HINTON, Okla. (KFOR) — There are a surprising number of people who live around the Sooner State who’ve never explored the slot canyons that crack open the red earth around one western Oklahoma town.

Amateur photographer Jim McCain has lived in the area all his life and had never taken a short, downhill walk from a cow pasture at just the right time, to a narrow passage that’s usually dry and quiet.

After some recent heavy rains that spot wasn’t dry or quiet.

“Northern Caddo County has quite a few of these,” he says. “We have a lot of run-off here because the land is pretty flat. So this is what you get every time it rains.”

The landowner here told him to act quickly if he wanted to see an impressive site at its most spectacular.

That sight is a waterfall near the town of Hinton.

The town of Hinton received a couple of inches of rain earlier and more the night before, filling bar ditches and roadways, seeking its lowest point even hours later in a secret grotto.

“I’m kind of the local photographer around here so someone is always hollering at me to take a picture of something,” said McCain.

The waterfall near Hinton never lasts very long, just a few hours, perhaps a day.

Eventually it dries out.

On the day KFOR’s Galen Culver visited it was a different story.

The roar deadens and the canyon reverts to a cool, quiet place hidden away from the world above.

Jim snaps pictures while the faucet is on.

Flowers on the steep bank get a quick drink before June rains turn to July and August heat.

“It’s a non-permanent waterfall,” he reminds us, “which means that it doesn’t flow year-round.”

The rain that causes this phenomenon holds up traffic, stops the wheat harvest, muddies fields, and cancel ball games.

But it also creates beauty.

The ‘silver lining’ in the storm clouds is a secret waterfall that comes and goes quickly in dry country, a rare gem for those who know where to look.

“Oh yeah,” McCain agrees. “There’s always beauty in everything.”

The Red Rock Canyon community park is the region’s best known geographic feature. 

Recent Rain storms created a number of limited waterfalls in Red Rock Canyon park.