You won't find it if you stop at the first set of falls.

I learned to share/compete from watching butterflies

Yesterday, while hiking in the (pardon me while I take a deep breath) Forever Wild Land Trust Walls of Jericho Tract Nature Preserve, Recreation Area, and Wildlife Management Area Addition, I thought very little about the rest of the world outside the preserve.

I gave a few minutes of thinking to the length of time we call an American Presidential term and how it relates to the life of a person (100% of a four-year old, 10% of a forty year old, etc.).

I wondered for a bit what the rest of my species was going to do about the change of political leadership in the area we now call Libya (Arabic: ‏ليبيا‎).

Otherwise, I lived in the sated stated of meditative marvelling.

Doesn’t matter to me if you have thoughts concerning an entity that would create the universe as we know it or thoughts that we are just random interacting states of energy.

I, because of my traditional thoughts given to me by a particular subcultural upbringing, was inclined yesterday to say, “Wow!  Thank You for this fantastic world You’ve given us, Lord.”

I’ll list the common names of blooming wildflowers I saw: foamflower, mountain phlox, Johnny jumpup, dogtooth violet, Indian corn/squawroot, club moss, white star grass, pipsissewa/spotted wintergreen, trout lily, trillium, wild geranium, bloodroot, dwarf crested iris, mayapple, puttyroot, little brown jug, rue anemone, and several whose common/Latin names I can’t remember anymore but were just as fascinating without human labels.

The dogwoods and redbuds were still in bloom.

Fern fronds curled out like they were just waking up from a winter slumber.

Mosses and lichens were at their saturated best.

Lady’s slipper orchids and buckeyes were several weeks away from blooming, I guess.

The view from the southern rim was great this time of year, with the lower waterfall clearly visible before trees leaf out.

Walls of Jericho lower falls - South Rim trail view, 6th Apr 2011

The second foot bridge had slipped sideways, making for an interesting walk across, aided somewhat by a rope hand railing.

The trail was more populated with our species than the hike in October.

No overnight campers but there was some politician/preacher type named Andy who was very informative about the creek crossing (“the water’s high, so it’s a ‘take your boots and wade’ day but worth it when you get to the other side’), three older guys from NW Alabama, one in jungle camo (they reminded me of military veterans trying to relive their glory days on bivouac), a middle-aged couple who hike this trail every spring (“There aren’t nearly as many bluebells [mountain phlox] as there have been the past couple of years.  You can’t never tell what a late winter’ll do to the timing of wildflower blooms, can you?”), a young couple who’d come to make a photoshoot in the woods, and two young guys looking to see who was faster to hike to the falls.

I thought the highlight of the trip, other than wildflowers and many wetweather creeks fully flowing, would be my hike along the South Rim trail which, incidentally, ended when I reached a part of the rim that looked like it was too precarious for this big-framed (i.e., close to obese) body to attempt edging along.  If I was in my twenties again, maybe.

But I snapped a few good photos from the rim and that was well worth the trip.

Or so I thought…

I had passed the three amigos back before the first foot bridge.

After hiking back down the south rim, I caught up with the three fellows as they clamoured along the edge of the bottom of the Walls of Jericho next to the creek.

I slipped up on them easily because they talked loudly with each other about common topics.

They also left footprints in wet spots on the trail so maybe they weren’t former scouts.

In any case, we arrived at the creek crossing at the base of the falls.

Because the creek bed is relatively dry most of the year, the rocks are covered with type of lichen that’s not slippery when wet.

Wearing old, porous New Balance shoes, I tiptoed across the the tops of rocks that were barely covered by the rushing water, using a hiking stick I picked up at the start of the trail as a kind of pole vault or third leg to propel me over places where a stepping stone was unavailable.

My shoes were damp but not soaked by the time I got to the other side of the creek.

The three guys had removed their hiking boots and socks and waded slowly across.

I left them behind and proceeded to a dry rock in the sun to eat my peanut-butter sandwich (thanks to Atlanta Bread for the loaves provided at the Rocket City Marathon, a few of which my wife and I had frozen) and trail mix (courtesy of Walmart) along with an apple and ample swigs of filtered water.

Watched a golden hawk fly over just as a jet left a contrail behind.  Great juxtaposition.

And now the best part.

My competitive self kicked in, seeing these old fellas, so I decided to shimmy up the face of the rock ledge that led to what I thought would be the upper pool of water.

After I got to the top, I found small pools of water, but no major source for the large volume of agua pouring out of the side of the mountain that formed the lower waterfall I saw from the South Rim trail.

I walked further “upstream,” hearing a roaring sound but seeing nothing, until…

SORRY! I CAN’T HEAR FOR THE HIDDEN WATERFALL!

Hidden around a bend, a good-sized waterfall (not Niagara or Victoria but more than the water pouring out of my tap at home) gushed over a ledge and down into a pit.

The spray of water rising from the pit painted a rainbow in midair.

More butterflies congregated around a sweet spot.

For lack of anything more creative to say, I was in awe of nature’s little surprises, like the ticks that appear out of nowhere on the most inconvenient places around my body.

Eventually, two of the guys arrived and were just as amazed as I was, because none of us had heard of this hidden waterfall, and we’d talked with several people who’d been here, we discovered in conversation while they snapped photos.

It was, to us, like being explorers finding the Fountain of Youth unexpectedly.

What grown-up kid doesn’t want to make that claim?!

I finished my bag of trail mix, looked at my watch (12:05, having started at the carpark at 9:15) and decided to hike out as fast as my tired but wobbly legs would let me, knowing I had dance lessons to rest up for later this evening.

The world keeps turning.

On the way out, I ran into the third fellow, who’d decided to return to the other side of creek and rest.

Either that, or be a lookout for the other two.  Who knows?  After all, I was a stranger to them and they joked several times about a stranger who could sneak up on them could just as easily shoot them and take their wallets.

Little do they know.

What’s a few hundred dollars to someone who manages a whole solar system? 😉

The way back was tougher than I remembered, taking me two hours to complete.

But then again, the last time I hiked this I hadn’t thrown in a South Rim trail excursion and a rock face climb to the (if not one of the) upper falls.  [But I had lost 20 pounds since then.  Oh well, cardiovascular workout is still missing from my daily regimen.]

At the carpark, I ate an apple and finished the rest of my two litres of water.  I could have drunk three.

I leaned the walking stick against the information signage and drove 45 miles homeward, back along the highway named after the author of the song, “Green, Green Grass of Home,*” an appropriate melodic image to end this blog with.

[*Which might explain why “What’s New, Pussycat?” was playing in my head as I was climbing back up toward the carpark.  Pop music gets in your thoughts and waits for quiet moments to let you know you’re part of something bigger socially and your brain can hold more than you think you know.]

YouTube has many versions of the classic, including, of course, Porter Wagoner.  For alternatives, try Dennis Brown or Delroy Wilson.

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