Pinnacle Mountain State Park Updates

While at Devil's Den State Park today, I ran into Joe Jacobs of Arkansas Outside and he told me about some newish mountain biking trails at Pinnacle Mountain State Park.  I hope to visit them soon and will post maps here when I do, but the map below shows where the trailheads are.  The Rabbit Ridge Trail is a fairly short and easy trail for beginners, while I'm told the Jack Fork Trail is more technical and much longer at ~7 miles.  Both are located along Pinnacle Mountain State Park Rd. on the way to the Visitors Center.  The Quarry Trail and the Ouachita Trail have trailheads nearby.  A detailed map of the trails can be viewed here.

Fall is Here!

Fall has arrived and with it spectacular fall colors.  I've lived all over the country and I can safely say that Arkansas has the most beautiful fall colors around.  In my opinion, this is due to the wide variety of tree species we have and the fact that our mixed hardwood forests often have evergreens mixed in too.  In Indiana, fall is pure yellow due to the dominance of hickories, sugar maples, sycamores, and beech trees there.  In California it is either brown or stays green depending on where in the state you look.  Here, we have dogwoods, sweet gums, red maples, sassafras, sumac, black gums and a wide-variety of oaks that add an incredible range of stunning purples, pinks, reds, and oranges to the palette.  Many of these species can be found over much of the country, but not in the same concentrations and mixtures that Arkansas has.

This site posts frequent updates on fall colors across the state: http://www.arkansas.com/fall/fall-foliage/

Here is are some of my favorite places to view fall foliage:
Pinnacle Mountain State Park
Crystal Mountain in Flatside Pinnacle Wilderness near Lake Winona 
Mt. Magazine State Park
Petit Jean State Park
Highway 7
Highway 23
Queen Wilhelmina State Park

Two Rivers Park Updates

On my quick trip to Little Rock this weekend, I visited Two Rivers Park which, with the recent completion of the new bridge, has become very, very, popular.  If you don't know, Two Rivers Park is a large city/county park in West Little Rock bounded by the Arkansas River and the Little Maumelle.  In addition to being a great place to paddle, hike, bike, bird, and ride horses, the park also has a massive community garden where you can rent plots.

The park has miles of paved and unpaved trails that travel through a variety of habitats.  The Garden of Trees in the southern half of the park will one day be a formally landscaped setting where "rooms" of different tree species turn different colors in the fall.  I helped plant a lot of the trees out there many years ago, and know first-hand that the huge deer population in the park is severely stunting the growth of the trees in this garden.

The two updates I have to share on the park are:
1)  Be mindful of locking your car and what you leave in your vehicles when parking at the Two Rivers Bridge or the Big Dam Bridge.  Break-ins are more common at those parking areas than they should be.
2)  There is a new bike lane/bike trail from Two Rivers to Maumelle Park.  I believe the idea is for this to one day continue all the way to Pinnacle Mountain State Park.  The bike lane runs along County Farm Rd. from the park entrance to Pinnacle Valley Rd.  From there, there are 5-6' wide asphalt paths along both sides of Pinnacle Valley Rd. all the way to Maumelle Park.  As I wrote earlier, these are much safer than bike lanes.

Detailed maps and descriptions of Two Rivers Park, Pinnacle Mountain State Park, the Little Maumelle River, and lots of other great places in Central Arkansas can be found in Trails of Central Arkansas.

Razorback Greenway Vs. The River Trail

As we approach the Grand Opening of the Razorback Greenway (most of which has been done for some time) I thought I'd write-up a comparison of Arkansas' two premier paved trails. I want to confess upfront that one reason for writing this is that I hope it helps spur some friendly competition between the two most populated metropolitan areas of the state to keep improving their trail and active transportation systems. Cities often boast about their trail systems when trying to lure companies and which of these trail systems is the best might be a deciding factor in where some companies decide to locate in the future.

My analysis below looks at length, connectivity, and how much of the trail is actually physically separated from roads (you know, like a trail rather than a bike lane or bike route). I've included interactive maps of both at the end so you can perform your own research.

Arkansas' Best Colleges for Outdoorsy People - Help Needed

I've wanted to do this article (and one ranking Bike-Friendly Campuses) for awhile now, but in order to do it right I planned to send out lots of surveys to campuses around the state, wait for feedback, analyze the data and then write it up.  Since this blog is a hobby that produces no income, I haven't gotten around to putting the time in on that.  Instead of waiting for lots of free time, I've decided to publish an incomplete article and solicit help filling it out.  If you are a student or recent graduate of any college/university in Arkansas, please respond to the survey questions below using the comment section or the contact form here.

