Yahoo Falls is on the Yahoo Creek which is a tributary of the Big South Fork River. It is near Whitely City in South Kentucky and is reputed to be the highest waterfall in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The trail to the falls is about a mile long, dropping down to the base of the falls, one way with relatively new steps and the other way in a zigzag path; it makes a nice round walk as you can go behind the fall and continue on the trail, also visiting Yahoo arch if you wish.
Yahoo Falls is also in what is now called the Daniel Boone National Forest which was created in 1937 and is managed by the US Forest Service. The Yahoo Falls recreation area was created in the 1960’s as part of a drive to attract visitors to the Stearns area where there is a great train ride down to the Blue Heron Mining Site. We were surprised that there was no earth cache here and the traditional cache was unavailable so CDBunny (who lives in KY) and I worked on this cache.
Information
Yahoo Falls is found in the Cumberland Plateau that rises to over 1000 feet above sea level. It is rugged with deep cut valleys and gorges and is at the western end of the Appalachians. This plateau stretches from Alabama through Tennessee to Kentucky and Pennsylvania. The main river system is the Big South Fork which has eroded through the cap of conglomerate to sandstone to carve out gorges and canyons, leaving behind cliffs, natural arches, rock shelters and waterfalls.
The rocks that form the top of the Cumberland Plateau were laid down in an ancient shallow sea over 350 million years ago, during the Mississippian (360- 320 million years ago) and the Pennsylvanian (320 - 296 million years ago) periods of geologic time. This was in the Carboniferous Era. These sediments were deposited in horizontal layers, thousands of feet thick. The resulting pressure from the sheer weight of the deposits hardened these sediments into layers of limestone, shale, coal, and sandstone. The entire area was slowly lifted over 2000 feet above sea level about 285 million years ago and continuing and erosion immediately began to shape the landscape in the rugged terrain it has today.
Yahoo Falls has formed due to the Rockcastle Conglomerate, of rounded pebbles and boulders in a quartz rich mix, creating a cap rock for the waterfall and the softer, underlying layers of rock, shale and coal measures have been eroded away. Erosion is not the only force at work sculpting the landscape of the Big South Fork area. Weathering also plays a role; rain water seeps into cracks in the rock and freezes at night or in the winter and it expands in volume by 9%, widening the crack. When it thaws, the water seeps deeper into the crack. When it freezes again, it further weakens the rock. As this cycle is repeated, day after day, the rock splits along bedding planes and joint into angular pieces. These often then fall into the valleys, sometimes as very large boulders. During the Ice Age, the freeze-and-thaw cycles caused many boulders to break away. The last Ice Age, the Devensian, lasted 100,000 years and ended about 10,000 – 11,000 years ago.
So, to claim this earthcache, I want to know (by email please):
- 1. How high you think the falls are (yes I know you can look it up but have a guess whilst you are there, then look it up!!) or use the estimation technique that is often used out in the field by geologists and geographers as shown in the diagram below.
- 2. How big the plunge pool is and how you think it relates to the height of the waterfall. The fall of water will have a direct impact on the amount of erosion occurring.
- 3. Look at how far back from the fall the rock face is. Using this observation and the diagram below, explain how waterfalls move upstream with continued erosion
- 4. Please take a photo if you can.
- 5. If you are game for it, tell me what the graffiti is on the danger sign above the falls! (It might have gone now so I have added the image below)
A brief Human History of the area can be found at: National Park Traveler
Alleged Yahoo Falls Massacre: If you want to find out more about this, visit: Yahoo Falls
I also consulted these sites for information:
US Gov
Plan your visit
World of Waterfalls