The Little Missouri Falls Recreation Area is located in the southern portion of Ouachita National Forest in Arkansas, about 32 miles northwest of Glenwood, and reaching it requires driving forest roads long enough that you start to feel genuinely remote before you arrive. That feeling is appropriate.
The falls themselves are a series of cascades — rock shelves and small waterfalls stair-stepping down a hillside, each shelf emptying into a small pool that empties into the next. The Little Missouri River runs clear here over sandstone, and the forest around it is old-growth hardwood and pine in the sections that haven't been logged. The combination produces the kind of quiet that takes a few minutes to actually hear.
The recreation area has picnic sites, a vault toilet, and a trailhead for the Little Missouri Trail, which runs 11.7 miles downstream to Albert Pike Recreation Area. This trail is also the southern portion of the Eagle Rock Loop, a 27-mile backcountry circuit that's among the better multi-day hiking routes in the Ozarks-Ouachita region.
I came in May when the forest was fully leafed out and the falls were running at good volume from spring rain. The forest service road in was rough enough to recommend a vehicle with clearance. The payoff for the drive is proportional: the falls, the river, the silence, the sense of being somewhere that most people don't reach. Worth the effort.