Here is my draft ranking of Arkansas' Best Colleges for Outdoorsy People that will surely change as results come in from schools I haven't ever visited.  Rankings are based on trails and facilities owned/built by the school and on nearby resources such as state parks, great climbing spots, etc.  Since one of the goals of this piece is to encourage schools to compete for outdoorsy students by improving and expanding their hiking, biking, climbing, paddling, and swimming infrastructure; extra weight is given to projects and facilities owned or supported by the school.

Let me know what I got wrong and what I'm missing!

Pinnacle Mountain Updates II

After visiting the park this past Saturday, I've got two updates for the Pinnacle Mountain State Park section of Trails of Central Arkansas today:

1.  The half-mile Kingfisher Trail now connects to the overflow parking area on the west side of Hwy. 300.  Taking this detour and walking around the overflow parking area road (on a day when it isn't flooded with cars) adds some diversity of scenery and roughly doubles the length of just doing the Kingfisher.  Notice that the trail also has a spur to the large field by the picnic areas and playground.

2.  The park would like me to clarify that they refer to the Quarry Trail as a spur off of the Rocky Valley trail, while I've combined the two in my description of the area.  You can see their maps at this link.

Queen Wilhelmina State Park

Queen Wilhelmina State Park, located 13 miles northwest of Mena, has incredible views, great trails, and fun activities for kids.  While we didn't ride the mini-train or play putt-putt, we did take advantage of the campsite and trails around the park.  Like Mt. Magazine and Mt. Nebo, the trails at Queen Wilhelmina are pretty short but offer amazing views.  One exception to that, is the fact that the 223-mile Ouachita Trail passes through the park.  Read on for photos, a map, and brief summaries of the park's trails.

Ouachita Trail:  This impressively long trail (one of Arkansas' longest) runs right through the park.  Heading west from the tent camping area, the trail parallels the Talimena Scenic Drive.  Over the first 1.25 miles, you will come across nice vista points and an old pioneer graveyard.  Hiking another fifty miles will take you to the western end of the trail  in Talimena State Park in Oklahoma.  The trail also heads east from the lodge and works its way to Pinnacle Mountain State Park in Little Rock!  The eastern end of this trail is described in my book Trails of Central Arkansas.

Spring Trail:  The 0.5 mi. Spring Trail connects the camping area to the Wonder House and Amphitheater.  Campers can probably walk between those areas faster on the road, but this provides a more natural path with much less traffic.  I walked the trail early in the morning mostly to tire my dog out, so the fact that I didn't notice the spring shouldn't be taken as concrete evidence that it isn't there or isn't interesting.

Reservoir Trail:  This rocky trail heads west from the southern side of the lodge.  It gradually winds its way downhill to an old drained stone reservoir.  The round-trip hike is about 2/3 of a mile.  The walk-in campsite is located just off this trail.

Lover's Leap Trail:  This is probably the best trail in the park. The whole trail is a mile long, but if you just want the easiest way to the viewing platform, you can leave from the northeast side of the lodge, hike the third of a mile to the platform and head back the same way.

We had hoped to hike the nearby Black Fork Mountain Trail, a interesting spur off of the OT, but low clouds drove us to change up our plans and visit several wineries in Altus instead.

Central Arkansas Trail Alliance

If you haven't heard about the Central Arkansas Trail Alliance, I encourage you to visit their website or their Facebook page.  This relatively new group really seems to be getting things done in Central Arkansas.  Their mission is "to establish and maintain multi-use trails in Central Arkansas that are open for mountain biking and to link all trail user groups for this purpose".  They've organized multiple trail construction/maintenance days in Burns Park, Pinnacle Mountain State Park, Western Hills/Hindman Park, and probably many others.

Check them out and then help them out:
http://www.centralartrail.com/
https://www.facebook.com/CentralARTrail

River Trail Updates

On a recent trip to the bridge at Two Rivers Park, I noticed the large scale sculpture/model of the Arkansas River showing major points of interest along the trail.  The concept of the River Trail has recently been extended to Pinnacle Mountain State Park on the south side of the river and to Palarm Park on the north.  In fact, plans are in place for a "Grand Loop" (shown below) that would reach Conway.   Much of the existing River Trail and the Grand Loop follow roads.  As long as the speed limits on these roads are 20-25 mph, that is pretty safe, but hopefully a separate trail will be built for the stretches on larger roads with faster moving traffic.

