The Final 10 Miles!

(Plus info + packing list for a Winter OT hike of your own)

We had several folks who were planning to meet up with us for the end of the OT, but the weather turned so cold that we were just a group of 6 by the time it rolled around.

We met at 9am at Pinnacle and then shuttled to back to where we had stopped at Lunsford Crossing the day before.

We were still cold even with being bundled up so we got moving to get warm.

The footbed was soft all day, which was a kindness to our tired legs.

Taido was hurting from hiking the two previous days with us.

My parents and Kandace’s mom were with us for this last stretch.

It was fun for us that they got a little taste of what we had been doing for the last two and half weeks.

There is not too much elevation on this section. But there are still a few hills (including one big one at the end.)

My parents had packed a big picnic lunch and lots of snacks for the day, so we stopped to refuel around noon.

I think everyone thought we would be done around lunchtime, but we weren’t moving at our usual clip.

We meandered in the trees, spending a lot of time visiting with our families on the trail.

The miles slowly kept passing though.

When you get to where you can see Pinnacle Mountain, you walk for a bit on the road.

Part of this section runs behind some houses, which was strange after being in the woods for so long.

I was surprised to be walking in a neighborhood all of a sudden.

After getting off the open road, you walk on a closed service road.

Everyone was getting tired by this time in the day. We didn’t reach the parking lot until about 3:30pm, and the last half mile or so is uphill.

I had seen the elevation on the map but I didn’t mention it ahead of time, because I didn’t want to dampen anyone’s spirits.

We passed the final mile marker and then headed uphill to the end, where Taido had Ouachita Trail Stickers and cold beers waiting for us.

Taido snapped these photos of Kandace and me at the end of the day.

I love these pictures of us walking and talking, because it captures for me what so much of time on trails is like…just being together. Sometimes talking, sometimes not talking, but just walking and walking together.

A thru-hike is a LOT of time in the company of a friend, and I am super grateful to have completed all 223 miles with Kandace.

And we were both so thankful to our families for walking with us to the end!

Thanks for reading this Ouachita Trail Log. You can find the rest of the Ouachita Trail posts here, or keep reading below for resources and our packing list. Happy Trails!

Trail Notes:

This 10-mile section of the Ouachita Trail from Lunsford Crossing to Pinnacle Mountain could be done as a day hike

You can find more info about the Ouachita Trail on the Friends of the OT website.

I used the Far Out (formerly Guthook) mapping app to hike the Ouachita Trail and it’s wonderful for tracking water crossings and supplies.

Ouachita Trail in Winter Packing List

Personal Gear:

Cell phone with Far Out map downloaded

Backpack/rain cover

Sleeping bag (rated to 0 degrees F)

Sleeping pad

Toiletries (small)

Headlamp

Water bottle

Pocket knife

bowl/cup (You can just bring one and use it for drinking and eating)

Eating utensil (Spork)

Bandana

Prescription medications

Trekking poles

Clothes:

Rain jacket

Hiking pants

Wool leggings

Tank/Base layer

Wool T-shirt

Long sleeved wool shirt

Fleece quarter zip

2-3 underwear

2-3 pairs socks

Rain pants

Gaitors

Hiking boots

Sandals

Collective Gear:

Tent

Snacks/Food/Coffee/Tea

Steripen

Lighter/fire starter

Jetboil

First aid kid

Camp light

Dish soap/sponge

Toilet paper and a shovel

Carabiners/dry sack(s)/rope

Anker Portable charger + cord

The post The End of The Ouachita Trail: Lunsford Crossing to Pinnacle Mountain appeared first on Alison Chino.

3 days (+ 1 zero day)

This is a continuation of my Ouachita Trail trip log. Read the rest my Ouachita Trail notes here. 

Starting Point Hwy 7 Trailhead (MM 160.8)

Day 13: Hiked 13 miles to Forest Service Road 132 (MM 173.7)

My dad dropped us while it was still dark. Rain and snow were coming in so we decided to hike just for the morning and then head to North Little Rock to spend the night at home, plus we would be picking up a third hiker for the last section…Taido.

The morning started out clear though. We could see the little sliver of the moon and even Venus as we drove to the trailhead. We hiked for a little while with headlamps, but soon the light came over the hills and turned everything golden.

This 13 miles was some of the prettiest I remember from the whole trail. In fact, it would be a great day hike if you live in Central Arkansas. There is excellent parking available at the Highway 7 Trailhead, and you could easily plant a second car somewhere along Forest Service Road 132, which has several access points. Or you could just do an in and out hike from Highway 7. The trail is lovely in both directions from there. 

Hiking east from Highway 7, we criss-crossed over gorgeous cascading streams around MM 164.

There are also lovely views of Fork Mountain from the ridges, especially with the leaves off of the trees. Dad had told us that Fork Mountain is the only technical climb in Arkansas. (Of course he’s climbed it.)

We were still in the Ouachita Mountains, getting closer to the Flatside Wilderness.

I was still spotting sparkling crystal in the rocks as we walked.

Dad met us with hot coffee about halfway through the morning since the trail crosses Forest Service Road 132 several times. I was grateful for warm cups as the air was cold this day. 

We hiked mostly on our own, Kandace up in front and me following along behind. We made it through this 13 mile day with ease compared to the previous day in the rain.

Since we started so early, we finished before noon and then drove back to my parents’ house in North Little Rock.

It was surreal to be back at home but also not quite done with our hike. We enjoyed soup and bread at home and an evening by the fireplace inside. I took a long bath and then iced my ankle while sitting by the fire.

It was raining in Little Rock, but back on the trail snow was falling. We took a zero day to wait for Taido to arrive and join us the next day on the trail.

Day 14: Hiked 15.8 miles to Nancy Mountain Shelter (MM 189.5)

We left home super early to drive back to the trail.

We were so surprised when we drove up into the hills to see that there was snow everywhere! 

Dad dropped us on the Forest Service road where we had left off and then planted us a pack full of supplies at Nancy Mountain Shelter, where we planned to spend the night. 

We were only carrying water and lunch, but we had a lot of miles to cover. We really threw Taido into the fire starting him out with a 16 mile day in the snow. Kandace and I had been building up our legs for the previous couple of weeks, but Taido had been sitting grading papers for those same two weeks. 

It was beautiful though.

The snow was really just a dusting, and we knew it would melt later, so we enjoyed the morning of hiking in the winter wonderland.

The snowy trails meant that Kandace and I had managed to hike in every possible kind of weather during our time on the Ouachita Trail. We’d been freezing cold, soaking wet and we’d had a few afternoons of stripping down to sit in the sunshine.

You just can’t predict what kind of weather you’re going to get in Arkansas in December.

As the snow melted, the trail became muddy and wet.

Our boots soaked through as we hiked and by lunch, I could tell that my socks were wet all the way to my feet.

When we reached Flatside Pinnacle Wilderness, we hiked up the spur to the viewpoint.

It only adds a little bit to the OT, but we couldn’t see much from the top.

A fog had come in and covered everything below.

The wind was blowing enough that the air was moving a lot and we caught a few peekaboo views through the fog, but it was also super cold when you stopped walking, so we carried on pretty quickly.

Once we hiked down from Flatside, we reached an area where the snow was gone. Now it was just cold and muddy.

We stopped for lunch at Browns Creek Shelter (MM 182.5).

Again, we started to get cold quickly, so we ate up our tuna and pringles and pushed on.

The afternoon brought a little welcome sunshine to our faces.

I was grateful for every bit of sunshine we got on the OT!

We stopped near Lake Sylvia to get water, knowing we would be up too high for water later in the day.

After filling up, it was a pretty steady climb up to Nancy Mountain.

It was cold enough though that I didn’t shed layers, even going uphill.

By the time we reached Nancy Mountain Shelter at 3:30pm, the cold air was soaking through to my bones. My feet were freezing, so we quickly got a fire going and tried to get our boots and socks dry. 

I was exhausted from the long day.

I took these photos lying down on the ground, watching the sunlight fade.

This was going to be our last night sleeping on the trail. We were both excited that Taido had joined us. We were all tired from the day, so it was good to have new blood on the team.

We ate our last rehydrated meals (veggie curry and rice) and drank up everything we had brought…wishing we had more.

After trying to get warm by the fire for too long, we finally crawled into our sleeping bags for real warmth.

 It was a new moon so the stars were shining bright as we fell asleep.

Day 16

Hiked 23 miles to Lunsford Crossing (MM 212.5)

We woke up early, drank our coffee, ate our oatmeal and got moving.

