Yellow Creek Falls near Leesburg, AL counts as one of the most idiotic experiences I’ve had to see a waterfall. Initially I spotted this fall on Google Maps. A little research revealed that the fall can’t be accessed directly by land because all the surrounding land is private property. So the way to approach it is to travel by water over Weiss Lake to where Yellow Creek enters, then hoof it up a trail from there, bypassing the problematic private properties. Here is my story of how to do it poorly. Please learn from my mistakes.
So it seemed the normal thing to do was boat to the base of Yellow Creek. A kayak or small boat would be the ideal. And the ideal starting point is by the Yellow Creek Falls Fish Camp. If you look at a map of the lake and see where the falls and Yellow Creek are, and the fish camp, you’ll see they’re just opposite each other on a little inlet of the lake off of Blue Pond Road. The fish camp offers free use of their boat launch, although I found an unrelated and undeveloped spot to park in just down the street from their launch. Parking wasn’t an issue and I just drove in without being hindered.
When I set out for this adventure I had it bundled with several other locations and waterfalls, so it was just a one shot pass through waterfall stop, which to me means that I don’t want to take up too much space in my car with gear. I own an Intex Challenger K1 Inflatable Kayak and it still takes up more space than I was willing to commit for this one waterfall on my adventure vs normal camping gear, food and whatever else. My “brilliant” space saving idea instead was to purchase for about $20 an Intex Explorer 200 boat. They’re basically a toy row boat with some little oars that likely should never be anywhere but in a pool or near the shore somewhere tame. I thought to myself, “you’re just crossing a little inlet, this should be fine and takes up almost no space!” Well it was not fine. It was terrifying because it didn’t row well compared to the kayak I could have opted for, and because I was so hell bent on saving space I failed to have a life vest with me. An inlet doesn’t look like much sometimes, but when you’re out in the middle of the water and start to feel insecure, a back up plan would be nice. I did have an inflatable inner tube in my car that I could have taken out there as a backup, but I didn’t, so paranoia set in on open water. None of that would have been an issue if i’d just blown a little more space for the inflatable kayak instead, plus a life vest.
Back to explaining how to get to the falls – so set out from the boat launch area at the Yellow Creek Fish Camp or anywhere near on the shore, and you’ll see across the lake some decommissioned railroad trellises. They are your target, as not far behind these now historic trellises you’ll find the output from Yellow Creek. What I did not have the benefit of was a real description of where the supposed trail is beyond this point, so I paddled into the area and found a bunch of boulders, all of which looked sketchy to try to crawl out of my little boat from, to start trekking toward the falls on foot. Where an actual hiking path, or social trail, or whatever was, I was clueless about, and I wasted a lot of time paddling around trying to figure out where to disembark. Naturally I chose wrong, and got out on the east side of the creek.
After awhile some paddle boarders entered the area, while I was still screwing around jumping on rocks and figuring out the lay of the land. They knew exactly where to go, so I watched. They got off their boards on the left (west) side of the creek, and where they got off was pretty close to where the railroad trellises are. Being a little distanced from the rocks, they had an easier time, and of course they knew there was a footpath there. So I headed left, found the path, and got to bypass a lot of boulders while trekking along a narrow but much more effective path for several hundred more feet that would have taken a lot longer the way I was doing it. Never be afraid to learn from others. So let’s recap: don’t choose a pool toy to cross a lake & stick to the left when you approach Yellow Creek to find the path to the falls!
The fall itself is magnificent! 100 feet or so of falling water, a swimming pool at the base, giant boulders everywhere, and a sense of accomplishment for getting there because not everyone is going to be willing to struggle to get to this one. I highly recommend it if you avoid the mistakes I made. I’d also like to suggest if you attempt that you factor in needing a dry bag for hiking shoes or anything else you don’t want to risk soaking on the water before hitting the trail.
