Waterfalls are magical places for Scott and me. There is something about the sound of the rushing water leading to it crashing down below. In the spray, we find rainbows which always bring a smile to our faces. We decided in 2020 we would “collect” twenty water features that fit into the “waterfall” category. We took the year and found eleven waterfalls, one Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) dams, one Work Projects Administration (WPA) dam, six spillways, and one cascade. We did not have any criteria as to what to look for, we just tailored our travel plans to finding water features. It may not sound surprising or magical, but where we found the waterfalls blew us away.
We started to write about this project before and, honestly, got distracted by everything that was going on in our lives. You can read the first article (waterfalls 1-4) CLICK HERE.
To read about Natural Dam, waterfall #5, CLICK HERE, Charlotte Lake Spillway, waterfall #6 CLICK HERE, Butcher Falls, waterfall #7 CLICK HERE, Grand Falls, waterfall #8 CLICK HERE, Tanyard Creed Falls, waterfall #9 CLICK HERE, and Dripping Springs, waterfall #10 CLICK HERE.
One of the things we like to do is find parks that are no longer state parks, much like Cowley State Fishing Lake near Arkansas City, Kansas, in Cowley County. We had been looking for waterfalls in Kansas because we had recently found Butcher Falls in Chautauqua County and wondered if there were more; there was and this former Kansas State Park has a Niagara Falls type surprise.
Granted these falls are nothing more than a spillway that has washed away tons of fossil-embossed limestone and red shale giving it a semi-horseshoe appearance. This is where the similarities end. This 25-35 foot tall waterfall is impressive during the rainy seasons. There are only four ways to reach the fall. One is to drive to the end of the lake road and view the waterfall from above. This is a good vantage point and you can actually feel the vibration of the water and hear the roar well. The second way is to go to the end of the lake road and climb down the rocky “trail”. I called this bouldering because that was what it would have been; between my knee issues before surgery (fall of 2017) and the wet, icy conditions of 2020, we decided that would not be a smart move. The third way would be a dirt road that went further than the “official” end of the lake road. This was, however, blocked off. The final way would be to access it by way of the spillway itself. Unfortunately, this would need to be when the falls were not running, but imagine the fossils you would probably find.
The first time we visited the falls, we found a large marker showing that this was once a Kansas State Park. I have not been able to locate when it ended its run as a state park or why it was no longer. It will forever be a state park for us, former or not.
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We appreciate it so very, very much!
and our YouTube channel are also our accounts.
and with Scott's help!
and/or https://pixabay.com/.
the compilations are my own.
and can also be found on my various social media accounts:
OUR TWITTER
OUR WEBSITE
cross mentions are spreading the word.
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