It was so cold, so we were anxious to get warm by walking.

But even with over twenty miles of walking, I never felt like I could get warm this day.

We had a car planted about 2 miles into our hike (at the Highway 9 Trailhead) so that we could drop our gear for our longest mileage day. My parents were going to come pick this car up later and meet us at the end of this day.

This section crosses private land so you aren’t allowed to camp. That means you either have to make an extra long day of hiking or stealth camp illegally. We were opting for the long hike. The elevation is lower through this section but it is deceptive to think of it as flat. There is still plenty of up and down through here, even if it’s not quite as steep as other sections of the trail.

We also ran into more water crossings. And with the snow melted from the day before, some of them were deeper than we had anticipated.

Since we were already so cold, we were not excited to have wet feet again. I got wet on the second crossing. I pushed on through the miles and tried not to think about it.

When we reached the 200 mile marker, I couldn’t believe we had made it that far. But also I felt like I was going to collapse knowing we still had 10 more miles to go.

I sent out an SOS to my parents since I knew they were coming out to shuttle the cars around and asked them for dry socks and hot tea. So they graciously met us when we still had 6-8 miles left and we were able to get warm again.

This section follows the north shore of Lake Maumelle, which I enjoyed seeing. The lake kind of helped orient me. The lower sections of the trail were super wet and muddy along the lake.

We were powering through so quickly that I didn’t feel like I stopped to enjoy the views at all. I told myself I would need to come back and walk along this lake shore again to enjoy it, only I would like to come back when it’s sunny and warm!

We did spot a few places that folks have turned into camping spots even though it’s not technically permitted.

We had to get wet a couple more times for crossings. Kandace actually fell down in this crossing, so I walked on through with my boots on and said a sad goodbye to my dry socks.

The last 4 miles seemed to stretch out forever. There was cloud cover all day so I kept thinking it was about to get dark, even when the sunset was still far out. I think I had started the day worried that we wouldn’t finish by dark, and somehow that stuck with me all day. But we did make it to Lunsford Crossing before dark.

That last section was just a march to get the miles done, which I kind of regretted. I felt like we had really taken our time to enjoy the trail up until this day and I didn’t want to end by just pushing to get the distance behind me. I spent way too much of this day wishing I had broken the long day up and just added an extra day. But of course there was no way to change it at this point and by the time we finished I was grateful we only had 10 miles left to do.

We were all sort of hobbling by the end!

There are not any markings at Lunsford Crossing, so Dad had a bit of trouble finding it, but he managed and we were so glad to see him when we came off the trail!

It had been a crazy, long day. We went home and had a big pasta dinner.

Our families were going to be joining us for the big finale, an easy 10 miles!

We were meeting the next morning at 9am. We could even sleep in a little the next day!

Trail Notes:

The 31-mile section of the Ouachita Trail from Highway 7 to Highway 9 would be a fun + beautiful weekend backpacking trip with a long Saturday hike and shorter sections for Friday and Sunday. You can stay in shelters both nights so you don’t need to carry a tent.

Possible Itinerary:

Friday: Drop a car at Highway 9 Trailhead and drive back in a second car to Highway 7 (MM 160.8). Hike 6.6  miles (east) to  Oak Mountain Shelter at Mile Marker 167.4. Spend the night.

Saturday: Walk 15 miles east from Oak Mountain Shelter (167.4) to Browns Creek Shelter (MM 182,4). Spend the night.

Sunday: Enjoy a slow Sunday morning by the fire. Hike 9.4 miles east to your car at Highway 9 (MM 191.8). Drive back and pick up your car at the other trailhead and head home.

You can find more info about the Ouachita Trail on the Friends of the OT website. I used the Far Out (formerly Guthook) mapping app to hike the Ouachita Trail and it’s wonderful for tracking water crossings and supplies.

The post Snow on the Ouachita Trail: Highway 7 Trailhead to Lundsford Crossing appeared first on Alison Chino.

~80 miles

5 days

Alternative title for this section of the OT:

We Couldn’t Have Done It Without You, Dad

Seriously, from the moment my dad join us, we plowed through the miles every day.

He would move all the gear in his truck and we hiked only with day packs on.

It’s just weird how much faster you can hike without a giant pack.

DAY 8

16.5 miles to FS Road 76 (MM 85.5)

We woke up before dark. It was a super cold morning (31 degrees!) We quickly powered up with coffee and bars before packing up. My dad loaded everything he could carry onto his pack and hiked the mile back down to his truck.

The sun was just starting to come up and you could tell it was going to be a beautiful day!

Kandace and I headed on down the trail, feeling light! 

We hiked 10 miles before lunch. I could not believe it. Plus my joints were just so happy with less weight. My ankle was thanking me all day.

In addition to lighter packs, there were fewer rocks on this part of the trail. Softer footbeds + lighter packs = A great day on the trail!

We had tuna for lunch, much improved with some mayo and mustard packets we got at the Queen Wilhelmina Lodge. And we still had leftover cookies and pj&j’s from lunch with our friends the day before. Everything tasted amazing as always.

After lunch we climbed to the top of a ridge where we could see for miles.

The sun was so bright and warm that we hiked without coats on for the first time. It was glorious.

My dad found a spot to camp near a forest service road and then hiked back toward us from the other direction. He met us around Mile Marker 82.

I didn’t realize how far we still had to go after he met us. We had been walking so fast all day that I didn’t realize how tired I was. I kind of hit a wall about a mile after we met up with Dad, so it was a push to get those last few miles. But Dad had cold beers waiting for us in the truck when we arrived.

We set up camp in a clearing just off the forest road. Dad made shrimp and grits for dinner, one of his camping specialties.

Then we sat by the fire and watched the stars come out.

It was a super cold night, so we were grateful to be in a tent. It was so much warmer than being in the shelters. Plus we had luxuries like blow up mattresses and pillows!

Also the coyotes were active all night long. I woke up several times to their shrieks. Often it sounded like they were right outside our tent. I was grateful for a bit more of a barrier between us and them.

Day 9

7:30am-3pm Hiked 15.4 miles to Fiddler Creek Shelter (MM 100.9)

The next morning, it was still cold. But it was wonderful to wake up by the car and get to have eggs and orange juice for breakfast.

Dad told us he would break camp and we could go ahead and get on down the trail. We were pumped that we were going to hit the 100 Mile Marker on this day!

Between us we headed off with one little day pack.

We continued along more gentle pine needle footbeds as the sun came out and the sky turned all blue again.

Another gorgeous day!

Again we climbed higher up to views of the Ouachita Mountains.

With the leaves off in the winter, you can see for miles and miles.

Then we dropped back down to a valley and to Big Bushy Campground where Dad met up with us for lunch.

We stayed well-fed from this point of the trail on. And a beer with lunch, yes, I don’t mind if I do.

We continued after lunch back up out of the valley.

Again, we were logging way more miles without packs on.

All day we anticipated the 100 mile marker, getting closer and closer to the goal.

This might have been our prettiest day yet. And even though we woke up to 29 degree temperatures, the afternoon brought sunshine and warmth.

We celebrated with swigs of whiskey at the 100 mile mark!

And just a little further down the trail, we found Dad and our shelter for the night.
We got there around 3pm, so we had a good bit of daylight left to enjoy being in camp.

We had fried rice with shrimp and fish for dinner as the sun was setting on the hillside.

Fiddler Creek turned out to be one of our favorite shelters. We loved how it is situated on the hill.

We enjoyed the fire pit until we were too cold to stay out any longer, and the three of us had the shelter to ourselves.

We could still hear the coyotes in the distance, but they weren’t near as close as they had been the night before. Still, when we went to sleep, Dad put one of the hiking poles near his sleeping bag, just in case.

Day 10

7am-4:30pm Hiked 17.8 miles to Forest Service Road 149 near Muddy Creek (MM 118.7)

We woke up early to get going for a long day.

We quickly downed coffee, eggs and bagels and then we were on our way.

From Fiddler Creek Shelter, you head downhill immediately to Fiddler Creek.

We stopped just long enough to refill our water at the creek.

We used a steri-pen for water on our whole trip. It worked great and we were thrilled to not have to carry a pump or anything else more substantial.

The steri-pen is an ultraviolet light that sterilizes any invisible critters so they can’t wreak havoc on your digestive system. I’ve used it now for several backpacking trips without ever getting sick, so I’m a big fan.

It was another gorgeous blue sky day!

Dad kept telling us to enjoy it because the weather was supposed to turn later in the week, so we were soaking it up.