Key Points:

• The trail follows Crystal Hill Rd. in Maumelle for a while.  This allows it to be closer to the river and gets bikers off of busy, fast moving, Maumelle Blvd.
• It looks like they are making a real trail along the edge of parts of Maumelle Blvd.
• Maumelle has a great network of existing trails that will either form part of the River Trail or make for interesting, scenic detours.  This will also make it easier and safer for residents of Maumelle to commute by bike to work in North Little Rock and Little Rock.
• On the south side, the trail extends to Two Rivers Park via the new bridge, and then to Maumelle Park.  I believe the separate trail ends there and the River Trail follows Pinnacle Valley Rd., AR-300, AR-113, AR-60, and AR-89 for most of the Grand Loop.

The original map and up-to-date info can be found at: http://arkansasrivertrail.org/maps/

View River Trail Expanded in a larger map

Congratulations to 2016's Iron Rangers! Get ready for 2017!

This is a guest post by John Chamberlin (3 Johns have now contributed material to this blog!). It details how he and his grandchildren completed the 2016 Iron Ranger Challenge. Did you attempt the challenge? Think you'll try in 2017? Read on for ideas on park and trail types you might not have considered like underground trails or walking around famous high schools!

2016 Iron Ranger - By John G Chamberlin

At the end of 2015 I became aware that the National Park Service in Arkansas was doing something special to celebrate the 100th year of NPS. If you hiked, paddled or biked 100 miles in the public lands of Arkansas, and submitted monthly email reports on your efforts, you would get an Iron Ranger award. That did not sound too hard. We have a place in Gilbert on the Buffalo National River and get up there most weeks. I could float Tyler to Gilbert 17 times, or hike the Railroad Trail each week. Or maybe do a three day, 30 mile float. 

 "2016 would be my 70th year and since I did a 50 mile trek at Philmont my 50th year, the Iron Ranger seemed like a great thing to do".

Winter

For the first trip to Gilbert in January, I hiked The Old Railroad Trail. The view of the river was great, that special green of flowing water visible from most of the trail because the leaves were off. I hiked past the site of the missing trestle and came back, 3 miles down in under two hours.

Next trip to the Buffalo I thought I would hike some of the Tyler Bend trails. The temperature was in the teens and I did not dress for that. I parked by the Collier Homestead and headed out on the Buffalo River Trail toward the highway. Lots of amazing frost and ice configurations in the dirt and leaves of the trail. Very cold body. I made it a little over a mile that day before freezing out. Lots of days left in the year.

February it mostly rained. The Buffalo River came up over the park toilet at Gilbert and flooded the start of the trail. No time to be paddling or hiking. I did roam around by car and took short walks to see the river almost reach the highway 65 bridge and see the fields at Shine Eye as a lake with a current.

Spring

On to March and Spring Break spent at Gilbert with my wife Shannon, our daughter Katharyn and our grandchildren, Lorelai and Griffin. I had gotten a small raft for Christmas and on Wednesday the 23rd we tried it out, floating from Tyler to Gilbert. The water was cold, but clear, and we saw our usual herons and other birds. On Thursday, Lorelai and Griffin hiked with me on the Horse Trail north of the Buffalo. The trail runs along the bluffs across from Tyler Bend and we had new views of the river and campsites from above. We turned around when the trail dipped down toward Mill Creek. Lorelai thought a meadow we crossed would be a great camping place. Two days later, on Saturday the 26th, we got the raft out again and floated Baker’s Ford to Tyler, wonderful water, and some of the early flowering plants made a show.

Somewhere on that trip I mentioned I now had 17 miles of my 100 for the Iron Ranger. Lorelai and Griffin said “How many do we have?”, well, they had 13 down, so 87 to go!

In early April we went to Gilbert with some friends. We got out the kayaks and floated Baker’s to Gilbert, another ten miles.

May was pretty busy with mentoring an Innovation Corps team and the first 20 days of June my daughter Mary and I were in Australia. I hiked some park miles there but they didn’t count! I brought back my niece Sarah from California on the return trip and we took her to Gilbert. Sarah had never floated a river, so we got out the raft and Katharyn, Lorelai, Griffin, Sarah and I did a short float, Tyler Bend to Shine Eye. Now the turtles were out on the logs and people were out on the gravel bars and in canoes. The real adventure was hauling the gear up the sand hill at Shine Eye.

 "Halfway through the year and 69 miles to go for me, 79 for Griffin and Lorelai...if they were serious".

Summer

Somewhere about that time they decided they were going for the 100 miles. Their mother, Katharyn, helped with that endeavor. They gained a couple miles on me with a river trail walk in July, and we three floated in kayaks from Grinder’s to Gilbert in late July. Somehow August got past us with no new miles.
Editor's Note: Summer is a tough time to hike (too hot, lots of poison ivy, & too many ticks and chiggers) or float (often not much water) across lots of Arkansas. Biking and swimming are great options though!

