Lake Catherine State Park

Lake Catherine State Park was our favorite out of the three locations we hiked. It was beautiful, with lots of waterfalls. There were three trails to choose from and we ended up doing the Falls trail twice and the Dam Mountain trail once for a total of 8 miles. We had plenty of tree canopy to keep us from overheating and plenty of water this time around. I was pretty lazy with the big camera so mostly used the iPhone 4s:

We chose the Falls Branch Trail first because we wanted to make sure we got to see the waterfall. The following images are from our first round on this trail:

The Trailhead

Footbridge Photo Op

The first wildlife we spotted was a male Summer Tanager:

The Trail continued along the river, over footbridges and to the falls:

Forest Reflecting

Lighted Water

Our final day together

Take Me to the River

Riverside

Trapped

Falls Photo Op

After enjoying the falls for a bit, we headed up on the Dam Mountain Trail which as we were climbing the switchbacks, we spotted a few birds twittering about including lots of Pine and Prairie Warblers:

 Sweet Pine Warbler

 Posing Pine Warbler

Prairie Warbler. It's difficult to tell the two apart. The Prairie Warbler has yellow extending all the way down his underside and a black eye line through the eye and below. Both are quick little flyers!

We saw a few other interesting things on our way up and the view at the top was quite lovely:

 Stone Giant. Or perhaps one of Bilbo's trolls?

Orange Lichen

 Cactus!

View from the Top

After coming down off the Dam Mountain Trail, we still had a couple of hours left of our afternoon so we returned to the Falls trail once more and took a few more photos as well as soaked our feet. We had the whole falls to ourselves and it was a lovely way to end the day. 

 Falling Water

Flares over Falls

And finally, on our way back to the car we logged some Canadian Geese and Mallards:

Basking Bankside

Next up, our final day in Arkansas...