We reached Suck Mountain Shelter at 10:45am! We weren’t even hungry enough yet to eat lunch, but we had to stop and enjoy the sun (58 degrees!) for a minute in these chairs. Suck Mountain is one of the only shelters we saw with chairs! Such a treat!

We stopped later in the woods for lunch at around 1pm.

As we ate, I looked at the map and figured out we had 4.5 miles left to go to Story Creek Shelter.

The trail went up and down more time than I could count before we reached the shelter. We were exhausted when we finally made it there around 3pm.

We were planning on staying there for the night.

Story Creek Shelter was built in memory of the son and nephew of some of our dear friends, so we were looking forward to seeing it.

It’s a beautiful shelter, happily situated in a valley near Story Creek.

Dad was there when we got to the shelter, but he hadn’t been able to get his truck close enough to get our camping gear to the shelter. So he said we were going to camp somewhere else, but first we needed to hike back up to his car.

Kandace and I were so tired that we intentionally didn’t make eye contact. We just sighed and kept going.

We climbed the 2 and 1/2 miles out of the valley and back up to the ridge, walked through more trails and more woods and finally, when it felt like we were losing the sun, we saw the car.

We ended up setting up camp almost right on the trail at a spot near the Forest Service Road where the car was parked, near Muddy Creek.

We fell into seats by the fire, where we gobbled up our dinner and chatted in the firelight for as long as we could hold our eyes open.

Then we crawled into bed so very tired from our 18 mile day.

If there were coyotes nearby, I never heard them.

Day 11

8am-3:30pm Hiked 15 miles to Forest Service Road 78 (MM 133.5)

We started a little slower on this day since we were still tired from the previous day’s miles.

We even had a morning fire and a slower breakfast. Extra cups of coffee. 

I do love a slow camp morning.

It was also a sign that the weather was warmer since we weren’t feeling like we had to hurry and get moving in order to stay warm.

It turned out to be our most gorgeous day.

At 72 degrees, it felt like summer.

Our freezing cold river days felt so far behind us now.

My body (especially my feet) was sore and tired from the day before, but I just kept walking.

We hit more milestones and trailheads. It was amazing how the miles just kept piling up.

We walked through lots of pine forest on this day, again heading up to ridges with views all around.

Sunshine and blue skies make us happy!

I spent a lot of my summer days as a child swimming in Lake Ouachita and we were getting closer to being able to see the lake from the hills. I remember all along the way to the lake there are rock shops because there are so many crystals and collectible rocks in the Ouachita Mountains.

We started spotting rocks that I might have seen in a road side rock shop as a child, if we had ever stopped at one.

We had our lunch at Irons Fork crossing. I soaked my ankle in the cold water and enjoyed the sun on my face.

I have seen this bridge covered in water before in other hikers’ photos so I was grateful we’d had a few days without rain now and we were able to just walk right across.

The trail climbs again after Irons Fork, so we pushed on back up into the hills.

One foot in front of the other until the trail leveled out again on the ridge top.

We reached Round Mountain Vista sometime around 3pm and then it was an easy descent to a clearing near a forest road where my dad was already set up to camp.

It was such a treat to not be freezing cold. Even after the sun dropped, the temperature hovered around 50. Balmy compared to some of our other nights on the trail.

The wonderful thing about Arkansas in December is that you can have such a wild range of temperatures in just a few days.

We were a little sad to see the sun go down on this perfect day. We knew the weather was changing (we would see rain and snow before we finished the OT), but we didn’t know that it was the last time we’d see blue sky and sunshine on our trip.

We soaked it up while it lasted!

We stayed up by the fire, reading our maps and planning our next few days. We decided that we would get up early and break camp before the rain came in.

Our hike the next day was supposed to take us to the top of Ouachita Pinnacle.

Instead, my dad suggested that he drive us to the top of the Pinnacle and then we could hike it backwards, back to where we were parked already. That way we would be able to do more downhill than up. And, because it was supposed to be really raining by the afternoon, he would take us to a hotel in Hot Springs Village when we got down.

So we went to sleep with our plans made. Kandace was dreaming about a shower at the end of the day and I was psyching myself up to hike in the rain.

Day 12

Hiked to 13.5 miles to Ouachita Pinnacle (MM 147)

We had camp broken by 7am to get started. 

Dad drove us down some rough dirt roads to drop us at the top of Ouachita Pinnacle as planned.

We quickly found the trail and started walking down it back to where we came from.

At first it was just foggy and misty, which was beautiful actually.

I love a misty hike in the woods.

Taylor Swift’s new album (Evermore) had dropped over night, so we both downloaded it and listened to it while we hiked through the fog.

I hadn’t used my headphones (or phone) hardly at all on this trip. I was always trying to save my battery, and I also love hearing all the noises of the forest.

But this day, we both listened to music as we hike quickly trying to beat the storms.

It started raining heavier about halfway through the morning. We both got pretty soaked, but somehow knowing that your’e going to have a hot shower at the end of the day makes it a little easier to keep stomping through the rain.

I thought this part of the trail was lovely. On a prettier day, you could have seen Lake Ouachita for sure.

And the forest floor was covered with delicate reindeer moss.

And the rain made all the greens brighter.

Walking downhill as quickly as I could was probably not the best idea for my ankle, and I had a couple of stumbles.

By now I was so used to falling I was starting to laugh every time it happened. I had one fall that hurt enough that it slowed my pace for a while, but eventually I made it down.

When I spotted the car, the rain was starting to fall harder.

As soon as we got to Hot Springs Village, the bottom fell out of the sky.

It rained so hard all afternoon and all night that we watched it through our window in awe.

After our showers, we went out for Mexican food and margaritas. Then we crawled into cozy beds. Such a treat!

It was strange to be in a hotel so close to my home. (Hot Springs Village is only about an hour from Little Rock.)

But that also meant we were getting closer and closer to the end. We had made it 147 miles!

We mapped out the rest of the trail from our hotel room before falling asleep to the Hallmark Christmas Movie Channel.

As the rain fell outside, I said a prayer of gratitude for a dry bed and for my dad showing up as trail support on the Ouachita Trail.

So so grateful!

Trail Notes:

This 80-mile section of the Ouachita Trail from Foran Gap to Ouachita Pinnacle would be a great 5-7 day backpacking trip. It is strenuous (lots of up and down), but this section of the trail is absolutely gorgeous. There were a lot of highlights on this chunk of the trail: Fiddlers Creek Shelter, Suck Mountain, Story Creek, Irons Fork Crossing, Round Mountain Vista, and reaching the Ouachita Pinnacle. There are plenty of shelters along the stretch if you wanted to hike it without a tent, and there is also plenty of Forest Service Road access.

You can find more info about the Ouachita Trail on the Friends of the OT website.

The post Trail Support on the Ouachita Trail: Foran Gap Shelter to Ouachita Pinnacle appeared first on Alison Chino.

17 miles

2 days

Sunshine and Trail Angels

DAY 6

6.3 miles to Black Fork Mountain Shelter. (Mile Marker 57.8)

Kandace and I both slept hard at the Queen Wilhelmina Lodge. It was amazing to wake up and be able to go to the bathroom without having to put on everything I was carrying.

When we woke up, our boots, clothes and gear were miraculously mostly dry. I was grateful to pull on dry socks for the first time in a few days.

We had planned a shorter 6 mile day so that we could enjoy our room and not have to get going early in the morning, so we ate a big breakfast of eggs and biscuits and fruit in the lodge’s restaurant. We had a leisurely morning with extra cups of coffee and time to stare out the windows at the view of the valley we had hiked up from the day before.

We barely made the 11am check out time, setting out shortly before noon to walk from the Queen Wilhelmina Lodge to Black Fork Mountain.

The swelling on my ankle had gone down some. I tied it again with a bandana and tightened the laces of my boots. Then I took some ibuprofen and hoped for the best. I couldn’t walk quickly over the rocky trail, but I wasn’t hobbling like the day before either.

Grateful for the shorter day, I plowed on forward and ignored the pain as the day wore on, knowing that I wouldn’t have to go that far before I could call it quits for the day.

The first several miles of the trail were pretty rough–more leaves on top of rocks, so it was slow going.

Then the trail flattened out a bit and we found ourselves walking more pine needle beds than rocks.

Also in addition to the easier walking, the day was gorgeous.

Clear blue sky and sunshine were blessedly welcome after our wet walking days.

When you get to the railroad tracks near the Black Fork Mountain Trailhead, you’re almost to the shelter.

The path turns after the tracks and heads straight up the mountain.