Fall

In September, Lorelai, Griffin and I did a full foliage walk on the Railroad trail at Gilbert, still late flowers – like asters – and berries on the bushes and vines. A week later we tried out the trails at Pinnacle Mountain State Park for a couple of miles.

Entering October we still had many miles to go 59 for me and 69 for Lorelai and Griffin. Could we make it? The grandkids gained two miles on me with a visit to the Central High National Historic site on Oct. 1.
Editor's Note: The best high school in the world! Class of '99 in particular was an impressive group

Little Rock Central High School. Photo by ‎Katharyn Chamberlin Daniel‎ 

We all went to Gilbert and the grandkids and I floated the 6 miles from upper Tyler to Gilbert on the 2nd, a trio in kayaks. For the first time I was the last one to get to Gilbert. The leaves were changing color and the river was gorgeous.

Starting the Float. Buffalo National River. Photo by ‎Katharyn Chamberlin Daniel‎ 

Katharyn organized some outings and Griffin and Lorelai logged 3 miles on the Trail of Tears in North Little Rock on Oct. 8th and another 3 at Central High NHS the same day. They did two more miles on the 9th on the Heritage Trail around Mount Holly Cemetery.

"Wow, they were catching up to me!"

We had a long weekend in mid-October. It rained before we went and the river was up enough we got the raft out and on the 15th Katharyn, Joe, Griffin, Lorelai and I floated the 12 miles from Woolum to Baker’s Ford. We paddled over the Bend Creek bar where I camped on the dry river almost exactly a year before. We had the river mostly to ourselves, had some fast riffles but we had to get out and push the raft over a few low spots. It was a long day and lots of hard boiled eggs were consumed. The next day Griffin, Lorelai and I floated from Grinders Ferry to Gilbert and then hiked two miles on the Railroad trail. The kids now had 69 miles and somehow I was lagging with 66 miles!

That night a couple from Wisconsin came to our door after dark. They had rented a cabin and had arrived after the store was closed. We helped them track down the guy with their key. They wanted to float but the man was not sure he could handle a kayak or canoe. His wife was an active paddler. So the next morning I got out the raft and floated with them from Grinders to Gilbert. The grandkids stayed at the house and now I was ahead with 71 miles. The remaining 29 and 31 miles seemed possible, especially if the river stayed up! As Griffin said “Miles paddling are faster and easier than hiking.”

I did not stay in the lead in miles long. On Oct. 30 we had Johnnie in town and we did a short but symbolic hike up Flatside Pinnacle. Griffin and Lorelai did an extra mile on the Ouachita Trail. This is where we did our first hike with Katharyn, when she was two, and where we had many outings in the '70s and '80s, including my encounter with the two bear cubs, that figure in the name of our house in Gilbert, “Saw Two Bears Den”. Katharyn, Griffin and Lorelai went to Toltec Mounds State Park and hiked four miles to retake the mileage lead for good. I picked up two miles at Gilbert on Nov. 13th.

The Team on Flatside Pinnacle

Flatside Pinnacle. Photo by ‎Katharyn Chamberlin Daniel‎ 

Thanksgiving week saw us back in Gilbert, with too little water for floating and some of the trails out of play due to deer season. Before Shannon and I went up, Katharyn, Griffin and Lorelai put in 4 miles of hiking at the Ozark Folk Center State Park and Blanchard Springs in the Ozark National Forest.

Some of these miles were hundreds of feet underground by the light of headlamps as part of a new type of tour Blanchard Springs Caverns is offering!

Here are some additional details on the cave miles provided by Lorelai and Griffin:

"Because there were no lights in there, we got to see a bunch of animals that lived there. We saw cave crickets, a big spider, and a lot of bats. Some even flew over our heads! I also liked seeing the ghost room. The calcite ghosts looked really cool". - Griffin

"We got to do a special cave tour with headlights. This meant we got to experience a less crowded, more personal tour that showed more of an original cave, without modern spotlights, and steel stairs everywhere. Having headlights instead of spotlights also meant we could go to places where the wildlife was not used to spotlights, and avoided, so we got to see a lot of wildlife. There were two tunnels where there were a lot of bats. One, we stood right at the entrance, and they flew really close to us! We also saw cave salamanders and crickets and other cave insects". - Lorelai

Salamander. Photo by ‎Katharyn Chamberlin Daniel‎ 

Then it was time for serious hikes around the Tyler Bend area, with Katharyn, Joe, Lorelai, Griffin and me. On the 20th we parked near the Highway 65 bridge, hiked across it, found our way down to the stream that the Buffalo River Trail follows, and hiked up past beautiful pools with limestone and green-tinted water. The trail went up the hill and we turned onto the Rockwall Trail, following it down to the visitor center at Tyler Bend. We encountered seven deer along the way, and no hikers. After a stop at the Visitor’s Center we hiked back – total 5 miles.

