Hi all,
Thought I'd share some pics of our outing last weekend. The original group was to include Hambone and Ogtheking, but they had scheduling issues that kept them from making the trip. So, I did some looking and we changed the original route to a loop that began at the state park. We planned a loop that went north on Old Military Road to Boardstand Trail, go south to the Ouachita mtn trail and take it back east to the state park. would have been about 22 miles and was to be 3 days/2 nights.
Friday started great. Got there at 10am, registered, etc, etc and off we went. Temp was in the 50s/low 60s - perfect for a walk in the woods. We thought that we'd make it 5 miles or so, make camp, and then get a full day in on Saturday. Along the way we stopped and took the obligatory scenic pictures. You can see that the leaves were just starting to get some color to them. There were a few interesting "tree formations" along the trail, so I included one here.
We got a full 7.5 miles and ended up making the Boardstand trail and crossing FR6555 before making camp. My daughter (who doesnt have trail name yet) did a fine job of setting up her her hammock and tarp. We gathered some wood, made a nice fire, cooked dinner and then the wind started to really blow! Rocked our stuff all night long.
Next morning my knee decided that it wasnt happy. I supposed I strained it or something during one of the climbs. We were just at the point were we were going to head down into the next valley, and rather then get caught down there with a really sore knee I made the call to head back to the park. Lucky for us, FR6555 would take us 4 miles back toward the park and I would get to miss all the stress of the trail. We still had to traverse 2 miles of uphill climb to get to the rest area on the scenic drive, and my knee counted every step of the way.
Hope you enjoy the pics. Even though my knee acted up, I wouldn't have traded this trip for anything. We're already talking about getting a ride to Boardstand Trail and picking up where we left off.
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