The road to Shangri La

As you should know, I'm fond of playing in the woods. As you also should know, the Sipsey Wilderness Area (contained in the Bankhead National Forest) is my favorite place to play. Well this past weekend the weather was so nice that I felt I had to get out in the woods. I toyed with the idea of a camping trip, but I didn't want to go to the hassle for just one night. So I settled on just going to the Sipsey on Saturday for an extended day hike.

Actually that's not quite true. I didn't go to the Sipsey. Instead I chose to explore parts of the Bankhead Forest outside the actual Sipsey Wilderness Area. [That's splitting hairs, but I want to be accurate in case anyone tries to visit the places I'm going to describe.] Specifically I decided to try to locate Shangri La Falls. I've only seen one printed reference to Shangri La and it doesn't appear on any official map. Through I friend-of-a-friend, though, I received a hand-drawn map showing me the purported location. I didn't have great faith I would find the area, but I figured I'd give it a shot. Plus, I had a couple of "backup" locations in mind in case I had to scrub my original mission.

In the end, that wasn't necessary. Shangri La was right where it was supposed to be -- and it wasn't even that hard to get to. I've spent a lot of time in the Sipsey/Bankhead and I think this area may be the most beautiful I've seen. Seriously. Unlike my unfortuate experience with Lower Caney Falls a couple of years ago, I was able to climb down into the "canyon" and walk along and around the falls for some distance. Even without the falls, the canyon would have been breathtaking. It looked like something out of a sci-fi "in the days of dinosaurs" flick. The vegetation, the weird rock formations, the eerie green water, ... All of it just looked very "other worldy".

So anyway, all that would have made the trip worthwhile. After climbing out of the canyon, though, I explored up the creek and found the ruins of a grist mill right next to what now may be my very favorite Sipsey/Bankhead waterfall. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get down into the canyon go get better views of the fall and the grist mill. I plan to go back when I have more time (it was kind of late in the day by then), and maybe someone with me, and see if I can find a way down to get a better look. The best part of all: I was out there for more than 6 hours and I didn't see another person.

Oh I also verified that wild turkeys do indeed fly! And their flapping wings make a tremendous amount of noise. More on that later. For now I'm just going to post some pix. They are: Shangri La Falls, the weird canyon, the falls at the grist mill, and the ruins of the mill. Gotta' run.