After suffering a week of torrential rain, and the promise of it continuing through the weekend, we decided a day trip to a sunnier location was in order. The National Weather Service indicated southeast Kansas to be the only place within a couple of hundred kilometers where it would not be raining, so we set our sights there.
There is not particularly much to see or do in that part of Kansas, or so we always assumed.Digging a little deeper uncovered a few oddities that would ultimately take precedence.
Kansas has waterfalls! Who knew?
We certainly did not. We chased quite a few of them around the hills of Arkansas, among other places, but always figured that Kansas was entirely too flat. Apparently, there are quite a few waterfalls in Kansas, primarily in the Flint Hills area, and near the northwestern edge of the Ozark Plateau.
Just a short 40 km hop west of Fort Scott, in Bourbon County Lake State Park, Wolfpen Creek feeds into a 103-acre lake held back by an earthen dam. The spillway path at the northeast corner of the lake flows through a small marshy area and follows what appears to be the original, though slightly modified creek bed, cascading gently a couple of times before falling 10 meters over limestone and shale outcrops to a small pool below, then flowing on to the Marmaton River.
The falls are spectacular, a cool spot tucked in below the hot and humid surroundings of the lake, and relatively easy to access. Following a gravel road around to the front of the dam and passing over a bridge so small it is not really worth mentioning, a 4x4 path leads to a small parking area near the base of the falls.
While only a short 100-meter walk from the road, part of the path to the base of the falls requires clambering over a pile of rocks approximately ½ meter in size; another path from the parking area leads one on a short 60-meter hike up to the limestone creek bed at the top of the falls.
Some folks were swimming around in the pool when we arrived, and others arrived after us for more of the same, so we guessed it must have been safe enough. Unprepared for that sort of fun though, we could only watch on jealously. Testing the water a little, it was not especially cool, but not warm either. It is very likely tepid bath water at the height of summer, if the falls are running at all.
According to a fact sheet on another site, the falls usually dry up by the end of June, and the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks & Tourism lowers the lake level during the fall and winter months, so there is a short window from April through June to see these falls.
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Further Reading
Kansas Wildlife, Parks & Toursim