The Ouachita Trail Shelters seem to be often perched on top of hills and mountains, so if you’re sleeping shelter to shelter, you get to end the day with a climb.

But the views are usually gorgeous.

We reached our shelter with plenty of daylight, which was lovely. I propped my ankle up on a bench and drained my water bottle.

We ate our dinner early and then Kandace hung our food. We did this every night on the trail to keep bears (and other critters) from being tempted to crawl into the shelters with us.

We attached a carabiner to one end of a thin length of rope, which Kandace through over a tree branch. Then she would attach our food bags to the carabiner and pull the food up high before tying off the other end of the rope around a tree.

We settled in by our fire to enjoy the evening.

It was so lovely to be dry and clean. And to have almost 60 miles of the trail behind us.

Just after it got dark, the hiker we had met at the State Line Shelter the day before came up the hill with his dog. He was glad we already had a fire going. The temperatures were dropping quickly. We traded hiking notes for a while by the fire, comparing river crossings and food pouches.

Then he hung a hammock in the shelter. It was our first night sharing a shelter, so we navigated respectfully taking turns getting ready for bed. We were in our bags when he and his dog climbed up into their hammock.

Kandace and I were planning to get up super early the next day because we had friends meeting us on the trail that were hiking backwards toward us from a trailhead that was about 10 miles east of us. I could hardly sleep I was so excited, but I stared up at the shelter roof, listening to the snoring pup and the breezes blowing on the hillside, and eventually I nodded off.

DAY 7

11 miles to Foran Gap Shelter. (Mile Marker 69)

We were up before the sun at Black Fork Mountain Shelter.

We tiptoed out of the shelter so as not to wake our “roommate.” We were amazed that his dog didn’t bark as we prepped our packs and boiled water. We had a quick cup of coffee, stuck some protein bars in our pockets and headed off down the hill.

We descended a long time, and quickly.

Kandace took most of our food in her pack, graciously sparing me extra weight on my ankle.

I leaned hard on my trekking poles and said prayers of gratitude for more pine needle foot beds.

It was a bit more cloudy than the day before, but the sun peeked out here and there.

We had a creek crossing that wasn’t too bad. We went ahead and filled our water bottles while I let the cold creek water “ice” my ankle for a little while.

The morning went by quickly as we anticipated running into my friends.

Somewhere around mile marker 65 or 66 we ran into them! Our trail angels, Connie and Carol, had gotten up super early to meet us for lunch on this section of the trail.

I have told the story before of how their coming to find us with a gourmet picnic in the middle of our hike was the greatest morale booster of all time.

Such a delight!

They also brought me a brace for my ankle which made the hiking a good bit easier for me for the rest of the day.

After our picnic, we hiked as a happy foursome back to where they had parked.

Just as they were getting ready to leave, my dad pulled up in his car.

My dad had been following our hike from home and had planned to meet us later in the week, but after I turned my ankle, he rearranged his plans and came earlier. We didn’t know what his plans were at the time, but he ended up staying nearby for the rest of our hike on the Ouachita Trail, providing trail support so we could hike with lighter loads.

It was a huge gift.

We started throwing everything that we wouldn’t need over the next day into the back of his car.

He packed his pack for the night, and in addition to his own gear, he threw in all kinds of treats he had brought for us: apples, oranges, hot cocoa with peppermint schnapps, and M&Ms!

Then, from the Foran Gap Trailhead where he had parked, we all three hiked a mile (up the hill) to Foran Gap Shelter.

We started gathering firewood and setting up our stuff in the shelter.

It had been such a fun day. My ankle was feeling better, we’d seen our friends and now my dad was with us.

Plus the weather was holding. It was a clear, cold night.

Before the sun went down, our bunkmate from the night before arrived with his sweet dog. His pup was struggling a bit so he was planning to cut his hike short the next day to give her paws time to rest.

We all sat around the fire talking and laughing.

I was giddy thinking about hiking the next day with such a light pack.

And I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept outside with my dad. We both love the outdoors but our adventures rarely coincide with each other.

I think perhaps my long-standing interest in the Ouachita Trail has something to do with it being so near where I grew up.

I’d never hiked this trail with my dad, but we had been on many other Arkansas trails together. As he pored over his Ouachita Trail Guidebook and I studied the map on my phone, we made plans for where we would try to meet up the next day.

I thought about how two nights ago I wasn’t sure how I was going to finish the hike. Now I felt confident that we were going to make it all the way to the end.

We went to sleep early.

We were planning to be up again before dark to tackle a larger section of the trail, plus the temperatures were dropping below freezing so the warmest place to be was inside a zero degree sleeping bag.

Trail Notes:

This 17-mile section of the Ouachita Trail from Queen Wilhelmina to Foran Gap would be a fairly leisurely weekend backpacking trip.

Possible Itinerary:

Friday afternoon: Drop a car at Foran Gap Trailhead and drive back in a second car to Queen Wilhelmina State Park. Hike 6 miles (east) to Black Fork Mountain Shelter at Mile Marker 57.8. Spend the night.

Saturday: Walk 11 miles east from Fork Mountain Shelter to Foran Gap Shelter. You’ll pass your car at Foran Gap trailhead one mile before the shelter so you can re-supply at the car and drop anything you don’t need. Hike on up to Foran Gap Shelter at Mile Marker 69. Spend the night.

Sunday: Enjoy a slow Sunday morning by the fire at Foran Gap. Hike the mile west back to your car. Stop for lunch in Mena. Head on home.

If you wanted to camp only one night, you could also spend Friday night at Queen Wilhelmina Lodge, hike 6 miles on Saturday and then 10 miles to the Foran Gap Trailhead on Sunday.

You can find more info about the Ouachita Trail on the Friends of the OT website.

The post Ouachita Trail: Queen Wilhelmina to Foran Gap Shelter appeared first on Alison Chino.

26.5 miles

2 days

Some rain, some sun and…

Many River Crossings

DAY 4

14 miles to a spot in the woods where we collapsed. (close to Mile Marker 39)

We woke up to a gorgeous fog covering the whole world around us.

Thankfully, it had stopped raining.

But all our gear was still wet.

I had an extra pair of dry socks to put on, which made it a tiny bit easier to pull on wet pants and boots.

I also had a dry stocking cap.

But I couldn’t bear the wet gloves, so I just tucked my hands inside of my jacket.

I used my trash bag to wrap up my wet things, deciding I would deal with them later.

After coffee and protein bars, we headed off into the foggy morning.

For two hours we hiked straight downhill, losing all the elevation we had gained the previous day.

It was wild how quickly we dropped.

But it was also beautiful.

We were in the trees all morning, walking over more moss-covered rocks.

The fog was so thick that even the parts of me that weren’t wet began to feel wet again.

We had wet hair just from the mist.

But still we were glad it wasn’t raining, yet.

After five miles we had descended low enough to reach a creek.

It was our first water stop of the day, but more significantly, we were beginning a 14 mile section of the trail during which (unbeknownst to us) we would make over 50 river and creek crossings.

Soon we reached our first big crossing.

I had not previously mentioned to Kandace that we would be crossing rivers, so she was a little surprised when we reached the rushing Big Cedar Creek.

According to the guidebooks and websites, most of the river crossings on the OT are “usually just rock hops,” but after a day and night of heavy rainfall, Big Cedar Creek was kind of raging.

Or at least that’s how it felt. It looked really deep. Well above the knees for sure. We bushwacked down the river a little bit to see if we could find a more shallow crossing. Nope. It looked even deeper further down.

Of course, since we didn’t know this would be the first of MANY CROSSINGS, we spent longer than we should have debating how to cross.

Should we take off our boots?
What about our pants?

Kandace was carrying sandals so she changed into them, and then crossed over the river.

I took a video so someone would believe me when I told them how deep it was.

After she got across, she threw her sandals back to me to wear.

When she was going through the water, we realized that the water was actually about waist deep, so I decided to take off my boots, my socks and my pants to get across.

This, naturally, took some time.

Standing around deliberating about what to do on a cold day just makes you colder.

It doesn’t take long to lose the heat you’ve built up walking as you stand still looking at the water. So at some point I finally just went for it. Using my poles to gauge how deep the water was on each step, I gradually made my way across the river.

I was squealing from the cold and holding onto my poles for dear life. As the water grew deeper, I was terrified that I was going to lose my footing, fall over and get my entire backpack wet. Plus be swept down river in the process.

But I made it across with my pack intact.

It took us a few minutes to get everything back on and get moving. It took us even longer to get warm again after being in the river.

