Date: 08/31/2019 – Distance: 12.1 mi – Elapsed Time: 8 hrs – Ascent: 1801 ft – Descent: 1817 ft – Difficulty: Hard
This morning began with a trip to Coffee Emporium. This place is at the sharp turn on 664 just south of Logan. They know how to make my espresso and their bacon and sausage breakfast pizza is a hearty way to start out a good day of hiking. The hand tossed style crust is piled high with eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage, and cheese. There might even be some onion in there. It’s incredible.
A friend told me about this little known place called Airplane Rock. It showed up on my GPS map and I decided to find it. It was about 2.5 miles straight shot from the campground. Of course trails are much longer. The naturalist told me it’s about a three miles hike to the rapelling area which is in the right direction. She also said she had never hiked that portion of the Buckeye Trail. It leaves right across from the entrance to Old Man’s Cave parking off Culp Rd. This part is through State Forest rather than State Park. The trail was on my GPS map. I decided to make this one of my long hikes. Along the way I could catch Big Spring Hollow and Balancing Rock.
I began with my usual descent down the Camp Access Trail toward Old Man’s Cave.
I crossed the A-Frame Bridge to the other side. I turned right and took the sidewalk past the Visior Center, parking lot toward the Camp Office.
I wanted to check out an area behind the ranger station called the Expedition Trail. It’s meant to be an educational center but it’s a little run down. Perhaps it’s just the end of the peak season. There is a small aviary back there where the have a Great Horned Owl and a Red Tailed Hawk. These are injured birds which the park is trying to nurse back to health.
After the “expedition”, I headed toward the main road, 664 to begin my long hike. Be careful crossing the road here. This is a very busy intersection with the campground and Old Man’s Cave entrance. Directly across is Culp Road and there is a trailhead here with a parking area and kiosk. This is also the entrance into the State Forest land and a bridal trail. It is also where the Buckeye Trail continues.
About 1.5 miles from the trailhead on the bridal trail you cross Unger Road. About 0.5 miles from Unger Road you get to a reforestation area where the forestry service has planted new trees on a very steep slope. The trail is very washed out here with large ruts. If it were muddy, it would be even worse, but it’s passable. Then about 0.8 miles from Unger Road, the trail takes a very subtle and difficult to follow jog to the left and you arrive at the signs below. This is the beginning of the trails at the Rappelling Area. The signs are telling horses that they must use a different route, which is what you would have taken if you didn’t make the jog in the trail. That alternative trail is called the Buckeye Trail Horse Bypass on a map of the Rappelling Area I found. Either way you would end up at the cliffs, you just would miss the top of the upcoming waterfall.
Just a few hundred more feet into this trail and you come to a dramatic cliff at the top of Big Spring Hollow Falls.
The trail turns right and follows along the cliffs.
One of the rappellers I met at the falls told me you can go down to the falls this way. I decided to keep going.
About 1 mile from Big Spring Hollow Falls, you arrive at a sharp left in the trail. There is a horse tie up area here. This is also where a feature called Balanced Rock is located, but I somehow missed it because I didn’t spend enough time exploring the area around this turn. On my way back I found it though.
This trail turns and starts descending the slope to the valley below. It first passes right between these dramatic slump rocks near the top.
At the bottom of the area between the slump rocks, the trail continues to descend along the cliff. You come to a small cave. It has one deep small area which I shined my headlamp back into. I could barely see the back of the hole.
The trail then takes another switchback and descends steeply away from the cliffs. I ran into a small deer and he let me capture him on my camera.
At about 4 miles into this portion of the Buckeye Trail from the trailhead at Culp Road you arrive at the entrance to the Rappelling Area. It has this narrow steel bridge to cross over Big Pine Creek. Across this bridge is Big Pine Road and a picnic area with the parking across the road.
From the Rappelling Area parking you can get to Airplane Rock two ways. Both are parts of the Orange Bridle Trail. At the back of the parking area is the main trailhead. This trail travels past a feature called Chapel Cave, but it’s also at least a couple miles to Airplane Rock this way. I was getting tired and wanted to see Airplane Rock, so there is another way which the naturalist who I hiked with yesterday told me about. If you go left facing the parking lot down Big Pine Road about 0.5 miles, there is a bridge where Big Pine crosses under. Here there is another entrance to the Orange Trail. You head down and where it forks, take it to the right. It climbs up the hill about 0.6 miles to the top where it turns right and there is another horse tie up area. There are even restrooms near here. This is a popular destination for the horseback riders. Horse parking lot on the right, but the entrance to Airplane Rock is on the left, through a split rail fence. You might miss it if you didn’t know it was here. Some other hikers I asked about it said they hiked the hole loop and didn’t see it. I think they must have walked right past. I should have grabbed a picture of this entrance, but I didn’t.
Anyway, through the fence and down a really short trail you come to this dramatic rock outcropping hanging over the cliff, above the trees. It’s a great view.
There is a small trail along the top of the cliff to the right where you can get a great view of the nose and wing of the “airplane.”
After eating a cliff bar, rehydrating, and resting at this beautiful place for awhile, I returned the way I came. One the way back at the top of the cliffs where the trail turns, I caught Balanced Rock. Wow, that is amazing.
I continued along the cliff, however right before getting to Big Hollow Falls, I decided to take the Horse Bypass which is labelled as such. It brings you to the same trail as before at the base of the reforestation area.
When I got back to Old Man’s Cave I stopped at a little food truck and bought a cold cherry slushie. It was so sweet, I could only drink about half of it, but it was refreshing while I reflected on the porch of the new Visitor Center. I then returned up the Camp Trail to base camp. Over 12 miles today.
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