OUTDOOR AWARENESS

This would be the fourth leg of our attempt to complete the 223 mile Ouachita National Scenic Recreation Trail. On Wednesday, I flew to Dallas for work and ended the evening by driving and sleeping in Talimena State Park in Oklahoma. This would be my first of several cold nights, with evening temperatures in the upper 30's. The next morning, I drove to Story, Arkansas to have breakfast and meet my hiking partner at the nearby trailed.

We started at our previous completion point, the Big Brushy Trailhead near US Hwy 270 at around 1pm. Given the afternoon start, we planned for a short 6.4 mile hike to the Fiddler Creek Shelter. It was a pretty simple, uneventful hike and we reached the shelter around 3pm. In addition to the quickly decreasing temperatures the winds were very high, eliminating the possibility of creating a fire to extend the evening hours. Instead, we climbed into our sleeping bags in our hammocks around 8 or 9pm and quickly fell asleep. Although hammocks are a great bit of gear for these trips, having low weight and requiring no ground footprint in a hilly forest, you don't have any insulation at the base. Sleeping bag manufacturers assume you'll be sleeping on an insulated pad, and don't insulate the base of the sleeping bag. Therefore, as the hammock has no insulation, you are fighting a lot of cold on your back. We attempted to insulate ourselves with our ponchos, but that was only marginally effective. As a result, we had a pretty chilly night in the upper 30's.

Friday as a pretty critical day amongst these five days. While Thursday had some sun and heavy winds, Friday was colder, very windy, and seemed on the brink of raining all day. At times we a light sprinkle, and worried it was going to open up. In spite of the weather, we were hiking on exposed ridges. You can see in the pictures, even with trees partially obstructing the views were excellent. However, even when we got to a nice elevation with unobstructed views, like the Suck Mountain Shelter the cold wind made staying there very uncomfortable. So, we quickly took pictures and "enjoyed" the view, but moved on. Our original plan was to bivouac after an 11 mile hike, but reaching that point at 1pm made us reconsider our itinerary. It was another 5 miles to the Story Creek Shelter, which was very reasonable in another 2 hours. This would give us better shelter against the wind and protection if it should rain. After a 17 mile hiking day, we arrived at the Story Creek Shelter. It was a very long side trail to get down to the shelter, but the view of the river valley was excellent. Unfortunately, tonight was the coldest night yet. Maybe 36'. Both of us were shivering in our hammocks around 3am.

The extra distance we made on Friday, allowed us to have some more lazy days on Saturday and Sunday. Therefore, given the lack of sleep on Friday, I slept in a bit till 8am. It was a great view to wake up, look out through the shelter, see and hear the running river. Since we hiked that extra distance on Friday, we resolved to go into "tourist mode". Humorously, the remaining days on the trip would be particular hot. We started the morning by applying sunscreen, which was very helpful in the bright and warm sunshine we would receive this day. We stopped a little more for pictures, rested and snacked more than usual. We had 11 miles to hike to the Uncle Bill Potter shelter.

Sunday was the hottest day of the five. The high temperature was over 70'. We were OK with water, but "trail angels", volunteers that provide assistance to hikers were amazing. They left a few stashes of cold water. These were divine when hot and thirsty we arrived upon them. Nearing the Big Branch Shelter, there was a great unobstructed vista of the forest valley with a rock to sit on! Perfect. Again, we took our time today, as we only had 8 miles to reach the Big Branch Shelter. It was a very long side trail to get down to it. Although there was nice water supply down there, it was pretty low lying and marshy. We had a pleasant surprise to run into two through hikers. One a recent high school graduate, and another a 64 year old financial services retiree. It's always cool to run into through hikers, who have such great stories and bring and exciting vibe to the camp.

Monday was only a 5 mile hike out. However we wanted to have breakfast in Story, so headed out early. That was a fortunate decision as it started to rain about 30 minutes prior to reaching our vehicle. We put on ponchos, and pretty comfortably finished the remaining section by about 9am. In total we hiked 47 miles.