a very cool site.


Another view of Boulder House Falls as a hiker takes a photo (actually, this is a composite photo, as I’m sure you can tell. Taking a good photo of the falls would’ve made him blurry. So I took a photo of him using a flash and superimposed one photo over the other.