Where When and How

The Great Outdoors: part five

     So, as we can see in part four of The Great Outdoors: (Water, Land and Sky) there is plenty to see in the Ozarks, truly something for everyone.  Sometimes though it can be a challenge just getting to the beauty that’s so abundant in the outdoor world.  What I’m talking about here is the conditions encountered as soon as we leave the house.

Mill Falls on Clear Creek, MO

    While a spontaneous hike is always possible, some pre-planning while not totally necessary, is always a good idea for an enjoyable outdoor experience, we need to at the very least have someplace in mind, know when to go and how to get there.  Not much is less enjoyable than driving around lost on some back road without a plan, except maybe trudging through a briar patch lost with only a hope and a prayer of finding your way back to the car, and you're not even sure of what you're looking for. 

    Getting there to a remote trailhead can be challenging so we always try to have a good route planned in advance, that doesn’t mean punching in an address on the in-dash GPS and come what may.  While an on-board GPS system is convenient especially for in town navigation, I will never again rely on one for route finding especially on a back road.  The software in these navigation units is hopelessly outdated long before you even buy the car, and road conditions in the back woods change all the time, a nav system will show you driving ‘off road’ when you’re actually on the freeway or will have you turning onto a road that doesn’t exist.

    On-board navigation really shines when you pre-enter GPS coordinates, thereby taking you turn by turn directly to the parking/trailhead.  I also like to keep the Arkansas Atlas in the car for those inevitable ‘where the hell are we’ moments.  The night before we go hiking, I’ll usually refresh the desired route in my mind with a good map, this saves time while driving, we’re not constantly second-guessing weather or not we’re on the right path.

     A lot of these back roads are not much more than a ‘path’ so when the pavement ends, we will usually ‘switch’ over to 4-wheel drive (just in case).  I believe that all the State Highways in Arkansas throughout the Ozarks are now paved, somewhere I read that the last to get pavement was the section of Hwy.123 between Mt. Judea and Sam’s Throne, back in the final days of the twentieth century.  When you get in the dirt, you’ll either be on a County Road, a Forest Service Road or maybe even private property.

    All county roads supposedly get at least basic maintenance.  The road I live on gets ‘graded once a year, weather it needs it or not’ according to the county worker driving the road grader when asked about the dismal condition of our road after every little rainstorm.  He explains further that, 'the county has high priority roads which every effort is made to keep open, and then there’s the roads like ours that aren’t a through route, have few residents, and therefore get put on the back burner.'

    Some roads within the National Forest are maintained by the county, these are the roads with both county and forest road designation, for example Falling Water Road in Newton County is known as NC 5080 and (Forest Road) FR 1205. Then there’s the forest roads that get no maintenance whatsoever, some can be driven, and some have locked gates or signage forbidding vehicles.  Maps show lots of these numbered roads everywhere, but these aren’t necessarily roads that can be driven on.  Most of the FR (Forest Road) roads are what I call ‘old road’ or ‘road trace’ and are not for driving but make great hiking trails, more on this later.

    Something else to consider before hitting that back road is what has the weather been like recently.  If it has been raining cats and dogs the last couple days it’s probably going to be a great time to check out some waterfalls, but we may not be able to ford that creek on the drive down into the hollow, or worse, the road may be washed out making it completely impassable.  Always stay safe, don’t assume you can ‘make it’ down a road because you have driven it before with no problems, roads change over time and adverse weather conditions can change a road overnight.

    Okay we were able to ford that creek and made it down in the hollow all the way to the parking spot, this is what’s known as the ‘trailhead’.  Signage is nice (at least you know you’re at the right spot) and while most of your maintained trails will have some sort of trail identification at the trailhead, many trails won’t.  Basically a ‘trailhead’ is just the place where the ‘trail’ begins.  If there is no trail (a bushwhack), is the starting point for the hike still called a trailhead?  I think so, let’s not split hairs on this, but I won’t call it a ‘trailhead’ when a trail branches off another, that would be a ‘trail intersection’.

old road crossing Reeves Fork

    At the trailhead we’re now ready to begin a ‘hypothetical hike’ to those nice waterfalls that are going to be great today thanks to all that rain a couple days ago.  What kind of trail conditions can we expect?  With the recent rain we know it’s going to be wet, slippery and muddy but we have prepared for those conditions (at least mentally) but what about other trail conditions.  If you go hiking enough, you’re going to encounter just about everything ‘mother nature’ has to throw at you.  For our Hypothetical Falls hike, we have studied the maps in advance, but even so, we just don’t know what we’ll run up against until we actually get out there.  The hiker's moto: You never know until you go.