But about the time I was moving enough to be warm again, we came to another crossing.

This one wasn’t as deep, but it was deep enough that we had to make a decision about boots. We each found a different place to cross. Since my boots were still wet from the rain the day before, I didn’t mind stepping in a little bit of water.

By little, I mean like an inch.

I reasoned that if I could find rocks that were just a little bit under the water to step on, I wouldn’t have to take off my boots. So that’s what I was looking for. Of course, I underestimated how much water was running over the rocks on one step and then I misstepped and slipped off a mossy rock on the next step, and into the water I went.

Water quickly poured into the tops of my boots. Now my boots were soaked. My socks were no longer even dry on the insides, and the bottom 10 inches of my pants were wet. Bummer.

I always begin a crossing so carefully. I take each step almost painfully slowly, but then once I misstep or slip, a strange thing happens. I’m so anxious to get out of the water that I just start stepping fast and sort of go willy nilly the rest of the way. A clown could not perfect a more ridiculous act.

But I needed that little bit of absurdity to make me laugh, because I was so mad at myself for getting wet.

Especially since I had taken such care to stay dry on the first crossing.

When you get wet, somehow it’s not just that moment that is frustrating, but it’s also an insult to all your previous efforts to stay dry.

It feels like wasted effort.

There is the fall

Years ago on a hike with my dad, we were taking a big group of 8th graders up a trail that ran right along a creek bed.

Well, actually, the word “trail” in this scenario is generous. In fact, a lot of the time, the trail was the creek bed.

Early in the hike we were all trying to stay up on the side edges of the creek or in places where it was really narrow, we would straddle the creek in order to keep our feet dry.

One by one, kids misstepped and got their feet wet.

After they got wet, they would just start tromping through the middle of the creek. Once you had wet shoes, you could go faster because you weren’t spending each step trying to find a dry place to put your feet.

But I kept my shoes dry for a long time. I was going out of my way and tromping through brush on the side of the creek in order to stay dry. I was one of the last people to still have dry shoes as the hike wore on.

But then, inevitably, I misstepped. I stepped on a rock that was wet and slipped and fell flat in the water on my chest. It was a horrible fall. Embarrassing and ridiculous. And painful.

And of course, now my shoes were wet.

So for the rest of the hike, I berated myself for not just going ahead and getting my shoes wet earlier. I reasoned that if I had just been stepping straight in and not trying to avoid the water, I would never have had such a bad fall.

Of course all this kind of reasoning is unhelpful when you’re hiking (or doing anything else, come to think of it).

Now on the Ouachita Trail, on our first day of river crossings, I got wet on our second crossing.

It was only one crossing I had stayed dry for. I hadn’t wasted that much trail time trying to stay dry.

But I was still mad that I fell.

We had hiked 8 miles so far, and we had 6 left.

I was exhausted and tired and cold and wet. And mad.

Such a bad combination.

This might be a good time to mention that one of the things about me that makes me perhaps not the greatest backpacker is that I fall down often. It’s actually alarming how much I fall down. And it happens out of nowhere. I blink and I just hit the ground.

I really like to go through life without falling. Both physically and metaphorically.

I like for everything to be perfect (which doesn’t exist). And I like to do everything right (also not possible).

Because in real life, people fall down, both on the ground and in work and in parenting and in pretty much everything we try,

I have come to adopt a favorite quote about falls.

It’s something that a 14th century mystic named Julian of Norwich said,

and it goes like this:

There is the fall.

And there is the recovery from the fall.

And both are the mercy of God.

And so, as I stomped up the trail in wet clothes and boots, I began to say these words to myself.

Out loud.

And through clenched teeth.

Over and over again.

There is the fall.

And there is the recovery from the fall.

And both are the mercy of God.

Again.

There is the fall.

And there is the recovery from the fall.

And both are the mercy of God.

I don’t even understand why this works for me, but after a while, I began to feel just a tiny bit lighter.

I was still tired and wet, but the anger and frustration lessened a little.

I was grateful to find that repeating these words helped me cope with a fall, because I would have many more opportunities to use them on this rocky, steep trail.

Soon we came to yet another river crossing. The water was deep again. And it was rushing by again. It was cold and fast, and I stepped right in without even stopping to weigh if this was the best place or if I should take off my boots or if this hike was the worst idea I’ve ever had.

I just went on in.

Mercy of God, I said.

And then it happened 7 more times.

7 more places where deep water crossed the trail.

7 more times I didn’t stop and take off my boots and try to stay dry as I crossed the water.

7 more times I stomped through the water and didn’t fall down trying to hop across rocks.

Mercy of God.

In between crossings, my boots made a squishy sloshy noise with every step.

My feet were icy cold and I could feel my toes turning into little mushy raisins inside of my wet socks.

Finally we started gaining enough elevation to leave the water, for today.

Tomorrow we would cross the river and it’s tributaries again over 40 more times, but today we were nearing the end. Only three miles left to go before we could peel off wet clothes and go to sleep.

And then it started raining.

We climbed up for another hour in the rain.

I kept reminding myself that the day would end eventually. I only had to take this one more step.

And then this one.

And on and on.

We were losing daylight, so Kandace pushed ahead and got the tent set up as I hobbled through the last mile.

I couldn’t hurry or I would surely fall again. So I slowed down instead. I hadn’t taken any pictures since putting away my phone for the river crossings, so I dug it out and paused to catch the water dripping off the pine needles.

I told God how much I loved seeing this beauty, even though my entire body was hurting and cold.

We hadn’t seen anyone for miles, so it felt like we had all the woods and trees and creeks to ourselves.

This was what I came for, this being away.

Being in the woods.

Being.

I was already grateful for how my sleeping bag was going to feel.

And for how fast two people can get a tiny tent warm. We ate our dinner inside our sleeping bags, and laughed at how tired we were. We could hear the water rushing in the Kiamichi River not far away, our first crossing the next day would be early.

But the sun was going to be shining. The clouds of the last two days were going to part and we would see blue sky again as we made our way the 13 miles to the Queen Wilhelmina Lodge. Hot showers and beds tomorrow, we told ourselves as we went to sleep.

DAY 5

13 miles to Queen Wilhelmina Lodge. (Mile Marker 51.5)

The sky was clear when we peeked out of our tent. We drank coffee that Kandace made in the tent vestibule.

And then we packed up.

Of course everything was still wet, including the tent. We packed it all up in trash bags again, laughing at how bad our room at the lodge was going to smell that night.

I put on wet socks, wet boots and wet pants. I prayed that the sun would reach us quickly.

Then we set off. We quickly reached the Kiamichi River and had to cross over.

Kandace changed into her sandals and tucked her boots into the top of her pack, and I just walked across in my wet boots.

On our second crossing, Kandace crossed under a tree branch that knocked the top of her pack loose.

The impact knocked her boots out of her pack. She started yelling to me that her boots were floating downstream.

I was already on the other side, so I ran down the river bank but the boots quickly floated past me. I thought they were gone for sure, but then they got hung in a spot on some rocks back on the other side of the river.

So Kandace had to go back in for her boots. She had to cross a deeper section of the river and collect her (now wet) boots.

We knew we had several more crossings so she secured her boots onto her pack hoping they would dry in the sun, while she hiked in her sandals.

On and on we tromped in the river. We were so grateful for the sun.

Even though I was still wet and cold (if we stopped for too long, we would start shivering), I knew that eventually the sun would dry everything.

At Mile Marker 43.5, we made our last crossing and then the trail turned toward Rich Mountain and away from the river.

Up, up, up we climbed.

And finally I got warm.

It turns out that even if you are wet, you can warm up if you’re hiking uphill enough.

I stumbled a bit over the rocky trails, tripping just from being weary.

We were trying to get to the top of the mountain, to the State Line Shelter before we stopped for lunch, but we were hungry and tired, so Kandace found a sunny log and we faced the sun and ate our tuna.

It was glorious.

Probably the best lunch I’ve ever had.

After lunch and a good rest, we walked the rest of the way up to the State Line Shelter. There was a guy camping in the shelter. He had reached it yesterday. Like us, his stuff was all wet, so he was drying out for the day. He was the first person we had seen since our first night on the OT.

We had not seen another human being for over 40 miles. Wild.

He took our picture at the state line between Arkansas and Oklahoma. (His sweet dog photo bombed.)

We had just over four miles left to the lodge, and it was all along the top of the ridge, so it would be pretty flat.

Onward we went.

We were so excited. I couldn’t wait to peel off my boots and wet socks.

But just a little while after leaving the state line, I twisted my ankle and fell all the way to the ground. Hard.

