A deadly incident at Bull Shoals Lake has officials concerned about the public’s use of bluffs and cliffs. Jon Hiser is an operations manager at the lake for the Army Corps of Engineers. He said most people don’t assume the risks involved in being on or jumping off of bluffs.
“What folks are going off of is traditional use—they’ve seen other people there and that’s where they’ve gone,” Hiser said. “There is a presumption of being safe because others have done it.”
According to Hiser, if jumping, one should never do so from a ledge taller than their height. He compared jumping from 30 feet or more to the impact of a car crash.
“(Bluff jumping) is absolutely not safe,” he said. “Folks are just lucky to not be injured or worse.”
Concerns follow the deaths of two 19-year-old men from Harrison, Arkansas, who on Sunday fell an estimated 30 feet from a bluff at Bull Shoals Lake. The accident occurred after a section of Devil’s Backbone collapsed while Casey Ruley and Paul Woodruff were walking along its edge. Hiser said the two men were not at fault, and that the accident could’ve happened to anybody walking along the bluff.
Doug Hanson, a geologist for the Arkansas Geological Survey, said it is a good idea to avoid bluffs with stress fractures and cracks when hiking or with the intent of jumping off.
“These fracture and cracks that you get on the surface can get water and tree roots into them,” Hanson said. “Nature is in the process of breaking that rock down into smaller fragments all the time.”
Hanson said that the Arkansas Geological Survey doesn’t monitor rock integrity or strength unless plans for a building or construction site are proposed. But, there may be roped off sections or warning signs near an area that has been subject to severe flooding or falling rocks.
In the case of Bull Shoals Lake, Hiser says there wasn’t any indication of an issue with Devil’s Backbone and the bluff was accessible to the public.
It is common for individuals to think rock formations are permanent, but they are always in the process of changing, says Hanson. He adds that rocks can develop cracks and fractures throughout the winter. As porous rocks retain water, that water can freeze, expand cracks and make that rock unstable.
By the time summer rolls around, a familiar rock formation may be much different than the prior year.
“We take (rock formations) for granted that it is going to be the same forever and ever,” Hanson said. “It’s not different from looking at your house now and ten years from now, it won’t be the same.”
He also said that heavy rain and flooding can decrease bluff stability.
“If you lose the dirt or rock underneath, it loses support. Then you put a crack across it and there is nothing keeping it there but a little of the rock itself with no underneath support,” he said.
According to Hanson, one type of rock formation is never safe: bluff shelters. These shallow, cave-like openings at the base of a bluff or cliff have no support underneath them.
No matter what weather events have transpired, Hanson recommends never climbing or jumping off a bluff shelter.
“When you have overhangs, the rocks are not supported by anything underneath them,” he said. “Bluff shelters are missing their support.”
Though bluff jumping is not against the law or prohibited by the Army Corps of Engineers, it does come with risks.
“Jumping off a bluff is always an iffy proposition. You never know what’s underneath or above,” Hanson said. “There is always a chance that rock is going to fall down. There is a risk involved even if it is slight.”
According to the Bull Shoals’ operations manager Jon Hiser, duty rangers may warn cliff jumpers of the potential risks, but there’s no law to prevent them from doing so.
He adds that people tend to only hear about deaths or major accidents and assume it’ll never happen to them. He thinks if hospitals and emergency response personnel were allowed to release bluff-related injury data the numbers would be astounding.