10/8-15/05: Ouachita National Forest, Western Arkansas

October 8-15, 2005
Ouachita National Forest, Western Arkansas - by Steve Baker
The theme for this years Trail Tamers trip to the Ouachita National forest must be, "Sometimes life has other things planned for you." Our trip leader, George Boemerman, did the pre-trip planning and communications but on Saturday, October 8, got a call that he was needed in Virginia due to a family medical emergency. That left Chuck Lundstedt, Terence Donovan, Rocky Nelson, and me. I agreed, earlier in the planning, to carry the kitchen tent and cooking gear. We had the necessities to make our camp, but we knew we would miss "Boemer".

Our Forest Service contact, Paul Tankersley, arranged for us to stay in the Queen Wilhelmina State Park that is within the Ouachita National Forest. We were assigned to the "overflow" camping area that turned out to be a large, beautifully manicured lawn across the access road from the RV campsites. We were within twenty yards of the exceptionally clean bathhouse with easy access to electricity and water. The views were excellent and one of the nicest car camping environments one could ask for. The park also has a lodge with a very nice restaurant which we visited our final evening in camp.

We arrived Sunday afternoon and set up camp. Later that day our Forest Service trail crew leader, Tom, stopped by to fill out paperwork and coordinate for the weeks work. We agreed that he would meet us at camp Monday morning at 0700 and we would drive to the first work site that was about 10 miles east of the park.

Tom arrived at 0630 Monday morning and we were on the road by 0645. We parked at the Foran Gap trailhead, gathered our tools and hiked in just over a mile to the first project planned for us; a 200 yard long reroute of the Ouachita Trail. Tom had flagged the route but everything from brushing the line to final tread cutting needed to be done. We soon discovered that the predominant flora in the area is poison ivy so long sleeves were necessary. Rocky knew himself to be prone to ivy reaction; the rest of us would find out later in the week. We worked steadily all day and had the majority of the reroute cut by that evening but would require half a day on Tuesday to haul dirt from the back slopes to fill in tread over rocky areas. On the way back to camp, we went through Mena, AR to stop at the Wal-Mart and buy additional long sleeve shirts and hydrocortisone ointment.

Tuesday we returned to complete the previous days work and had it done by lunch. Tom had to work elsewhere but had flagged out sections of the trail for about a mile further in that needed water bars and re-tread work. We hiked in to the end of the marked area and began work on those sections. Due to the remoteness of the area, we were able to cache our tools and didn’t have to carry them in and out each day.

By Wednesday morning both Rocky and Terence were showing signs of poison ivy contact on their arms, in spite of wearing long sleeves, but neither complained or missed a beat of work. Chuck and I never did have any reaction. Wednesday and the first half of Thursday were similar work in the same area; re-treading sloughed in sections of the trail, building water bars and reinforcing drainage crossing. The final total for that section was 200 yards of new trail, 6 water bars, two reinforced drainage crossings and almost two miles of restored trail.

Thursday afternoon we relocated to another section of the O.T. closer to Queen Wilhelmina. This section was steep and rocky with some badly eroded areas. Tom marked the location of many needed water bars and areas that needed to be repaired. We completed several water bars but decided to knock off an hour early; we came out about 3:30 PM.

Traditionally on these trips, Friday has been an off day but Chuck, Terence and I decided to work at least part of the day. Rocky said it was "time to see his bride" and left Friday morning. The remainder of us worked until about 1:30 PM having completed an additional 10 water bars, one drainage crossing and more retread bringing the trip total up to almost 3 miles of trail worked in 140.5 man hours. We returned to camp to load up the kitchen tent and gear. We treated ourselves to a restaurant meal at the lodge that evening, a nice buffet.

Paul and Tom came by the camp Friday evening to thank us for the work and indicated we would be welcome to return.

This is an excellent venue for those wanting to do some badly needed, serious trail work but still like a shower in the evening. Try to include it in your plans for next year.