Such a bummer.

Another fall. Another falling.

This time I cried through Julien of Norwich’s words as I slowed my pace to a hobble for the rest of the way to the lodge.

There is the fall.

And there is the recovery from the fall.

Both are the mercy of God.

After a mile or so, I stopped and tied my bandana around my ankle, and then tightened my boots to hold it in place. I drank the rest of my water. And then I pulled myself up.

Ok, I can make it. I can take one more step.

We reached the 50 mile mark, a big milestone. Only a mile and a half to go.

Finally, we made it! The Queen Wilhelmina Lodge!!

We immediately dumped out all our wet stuff and spread it all over the room.

Kandace showered while I iced my ankle. Then I showered.

We rinsed out what we could and left everything to dry.

Then we went to eat dinner.

We both ordered the catfish dinner with hush puppies, okra, fries and green beans.

And beer.

And then hummingbird cake.

And whiskey to finish.

It was divine.

Then we went back to our room and watched Hallmark Christmas movies in bed while I iced my ankle again.

I wasn’t really sure how I was going to walk the rest of the trail, but there was no point in worrying about that when I had a bed and four pillows all to myself.

For the moment, I was blissfully warm and dry. And I would face tomorrow, well tomorrow.

Trail Notes:

This 26.5-mile section of the Ouachita Trail from Winding Stair to Queen Wilhelmina Lodge could easily be done in a weekend.

Possible Itinerary:

Friday afternoon: Drop a car at Queen Wilhelmina State Park and drive back in a second car to Winding Stair Campground. Hike 2 miles (east) to Winding Stair Shelter (Mile Marker 25). Spend the night.

Saturday: Walk 9 miles east from Winding Stair Mountain to Pashubbe Shelter at Mile Marker 34.

Sunday: Hike 17.5 miles to Queen Wilhelmina State Park. Celebrate with dinner at the restaurant. Stay the night if you have an extra day or head home.

If you’re going to hike this section and it’s been raining, I highly recommend checking the Kiamichi River levels before you go. (They say to avoid it if the water is above 4 feet.) More info about the Ouachita Trail can be found on the Friends of the OT website.

If you need to shave a few miles off of the Sunday hike, you could either bring a tent and camp somewhere closer to the middle (which s what we did) or you could have someone meet you at the state line (Mile Marker 46.5) which would cut it down by 4 miles.

The post The Ouachita Trail: Winding Stair to Queen Wilhelmina State Park appeared first on Alison Chino.

25 miles

3 days

Sun, Rain, Wind and Fire

DAY 1

9.3 Miles to Rock Garden Shelter 

On the last day of November, on the Beaver Full Moon, my friend Kandace and I loaded up in my parents’ car and drove from Little Rock to Talimena State Park in Oklahoma. Just a few hours from where I grew up, we climbed into Oklahoma hills that I had never before seen.

It was a gorgeous, bright sunny day. The temperatures dropped as we climbed and they were hovering right at freezing when my parents let us out at the start of the Ouachita Trail.

It was 10:30 in the morning as we set off, loaded down with much heavier packs than I’m used to.

We warmed up as we climbed 1000 feet immediately upon leaving Talimena State Park, quickly burning off the adrenalin that we’d built up from the anticipation of our journey over the last 24 hours.

The night before we spread our gear all over my parents’ house in North Little Rock. We carefully packed our backpacks after lining them with trash bags. Then we prepped our resupplies of food and water (which my parents dropped for us on their way home).

We had been talking about this hike for months.

And now finally, we were here.

We stopped in the afternoon for a lunch of tuna spread on bagels, but we didn’t pause for long. It was too cold and we didn’t want to entirely lose the warmth we had gained from hiking.

We continued on to the high point of the day (2200 feet) before we started dropping down into a valley.

It was all downhill after about 3pm.

When we reached our water stash at Dead Man’s Gap, I was beat.

The sun was dropping behind the hills above us. We walked deeper into shadow and cold air.

The terrain of this whole first day (and really the whole first 50 miles of the OT) was super rocky.

And in most places, the rocks were covered with layers of leaves. You had to watch every step.

The downhill on these rocks and leaves was especially tricky. With my heavy pack, I was putting a lot of strain on my trekking poles to pick my way down the mountain.

So the last mile or two was super slow going, and I felt myself getting colder and colder as I carefully placed each step.

We made it to Rock Garden Shelter just before 5pm. Kandace quickly built a fire and we gathered up more (wet) firewood before it was too dark to see. Even in the light, it was hard to walk around because there were literally rocks everywhere. The shelter could not have been more aptly named. Also, I was shaky with fatigue.

We had our dinner of rehydrated Cilantro Pesto Pasta, which Kandace had made ahead of time with her dehydrator.

It tasted divine, as did all our meals on the Ouachita Trail.

For the last couple of miles the trail, I had been dreaming of holding a warm pouch of food in my hands. It was every bit as wonderful as I had anticipated.

After dinner we hung our food in a bag in a tree a little ways away from the shelter, but we kept out our two little coffee pouches and the jetboil for water, so we could have coffee in our sleeping bags in the morning.

We stayed by the fire as long as we could stand it, watching the full moon rise before us. 

But it was so cold that eventually we abandoned the fire for our sleeping bags.

Two other ladies from Austin, Texas were camping near the shelter in tents, so we had the shelter to ourselves. 

It took me a long time to get warm, and I had to adjust to my thin camp mat, so my sleep was a bit rough.

I spent hours looking at the moon and stars from the little peephole in my cinched up sleeping bag, and eventually I fell asleep.

DAY 2

7.5 miles to Holson Valley Vista Shelter (Mile Marker 16.8)

We woke up to a gorgeous sunrise.

Of course it was so cold.

We enjoyed our coffee in our sleeping bags (water jet-boiled and poured over Starbucks Via packets).

Once we were out of our sleeping bags the only way to get warm was to get moving.

So we quickly packed up, ate some protein bars and started walking.

Immediately we started climbing again, up out of the valley we had descended into the previous afternoon.

This would be a theme on the Ouachita Trail. It can feel a little like you’re just hiking a series of giant W’s.

Down into a valley, up to a ridge, down into a valley, up over a hill, back down, back up.

Rinse and repeat.

One of the reasons you have to head into the valleys is that the water runs there. We always filled up our bladders while we were on the lower parts of the trail, but also because our packs were already so heavy, we were trying to carefully calculate how much water we would need over the next stretch. We didn’t want to carry full water bladders if we didn’t need them.

It became kind of a game to try to drink as much water as possible when we were near water, and then to figure out how to make it stretch when we were at higher elevations.

I struggled with the climbing on this day, and with continuing to walk over the rocky path. Still tired from the first day of hiking, my knees and ankles felt creaky in the cold weather.

When we stopped at 12:30 for lunch, I was discouraged to realize we had only gone 5 miles in 4 hours. We had planned to get 16 miles in on this day, but it was becoming clear that we would not make it nearly that far.

We ate our tuna at a spot where we could look out over the valley below. It was a beautiful view, and I was ready to stop moving for a while. 

But we couldn’t stop for too long without getting cold and stiff, so after eating, we got moving again.

I told myself to just take it a step at a time. Don’t think or worry too much about how far we would get.

Just take one step at a time.

We hiked another couple of hours before we reached Holson Valley Shelter. 

We were so glad to reach the shelter, and to enjoy the views from the ridge on which it was perched.

For several reasons, we decided we would go ahead and stop for the day.

First of all the next shelter was over 8 miles further, which we would never make before dark.

Secondly, a storm was supposed to roll in overnight, so if we hiked just a little further and used the tent instead of a shelter, we would be packing up wet in the morning. And since it’s always better to at least start out dry, we figured we would rather sleep in the shelter and head out into the rain in the morning.

And lastly, we stayed in the shelter because I realized that I had dropped my phone somewhere on the trail. Brilliant.

I could only attribute it to total exhaustion. When I had last checked the map, I suppose I just let it fall to the ground.

We left our packs at the shelter and walked back about a half of a mile before we found it. I was so grateful it was not further back and that it was still functioning after being dropped in the middle of the trail.

After arriving at Rock Garden Shelter just before dark on the first night, it was lovely to have a couple of hours of daylight to burn at the end of the day. It was sunny until about 4:30, but we got the fire going early and kept it burning into the evening.

Kandace read from a book of Mary Oliver poems she was also using as a journal. (Which is such a great idea, as poetry books do tend to have quite a bit of white space.)

