Outdoor Adventures in the Ozarks

       Today we plan to hike a small piece of the Buffalo River Trail, actually the section of trail we've chosen is part of the Ozark Highlands/Buffalo River Trail.  Dave Manes Bluff Trailhead is sort of ‘remote’ but the dirt roads out of Snowball are in surprisingly good shape and we arrive at the trailhead quicker than expected.   From the trailhead which is squeezed between the road and the top of Dave Manes Bluff we head south on the mostly level OHT/BRT. at the trailhead        The trail soon sweeps around to the west keeping near the edge of the bluffline, soon the bluffs become  more ‘broken up’ and jagged.    Not far past some piles of rock beside the trail we come to a trail intersection where horses go left,  and hikers right.  The ‘hiking’ trail while still easy has a couple solid rock ‘steps’ and does get pretty close to the edge of the bluff before turning back south and reconnecting with the ‘horse bypass’.  Most of this route today is combination hiking/ horse trail

     The Low Gap  Cafe is next to a  stone-faced  church, and next to the church a dirt road winds  around a couple curves then heads north, this is Fisher Point Road (on some maps it's NC 2620 or NC 140).  B ut you can’t drive all the way to Fisher Point anymore thanks to the wilderness designation, this is good, we’ll hike there instead!  We were here a couple weeks ago for our hike to Slatey Place, and we park at the same spot today, see: ( 103 Low Gap Trail ) .      We head north around the locked gate up Fisher Point Road,  which is a  graded  dirt road that any type of car could easily drive.  For a mile the road crosses back and forth across the Buffalo National River boundary, we don’t actually enter the Ponca Wilderness until after the first mile.   This goes pretty fast since the road is in great condition, about a quarter mile in is a thong tree just off the road on our right. on the ridge of Fisher Point      Another quarter mile brings us to a large beech tree with a

     Last spring after hiking at Tyler Bend,  we pulled into  Grinders Ferry just to see what was happening and noticed the white blazes nailed to trees on both sides of the access road.  Knowing that ‘white’ trail markers are used for both the Buffalo River Trail and Ozark Highlands Trail, while ‘yellow’ indicates horses allowed, and ‘blue’ blazes are for spur trails.  What we didn’t know was that Grinders Ferry has a trailhead, it isn’t shown on any map I’ve seen, maybe they’re trying to keep it a secret. near Illinois Point      For more about that ‘discovery’ read: ( 94 Tyler Bend Loop ), today we’re parking at Grinders Ferry and hiking east on the BRT/OHT.   That’s right this is the Buffalo River Trail  and  the Ozark Highlands Trail, for years at mile marker 164 about where Richland Creek flows into the Buffalo River is where the OHT officially ended, now  the OHT is open for continuous hiking from Lake Fort Smith all the way to Dillard’s Ferry on the Buffalo River. Hi-Viz trai

     I never considered The Slatey Place as a day-hike destination, mainly because of the elevation change, r ound-trip from Steele Creek about 10 miles is over 600 feet of elevation gain, and f rom Kyle’s Landing only about 5 miles, but even more elevation gain, over 800 feet.   Many people park a car at Kyle’s then drive a second car over to Steele Creek and hike the  nearly 8 miles on the BRT in a long one-way  hike, I think I'll pass.      But then I was looking at some maps recently and saw a horse trail just a mile north of Low Gap logically  named ‘Low Gap Trail’.   This looked like just the ticket for a couple older hikers looking to explore deep into the Ponca Wilderness without a lot of altitude change.   We park off the road near a locked gate, with the Low Gap Trailhead and the boundary to the Ponca Wilderness at an elevation of almost 1650 feet. fall, in all its glory    Low Gap T rail was once a road heads off to the east, here at the trailhead are some strategically