On the 21st we were back at Tyler Bend to hike the Riverview and Spring Hollow trails as a loop. We got great views of the Buffalo going up the Riverview Trail (duh!) and the kids found a big cedar to climb that grew out of the bluff. It was fairly scary to watch them. Coming into the park that day we passed a van labeled “Texas A&M Galveston”, the only other vehicle we saw en route to the trailhead. As we came from the Riverview Trail past the Collier Homestead, we saw people leaving the homestead. They all had pants with muddy seats and we caught up to them as they were reentering that van – bio-speleologists doing inventories in the cave in the park. Lorelai led the way down the BRT to the Spring Hollow junction. The trails were covered with leaves and difficult to follow. We saw interesting moss and lichen on stones and dead limbs on the ground.

On the 22nd we finished up most of the remaining Tyler Bend Trails, repeating a bit on the BRT and then following the Buckridge trail down to the Spring Hollow, where we split and Joe, Lorelai and Griffin headed to the Visitor Center while Katharyn and I climbed the trail back to the car. Again, we were the only people on the trail – holiday weekend, great weather and really nice trails all to ourselves. Twelve miles of hiking over three days and I had 14 left and the grandkids were ahead of me with only 11 left!

Winter

T’was the week before Christmas and we hit the trails at Two Rivers Park (county property) and the Arkansas River Trail. On the 21st of December, we crossed the bridge to Two Rivers and the grandkids did 4 miles each and played on trees at either end of the hike to let me do an extra mile. Lorelai picked up a stick and pushed it ahead of her on the paved trail. She managed to collect a mound of pine needles three feet wide and a foot high. After we returned to the car, I had 9 miles left and they had 7 to go. We came back the next day with Katharyn and hiked from Two Rivers Bridge to the Big Dam Bridge, back to the Two Rivers Bridge and across it to the climbing trees. Lorelai and I did extra distance over the Big Dam Bridge and Griffin and I did a loop at Two Rivers so he could get even with Lorelai. He swept a mile of trail clear of pine needles with his pushing stick and made several piles beside the trail. I went home and the kids went back over the bridge again and looped for an extra mile, so we all did six that day. Three more for me and one more for Lorelai and Griffin to get to that 100 miles mark.

Iron Ranger Challenge completed!

100 miles down! Photo by ‎Katharyn Chamberlin Daniel‎ 

Bonus Points:

On Dec. 29th we loaded the dogs in the car with Shannon, Griffin, Lorelai and me and headed to Gilbert to finish where we began. Gracie and Shelby accompanied us on the Railroad trail and we were joined by one of the Gilbert dogs, Toots (alias Indiana S’mores for his attitude and coloring). We did two miles out and back and I went on for another mile with Shelby while they went down to the Gilbert gravel bar. Technically we were done but the kids wanted a real finale. So we went back to the river and they laid out a circular path in the gravel and ran around it. Lorelai kept on until she had run a mile in celebration. Griffin took Gracie back to the house a bit earlier.

Final mileage totals: Lorelai 103, Griffin 102 and PopPop 101 on public lands in Arkansas in 2016. So we are all Iron Rangers and should get our patches in January! And now they say there will be another go at Iron Ranger in 2017! Katharyn says we need to get the miles in earlier in the year.

Nuttall Trail - Maumelle Park

This trail should have been in my last book, but when I visited briefly two summers ago after my dad told me there were trails here, I failed to spot it.  My excuse for this is that the trail is hidden away near the entrance to the park and far from the main attraction, the Arkansas River.

The Nuttall Trail, named either for the explorer/botanist Thomas Nuttall or the Nuttall Oak which is native to Arkansas and itself named after Thomas Nuttall, is a short (0.4 mi) asphalt trail that loops through a wooded section of the park.  While multiple paved and unpaved spurs provide access to the trail from several parts of the park, the main trailhead is located at the parking lot immediately to your right at the entrance station.

The trail is pretty short and not that scenic compared to those at nearby Pinnacle Mountain State Park and Two Rivers Park, but it is a nice place to take kids or a dog on a stroll if you are camping or picnicking at Maumelle Park.  

View Maumelle Park in a larger map