Best Hiking Trails For A Paddler And Wife

[gannon311]

give me some of the best

[Cowper]

Depends on your tolerance for "bushwhacking".

If you want a trail, one of my favorites would be Lost Valley; the creek has only been run once that I know of, through the natural bridge, but the scenery is appealing to Ozark Creek boaters, and you can't knock the rock house cave, or the smaller cave with the underground waterfall.

An even shorter hike is to just hike the Cossatot Falls, from the campground - within 1/4 mile you're climbing over rocks and drooling at the thought of more water. And you can spend a day of bliss just sitting on those smooth rocks and staring at the water, or swimming in the pools if it is summer.

If you're both up for some bushwhacking (as in no trail), then Graves Creek has a beautiful mini-box canyon, Boss Hollow has an impressive 1/3 mile bedrock section plus the bigger drops to impress, or you can pretty much pick any creek listed on the OWP and just go hike it when things are really dry. (The advantage to "dry" hikes is more time spent on the rocky creek bed, less time spent in the poison ivy.)

[RomanLA]

An even shorter hike is to just hike the Cossatot Falls, from the campground - within 1/4 mile you're climbing over rocks and drooling at the thought of more water. And you can spend a day of bliss just sitting on those smooth rocks and staring at the water, or swimming in the pools if it is summer.

My girls would love that!!! They loved climbing on the boulders at Petit Jean and Mt. Nebo. Sounds like a great weekend trip for this summer!

[dwilson]

Get a National Geograpic topo map of the Buffalo. Look for the areas where the lines are stacked close together and go to those places. That's what I've been doing the last couple of years. Good way to see neat stuff and not worry bout stepin in horse crap.

[Clif]

Almost as many questions come in to play with that as do with what river to paddle. Many will suggest some Tim Ernst guide books.

You wanna loop trail? One you gotta shuttle? Flat? more "interesting" terrain? Bathrooms at the end? How long? So many options. Luckily Arkansas has sooo many answers. I like the points already made and bushwakin is our thing.

geocaching.com can lead you to lots of interesting spots. You can use maps even if no gps. Info on how far to overlooks, waterfalls etc.

[David Mac]

Using geocaches to find good hiking takes either a lot of luck or a lot of filtering. In the early days of caching it might have been true that finding a cache in the woods would likely lead you to someplace interesting to hike, but thanks to MicroSpew(tm) you now have to sort through a few hundred listings to find the few gems.

Having found quite a few myself I can certainly recommend some of the good ones if you want to go that route, but as with recommending trails in general it depends largely on the type of hiking you like in the first place.

David

[Clif]

Points like Glory Hole, other waterfalls, Hawksbill/Whitaker point, the overlook west of Tyler Bend on the Buffy... that is the kind of places I was pointing out. Cache pages to these spots show a map, and sometimes a general idea of how far and difficult of a walk. By no means expect something at every cache, and you be right, David, tons of them with nothing signif at all. You would have to read thru many duds to find the diamonds.

Pedestal rocks is a great place to explore... may still have ice damage tho. Well marked trails and be sure to explore underneath on the Pedestal Rock side.. neat caves.

[iYak]

Fern Gulley has a nice trail that will get you to some great spots. If you feel like it you can hike further down the creek after the trail ends.

Down the creek about 1/3 mile or so past the climbing rocks, on river right, is a cool spot with a bunch of house size rocks with hallways between them. There are a bunch of big rapids further on down the creek. One of the most impressive looking rapids is Rocket Slide, but it's towards the end of the run and would be more easily accessed by going to the takeout (Little Mill putin), which is not very far by road.

[Fish]

Fern Gulley is the most easily accessible hike on a steep creek in the state. Park and walk about 100 feet to the creek. Tons of great stuff to explore and bonus points if you find the Geocache! :)

- Fish

[BooF4FooD]

Couldnt find the geocaches, but found a cool video of you (fish), or at least i think its you, in a somewhat sticky situation... http://www.bliss-stick.com/bliss-stick/ ... ebsize.wmv" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Richard]

How long a trail? What part of the state? Would it be in conjuction with paddling. One I did a couple of times when the water was good was to paddle from Ponca Bridge to Steele Creek then hike the Buffalo River trail back to Ponca to retrieve the car. There are some nice trails at Tyler Bend. Or paddle from Spring Creek to Hwy 14 then hike back 6 miles on the new section of trail.
So again:
How long a trail?
What part of the state?
Would it be in conjuction with paddling?

[gannon311]

out of the way natural beauty, day hikes , preferably loop trails.any thing less than using climbing equipment thanks jeff

[dog]

1. King's river falls scenic area - short trail, goes to falls/scenic area great picnic area, good for short off-trail hikes, lots of adam and eve swimming holes.
2. Pedestal rocks trail -
3. Alum Cove Trail - natural bridges, hollows/bluffshelter
4. Marinoni scenic area- find this on a segment of the Ozark Highlands Trail near the Mulberry

[Fish]

Couldnt find the geocaches, but found a cool video of you (fish), or at least i think its you, in a somewhat sticky situation... http://www.bliss-stick.com/bliss-stick/ ... ebsize.wmv" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Wow, don't think I ever saw Noah's footage from that day. Fern Gulley at low water still has plenty of kick to it! My flailing around is in the very-high-gravity-zone at The Split. Nice angle of dropping Big Juju though. :) Rocket Slide is always rockin at any level too. Man, we gotta get some good water on that one again and get a crew who want to take on the beast of Franklin Co. :twisted:

- Fish