    I don’t know how many miles of ‘trails’ exist in the Ozarks but it's a lot.  The NFS website boasts ‘over 230 miles of maintained trails besides the 165-mile Ozark Highlands Trail from Lake Fort Smith to Woolum.  From Woolum to Dillard's Ferry is the joint effort combination trail designated as the Buffalo River Ozark Highlands Trail.  There is also the 32-mile Sylamore section of the OHT.  The NFS goes on to state there are also over 120 miles of ‘other’ trails, and by the way most trail maintenance is done by volunteers.  There are many more unmeasured miles of ‘unofficial’ or ‘volunteer’ trails, this includes most trails within the wilderness areas.

    The Buffalo National River has loads of trails too and again most trails in a wilderness are not included in any published trail mileages (Ponca Wilderness seems to be the exception), the BRT which most references list as 37 miles is actually a lot longer than that when you include the mid and lower sections.  Then there’s the ORT at over 66 miles, and there are many other horse trails not included in these numbers, and there are still a bunch of other shorter trails in the park.  The Buffalo River itself is a ‘water trail’ for boaters with over 134 miles considered 'floatable'.  I’ll bet the ‘hiking trail’ system in the park is easily double the distance of the river. 

    Anyway, that’s a lot of miles of trail, many of these trails were built on old roads.  Many more old roads crisscross the entire region and open up an endless supply of alternate or extended hiking possibilities.  In the wilderness areas old roads naturally have been adopted as hiking routes and many of these are just as good as any maintained trail.  Most horseback clubs do a ton of trail maintenance in and outside the wilderness areas (some un-officially), hikers can appreciate all their hard work, and most hiking clubs also have scheduled trail maintenance outings.

    Another big user of the ‘old road’ is the ATV enthusiast, naturally off-road vehicles are going to keep that old road from getting overgrown (you can’t grow grass on a racetrack) but unfortunately, they tend to go way beyond keeping the road clear.  It’s the overuse by off-roaders that damages the trail and for that reason the NFS and NPS have closed many old roads to ‘motorized’ travel.  Still there are a lot of little used ATV trails that make wonderful hiking routes, I consider an ‘off-road trail’ overused if the trees along the trail are covered with dust.

    On our way to Hypothetical Falls we hike from the trailhead on a maintained trail, easy hiking for sure, to an old road where we leave the nice trail.  Hiking this old road isn’t bad, although there is no trail it’s easy to follow the road trace.  We only occasionally have to detour off the road to bypass obstacles such as downed trees, big mud holes or briar patches.  But now the road crosses the creek then turns back downstream, Hypothetical Falls is further upstream.  We leave the road and head up into the hollow with no trail or old road we are now on a bushwhack.

bushwhack on top of Hurricane Knob

    The term ‘bushwhack’ with historical connection to the Civil War, actually originated in Australia and simply means ‘off-trail’ and has nothing to do with ‘bushes’ although at times you will wish you had a machete for the greenbrier.  Generally, the pace of the hike is going to slow way down when bushwhacking, this is understandable.  On the trail navigation isn’t even thought about you simply follow the trail, but when off-trail it can be easy to get ‘disoriented’ (lost) so care must be taken to insure this doesn’t happen.

    Some basic navigation skills are necessary for any bushwhack when the destination isn’t obvious or visible.  On our hypothetical hike we follow our guide the creek up to Hypo. Falls, so there are no navigational concerns, (read more about navigation in the Great Outdoors part eight: Find Your Way).  Even so, the pace is still going to be slower because now we’re picking our way through the brush and trees and rocks and what-not trying to find the best possible path forward.  And we will probably have to ‘back-track’ more than once before reaching our destination, this is all just part of the fun of a bushwhack.