We ate our dinner and read Richard Rohr’s daily advent reading; both of us were feeling super grateful about spending the early days of advent in the woods. I wrote in my journal that I loved being outside all day and away from the crazy of the Christmas season and COVID. The simple sounds of the leaves crunching under my boots and the breeze blowing through the trees were the music of the day.

The night got super cold and we were glad for our dry shelter and warm sleeping bags. I slept well after the fitful sleep of the previous night, but I was awake at 5:30 when raindrops started falling on the tin roof of the shelter.

DAY 3

8.4 miles to Winding Stair Shelter…in the rain (Mile Marker 25)

We went to sleep with a starlit sky and a bright moon, but we woke up to clouds and rain rolling in.

I was so thankful for the shelter! We had plenty of room to pack our things up dry, and to put on our rain covers and rain gear before heading out into the rain.

Off we went, stepping bravely out of the dry shelter and into the rain.

Sometimes the rain would lighten up a little bit, and turn to fog and mist in the pine trees.

But then it would start again, and pound even harder. Like it really meant it.

The wind kicked up and made it rain sideways into our faces.

We hiked 3 miles to our first water of the day, and then we found a small trailhead with a bit of an overhang to squeeze underneath at HorseThief Springs.

We had run ourselves out of water the night before, so we boiled water for coffee and oatmeal at our first stop, which was delightful.

This was when we discovered that for the five minutes you have to wait for the oatmeal to re-hydrate, you can put the food pouch inside of your coat to warm yourself.

Bliss.

The next three miles had less rocks and more pine needles which was a relief for walking. We were able to move a little faster in the rain.

There were still just enough patches of rocks covered in (now wet) leaves to make you thankful for the straight, soft sections of pine needle trail.

We had water stashed at Winding Stair Campground, so we filled our bladders and steeled ourselves for the last 2 miles uphill to the shelter.

The rain came down harder than ever as we climbed the long approach to Winding Stair.

You gain 500 feet in this section, so even though I was sloshing through the rain, I was warm by the time I got up the hill.

We reached the shelter before noon. We could have gone on, but the rain was pouring down so hard and we were SO. VERY. WET.

It was a huge relief to get in the shelter and be able to strip off all our wet clothes.

I was wet through all the way to my bones.

All my waterproof gear clearly had a saturation point.

We crawled inside our sleeping bags to get warm.

Then, for the rest of the day, we watched the pouring rain from inside the shelter, drinking tea, eating our lunch, reading, eating our dinner, and then going to sleep.

After the crazy morning of rushing through the rain, it was a strange contrast to spend the rest of the day just hanging out at Winding Stair Shelter.

But this is also kind of the rhythm of hiking for me. Walking, walking, walking followed by being still.

That night I wrote a blog post from my phone. (It turned out to be the only one I wrote while hiking.)

I was wide awake because we had been in our sleeping bags for the entire day.

This day and night at Winding Stair Shelter is still one of my most favorite memories of the whole trail.

Trail Notes:

This 25-mile section of the Ouachita Trail from Talimena State Park to Winding Stair Mountain could easily be done in a long weekend. You could even combine the last two days of this itinerary and knock it out in a weekend with only 2 nights on the trail.

I would recommend hiking it backwards from how we did it if you want a little more downhill.  (So hike east to west.)

Possible Itinerary:

Thursday afternoon: Drop a car at Talimena State Park and drive back in a second car to Winding Stair Campground, stashing water on the way at Dead Man’s Gap. Hike 2 miles (east) to Winding Stair Shelter. Spend the night.

Friday: Walk back down to Winding Stair Campground (refill water and food from your car). Then walk 6 more miles west on the trail to Holson Valley Shelter. Camp over night at Holson Valley. (10 miles total)

Saturday: Hike 7.5 to Rock Garden Shelter. Camp here overnight.

Sunday: Hike 9.3 miles to Talimena State Park. Pick up your car at Winding Stair and head on home.

The post Beginning of The Ouachita Trail: Talimena State Park to Winding Stair Mountain appeared first on Alison Chino.

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The Hardest Hike I’ve Ever Done

The three weeks I hiked on the Camino in September was the longest distance I have ever hiked at one time…266 miles. But it was for sure not the hardest hike I have ever done.

Hiking the Coast to Coast across England was probably more difficult as we had longer mileage days  and higher hills. But I also did the Coast to Coast in September.

In fact, September is quickly becoming my favorite month of the year to walk. The weather is perfect. You start in the summer and end in autumn. The days are still long enough to hike a lot of miles before it gets dark. There’s a lot to love about hiking in September.

But to me, there is something satisfying about pulling off a winter hike. Somehow it’s like you’re defying the seasons and sucking some extra life out of the year by refusing to stay in doors once it gets cold. I’ve never naturally loved winter so it’s especially true for me that when I get outside for a long walk in the cold, I feel an incredible sense of accomplishment.

After a few hours outside on a winter day, I come home and comfort myself with tea and soup. And also hot showers and blankets. It’s a whole process of warming up and congratulating myself on braving the weather.

So when I hiked the 200+ miles of the Ouachita Trail in winter through rain and snow, and slept outside in trail shelters, I felt like a beast. It was not my longest hike, but it was easily the hardest one I have tackled up to this point.

As far as American long distance trails go, the Ouachita Trail is neither long nor hard. The more popular thru-hikes are all much harder and longer. The Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail come in at 2181 miles, 2650 miles and 3100 miles long, respectively. When I consider those distances and the mountain ranges those trails traverse, I know it’s a bit of a mockery to call the OT hard. (212 miles is chump change compared to 2000+ miles!)

BUT, I am not comparing myself to long distance hikers who do the OT in 9-10 days as a training hike in the off-season. (Which is beast indeed.)

I’m comparing my 2 1/2 weeks on the OT to 2 1/2 weeks of my own regular hiking. And by those standards, the OT is – to date – the hardest hike I’ve ever done.

Immediately after hiking the Ouachita Trail in winter, I got sick with a certain virus that has been plaguing our world for the last couple of years. I was sick for 2 months. (I don’t recommend it.)

In a weird plot twist, the moment of my life in which I felt the strongest I have ever been physically was followed by maybe the weakest I have ever been. I went from building muscle all day ling, hiking hills, braving all kinds of weather and sleeping in freezing temps to watching all that strength drain out of me like water when the bathtub plug is pulled. One moment I was hiking almost 20 miles a day and the next I couldn’t walk from the bedroom to the kitchen.

Because the illness was so long, it seemed to me like everything I had gained was lost, like I’d never go for a long walk again.

And since I spent so much of the winter and spring slowly crawling out of a COVID hole, I kind of forgot about the Ouachita Trail. I didn’t write much about it or record it like I had intended.

Now almost a whole year has passed since I walked it.

This time last year, I was training and prepping my gear. I was packing my backpack and carrying it around the neighborhood.

So it feels like a good moment to unearth my Ouachita Trail memories. I’m ready to open up my trail log and reclaim those icy river crossings and starlit nights.

It’s been such a joy to re-live my Camino miles through writing them out on this blog, so my plan is to now do something similar for the Ouachita Trail.

From where I sit, with a bird’s eye view of the whole year in hindsight, I can see that even when you lose all your physical strength, you still have a strength deep within yourself.

And you can always go back to the beginning and start over again.

One step at a time.

The post Hiking The Ouachita Trail in Winter appeared first on Alison Chino.

The Answer To “The Questions That Have Assailed Us All Day”

Yesterday I woke up to a world covered in snow.

I had gone to bed with a heaviness that is all too familiar.

I am forever grateful that mercies are new every morning.

And this snow that had come down all night long felt like an especially new mercy.

Like the whole earth was made new.

I put on all my warm clothes to go walking in the snow.

I can only walk a little ways since being sick. And I walk so slow.

But even a slow, short walk in the woods is enough to temporarily shake my body free of the weight on my chest.

I tromped out into the snow with childlike wonder.

Every branch worthy of stopping in awe.

Look at how the snow piles so high on a tiny twig.

The icing sugar snow is three or four times the thickness of the actual branch.

How does it hold the weight?

The snow was still falling as I made my way around camp, collecting snowflakes on my nose.

And in the hair that stuck out of my stocking cap.

I would take a few steps and then turn around to see my footprints, the only disturbance in the snow-covered path.

What a strange privilege to have this whole world of fallen snow all to myself.

No one else around for miles.

I returned to the cabin to watch the snow fall from inside.

Taking up my usual spot by the fire, I turned to my brand-new-for-2021 daily ritual of reading poetry.

A quick search brought up a whole catalog of snowy poems.

