Upper Buffalo Wilderness Area - Boen Gulf Access - Part 3

The Upper Buffalo Wilderness Area is a beautiful, rugged area of land with a lot of beautiful landscape.

As I noted in previous posts, this is a wilderness area and not terribly well developed. There are a series of waterfalls here and an old jeep road that does provide close access to a lot of the sites that you can read about in Part 1 and Part 2 (Part 1 also has a description of how to get to the trailhead).

The trail to Magnolia Falls is well traveled, as is the route to the bottom of Woods Boys Falls. However, if you’re really adventurous, there is even more to see and do here.

To get even further into the wilderness, instead of turning left crossing the creek to get to Magnolia falls, or at the bottom of the bluff line to head to the base of Woods Boy’s Falls, stay on the jeep road and descend down the road pretty sharply to the bottom of the hill. After about 1.75 miles from the trialhead, you will hav reached the bottom of the hill.

Here, there are two creeks that join to form the Boen Gulf and there is a LOT to see and explore here in all directions as the water from the creeks have carved a lot of unique rock features, small waterfalls and cascades that make for some very interesting scenery.

There are no trails from this point, but if you stay close to the creeks you should be able to find your way back to the jeep road ok without a GPS (at least in the winter and early spring, heavy summer growth may make this a challenge when in full bloom).  Having a GPS would make it a little more fool-proof.

Without a lot of trail to describe, there isn't a lot to talk about other than showing some pictures and noting that we just bushwacked our way through the creek bottom.

We spent better than an hour exploring this creek bed area and saw many interesting cascades, including a great area where the creek that forms Stahle Falls merges with the creek that formed Magnolia Falls and Woods Boys Falls. There are some interesting features here.

So explore and find your own favorite little spot.

Distance: It’s about 3.5 miles round trip to get to the junction in the creeks. How much you explore from there is up to you. This can be done in conjunction with the other two waterfall hikes in the area.

Difficulty: The trail is moderate – but exploring the area without trails can be very difficult.

Kids: No

Star Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Footwear: Sturdy Hiking Boots