Buffalo Ice Report

It took me three days of chainsaw work to cut my way out to a road this week - the upper Buffalo River area got hit hard by the ice storm and it may be weeks before power and phones are restored to the area. Boxley Valley was untouched though! Many of the side roads are just barely passable - we've got a tunnel cut out through the mess but it will be months before the damage is cleared out in some areas. As Bill noted in a post elsewhere, this was the worst ice storm to hit the Arkansas Ozarks in modern history - the one in the Ouachitas in 2000 was pretty bad, but nothing like it up here that anyone can recall.

The top part of this photo above was shot from our cabin Friday morning, or was it Thursday? The bottom part is Hawksbill Crag - by the way, the main viewpoint at the Crag was covered up with iced trees and you could not view the Crag at all from there - I don't know if it will be open now that the ice is gone or not.

We had some spectacular light and amazing scenes all week, but I had a tough time deciding to work with a camera or a chainsaw in hand - in the end with three ladies under my care and stranded from the world I elected to spend most of my time with the chainsaw and we were able to cut our way out on Friday. Cave Mountain road is a mess and remains mostly ice covered today (Saturday). I moved my family into a house in Jasper today so Pam could continue the book business - we are running on generator power at the cabin but with no phones we can't do business with the world. For those who follow the Cloudland Journal I will make a quick post today but am not sure how often I'll be able to - I have to drive into Jasper in order to get internet access. At some point I will post some photos in the Journal from the carnage and the beauty of this past week.

I hope lots of you were able to get out and enjoy and create some great photos of it all! By the way, WATERFALLS are running well right now - if you can get to them!

Glad to hear everyone is OK at the Ernst household...and that you were able to make it out to the crag for a shot. This was sure one storm that will go down in the history books and be remembered for a long, long time. We finally got power back at 2:30 yesterday, then phone, cable, and internet came shortly afterward. We heat the house with a wood stove and have a gas water heater, so lights, oven and TV were about the only thing we missed.

My hat's off to those power company linemen that work in remote, dangerous locations during conditions like we had this week to get electricity restored. I'm sure they don't get paid NEARLY enough. I can only imagine how many limbs and trees need to be removed from the power lines...it looks like a war zone.

Actually everyone is not entirely OK - I had a mishap on Wednesday while trying to cut our way out. Stupid really, and it could have cost me my life, but I was lucky and lived. I got clobbered by about two tons of ice that hit me square in the face and knocked me off the top of my tractor - where I was standing to reach some of the limb to cut. The spinning chainsaw I was holding just missed my face along the way, but the ice did not - I ended up on the ground 20 feet away. It was while on the ground in the pool of blood that was growing around me that I realized with no phone service to call for a helicopter and no way to get out to a hospital that I probably should be more careful! I am much wiser now - note to self - DON'T EVER stand on top of a tractor and try to cut icy limbs above your head, especially when that giant limb is under pressure! But on the other hand, that limb that I did get cut down was standing in the way of our route out to freedom - and no one was going to come in after us so all is well...

Tim, thanks for the report. Like Bill, I am glad eveyone in your household is ok. It sounds like the damage is pretty extensive in your immediate area. I made a quick trip this morning up Hwy. 215 and then north to FS 1003 to the Salt Fork and Spirit's Creek area and then over to Highway 23 to Turner Bend. The roads along the way were clear with very minimal damage. It looks like the Highway department had done a good job on the main roads and the Forest Service had the Forest roads cleared.

I hope you get your power back soon!

Opps, you must have posted while I was writing the above note. I hope you are not injured too much!

Thanks for the report Tom - the forest service has been trying to close the Ozark Highlands Trail due to damage - sounds like perhaps it is not that bad on your end, or did it look bad out in the woods and just the roads cleared? I'm hoping it drifted north and missed most of the trail, otherwise we are in for a long year of chainsaw work. The Crag trail will probably be impassable for a good long while since we can't use chainsaws in there...

I went to Haw creek this morning it's amazing the amount of damage along Hwy 7 compared to Hwy 123 and the Haw creek area. You can't hardly tell there was an ice storm near the Haw creek campsite and the surrounding waterfalls. Hwy 7 sure looked bad at Pelsor with lots of power lines on the ground.

Tim, I passed the Highlands Trail at several points and it looked like it was not too bad. I also hiked about quarter mile down the old roadbed on river right of the road bridge to a nice five foot drop that is known as "First Drop" on Spirit's Creek.It was clear with no real probems along the old roadbed.

The guy that lives near our cabin just south of Pettigrew said there were trees down there but most had been cleared and the power at our cabin was back on. The Highland's Trail crossing near the Little Mulberry is about two miles south of our cabin. I should have a better update from this area tomorrow when a friend staying at the cabin gets back tomorrow. I will let you know what he finds.

Wow, sounds like quite an ordeal. I hope it all works out okay (or at least as good as it can). For what it's worth, these 2 photos are fantastic, I really like the composition and lighting on the first one.

I'm sorry to hear about your outage. I hope you were able to shred some aggression by starting the Cloudland chainsaw massacre. By the sound of your injury, it seems the trees got some revenge... I hope everything is healed and powered up soon! Good light and good shots!

Man Tim, you've been getting clobbered on all fronts lately. Glad to hear that even though there's some healing to be done, everyone survived one of nature's big punches and came out ok.

Your images reveal the "beauty in the beast"! All the best to you and the area for a quick recovery.