After reading through several, I landed on one about walking in the snow.

And I read it over and over again:

First Snow

by Mary Oliver

The snow

began here

this morning and all day

continued, its white

rhetoric everywhere

calling us back to why, how,

whence such beauty and what

the meaning; such

an oracular fever! flowing

past windows, an energy it seemed

would never ebb, never settle

less than lovely! and only now,

deep into night,

it has finally ended.

The silence

is immense,

and the heavens still hold

a million candles, nowhere

the familiar things:

stars, the moon,

the darkness we expect

and nightly turn from. Trees

glitter like castles

of ribbons, the broad fields

smolder with light, a passing

creekbed lies

heaped with shining hills;

and though the questions

that have assailed us all day

remain — not a single

answer has been found —

walking out now

into the silence and the light

under the trees,

and through the fields,

feels like one.

And though the questions

that have assailed us all day 

remain

Yes, Mary, I thought!

This perfectly expresses how when I go for a walk in the woods,

it certainly doesn’t fix everything…

the questions that have assailed me all day remain.

All day and especially when I try to go to sleep at night,

I am assailed by questions.

Will I ever be able to walk ten miles again? Or even two?

When will my strength return?

Will I be able to taste my food again?

When will I be able to see my children again?
Are they ok? Do they feel alone in the world?

How many more people will die of this virus?

What is going to happen to our country?
Can there ever be an end to corruption? 

Will those in authority ever show the same respectful restraint of violence for Black lives that they show for angry white men?

Can the United States ever break free from our foundation of white supremacy, oppression and violence?

What is my role in such a world?

What does it mean to serve God when the church has lost its way?

Or is it me? Have I lost my way?

But then I walk outside.

Make my way to the waterfall, stop and watch the water come down over the rocks.

I watch the snowflakes fall into the not-yet-frozen pool of water.

This snow all around me does not offer a single answer to my questions.

And yet I have to agree with Mary Oliver, walking in the snow feels like one.

The post Walking in the Snow, The Answer To The Questions That Have Assailed Us All Day. appeared first on Alison Chino.

It’s 5am and I’ve been awake a couple of hours already, which might have something to do with the fact that I’ve been holed up in my sleeping bag since yesterday afternoon.

I woke up yesterday morning to rain on the tin roof of the Holdon Valley Vista Shelter. We had stopped at the shelter instead of pushing on a few more miles because we knew rain was in the forecast and we wanted to be able to pack up dry. The fact that we were able to load up our packs and get dressed in our full rain gear while under the cover of the shelter is part of why I have wanted to hike the Ouachita Trail.

These three-walled wooden structures that provide a dry place to sleep every night along the trail make it easier for me to keep going. They have picnic tables and fire rings and sometimes are equipped with firestarter and a tarp for windy nights.

So when we stepped out into the rain yesterday, we knew we had a safe, dry place to land, even if it rained all day. Which it did.

I had hours to contemplate walking in the rain. To give thanks for my years of wet walks in Scotland, training for this very moment. Every past mile I have trampled through mud and wind blowing water in my face has equipped me for this moment.

Not that those miles make this present one easier. Or less wet. But all those accumulated steps give me some certainty that it’s possible to walk in the rain. I have done this before. So I feel pretty sure I can do it again. And that I won’t die.

My training in rain walking keeps me from passing my time by fighting the rain. I don’t spend all day moaning and wishing it would stop. I just keep walking.

Just this step.

Then just one more.

And one more.

And on and on.

Not that there are not miserable moments, but they are scattered in with the pure joy of being alive and deep in the woods.

I notice that my feet hurt.

I notice the way the ferns glisten in the rain.

I notice that my waterproof boots don’t seem to be waterproof after 8 miles of rain.

I notice the way the pine needle bed below me is softer than the rocks we walked on yesterday.

I notice that my pack feels lighter. And then we stop for water and I notice all the ways it feels heavy. And I think about what’s in it and what I could let go of.

And then I notice the way the moisture in the air is painting the woods with mist.

And then there are the long stretches where I don’t notice anything. The beautiful monotony of step after step after step of just being.

And this is what I keep coming back to the woods for. This presence. Moment to moment of being with the steps.

No more fighting myself or the trail or the weather. No more arguing in my head about whether or not I can make it. Of course those things will return but eventually they go away again if I just keep trusting enough to take one more step.

And then one more.

The rain was coming down in buckets by the time we reached the next shelter on the trail. The welcome sight of it in the distance elicited a giddy shout from somewhere deep inside of me. I was soaked to my bones. I suppose all waterproof gear eventually has a saturation point. About three miles earlier I had stopped composing tweets in my head to outdoor companies about waterproof gear that isn’t waterproof. (I’m looking at you Merrell.)

Kandace and I stripped everything off, pulled our blessedly dry sleeping bags out of our trash bag lined packs and crawled inside them to get warm.

For the rest of the day we sat inside our bags, watching the rain pound the ground and the picnic table, commenting on the way the wind had picked up and feeling beyond grateful for these Ouachita Trail Shelters.

We made hot broth.

Then hot tea.

And later hot pouches of Kale White Bean Pasta that Kandace had made and dehydrated weeks earlier. She prepared all our meals this way, and I can’t even explain how dearly loved I feel every time we pull out our pouches with her handwritten labels and instructions (Add 1 cup water. Let sit 20 min).

We figured out that while you’re waiting for the meal to rehydrate, you can tuck the pouch inside your jacket like a little heater.

“It’s like hugging the sun.” Kandace said.

Which feels like a line in a Mary Oliver poem.

Which fits because the only book we’re carrying between us is a book of Mary Oliver poems that Kandace brought. She read one a few days ago by the campfire that I can’t stop thinking about.

Something about reaching a place where the only calendar you know is the tides.

And that we only have today.

This one day.

And maybe one more.

No one really knows.

I don’t know if I can capture how I feel when I hear these words written by someone else who loved to be in the woods as much as I do (and probably even more).

But if this is my one day, I would still want to wake up and walk in it with you. Even if it’s raining.

The post Notes from The Ouachita Trail: Walking in the Rain appeared first on Alison Chino.

Well friends, the end of 2020 is within sight.

I daresay it’s been a year we will never forget, even if we want to.

But before this year is over, I am hoping to squeeze in a little (socially-distanced) adventure AND bring some light and love to the world in the process.

So I am going to hike the Ouachita Trail with my dear friend, Kandace. You might remember we hiked the Camino last year and we did a virtual hike with St Francis back in April. 

Walk with us!

The Ouachita Trail is a quiet trail (so COVID safe). It begins in Oklahoma and ends at Pinnacle Mountain near my home in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Lord willing and the creek don’t rise (literally), Kandace and I will cover the entire 223 miles in a little over two weeks. You can follow us while we are walking (rain or shine) on our Instagram @humiltywalk. 

When Kandace and I started Humility Walk a little over a year ago, we dreamed that it would be bigger than just the two of us walking on trails. We hoped that Humility Walk would be a way to make the world more beautiful by going on walks. So just like last year, we want to invite you to walk with us.

Because we are walking near where so many of our friends and family live, we would love to have you join us for a day of (socially distanced) walking outside if you’re interested. (Just shoot us a message.)

But no matter where you live, we would love for you to walk virtually with us.

Go for walks in your neighborhood or in a nearby forest in December and tag us @humility walk. 

$4500 for local food banks.

And because it’s the holidays and this year has been especially difficult for so many people around the world, we would love to encourage you to donate to your local food bank in honor of Humility Walk. The statistics around food insecurity this year because of the pandemic are staggering. As many as 1 in 4 households are reaching out to food banks, and they are all struggling to keep up with the demand. Even this summer, it was estimated that 14 million children were regularly missing meals — three times more than during the Great Recession and five times more than before the pandemic.

You can find your local food bank in the US by searching with your zip code here. Or you can give to the Arkansas Foodbank. Our goal is to raise $4500 for local food banks while we are walking. If we walk an average of 14 miles a day and 20 people give $14 each day (one dollar for every mile we walk), then we will easily reach our goal. Because we want to keep up with how much we raised, we would LOVE for you to tell us you donated. So text or email us, or donate through the link on our Instagram.

To spread the word (and the love), you can copy and paste the following:

I just donated [amount you donated] to [name of your local food bank]

for #HumiltyWalkOuachitaTrail,

an effort by @humilitywalk to raise money for people in need. 

Join the challenge by finding your local food bank here.

See you on the trail!

XO
Alison

The post Ouachita Trail, Here We Come. appeared first on Alison Chino.