MOUNTAIN PINE - Fifteen LOViT Traildogs finished building the Lake Ouachita Vista Trail on April 11, marched out of the woods and ate a cake.
In 12 years, the LOViT has grown from an idea proposed by Mount Ida resident Jerry Shields at a meeting of the Lake Ouachita Citizens Focus Committee, to a highly scenic, 45-mile path through quartz-laden hills in the public lands above the southern shore of Lake Ouachita.
“Let me say this again: We have done it,” said Shields, one hand atop the LOViT’s newly planted easternmost trail marker, a strap of Carsonite steadied by rocks gathered near Blakely Mountain Dam.
The trail emerges from the woods on Avery Access Road near the driveway to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Avery Park in the dam spillway area.
“That has a day-use area with restrooms and a big pavilion with parking, so it makes a good place for events to begin or end,” Shields said, adding that the western trailhead, near the ADA Trail at Denby Bay, also has restrooms and parking. “We have thought this thing through.”
As planned by the focus committee, the path links private resorts and public campgrounds on the lake as well as the Charlton Recreation Area on U.S. 270, creating an attraction to lure visitors into tourism-dependent businesses during fishing’s off-season.
Designed for hiking and mountain biking but not for horses or all-terrain vehicles, the unpaved path can be divided logically into eight sections based on terrain and shuttle access points. But it was built in nine stages, by a citizen-county-state-and-federal partnership coordinated by Shields and Al Gathright, a fellow member of the focus committee who also lives near the lake.
They drew a small core of supporters to the project, including the sweat-providing volunteers they named Traildogs in a stroke of marketing genius. Shields is “Alpha Dog,” and Gathright calls himself “the beta dog.” The rest of the Traildogs are mostly retirees and mostly now stooped exemplars of overbuilt shoulders and arthritic joints.
“We have been working on this trail for 10 years without any bylaws and without any formal hierarchy,” said Robert Cavanaugh, a retired university dean from Pencil Bluff who is a longtime Traildog.
After lopping stobs and moving rocks off the final 700 feet of tread, the Traildogs adjourned to nearby Stephens Point Park to roast hot dogs and eat watermelon next to the fireplace.
Employees of the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Arkansas Wildlife Federation as well as members of the outdoorsy nonprofit Central Arkansas Trail Alliance and the Arkansas Master Naturalists joined in eating the cake provided by Brenda Meeks, Ouachita project manager for the Corps of Engineers.
The pavilion was crowded, but a larger assembly - an almost unreadably long list of agencies and organizations - has helped over the years, as anyone keen to see credits can see by perusing blog archives at lakeouachitavistatrail.com.
“I think one key to the speed of this has been that once we got started we have never missed a winter working on the trail,” Cavanaugh said. “It really hasn’t slowed down.”
Shields estimates the project required more than 12,000 hours of volunteer labor.
The trailbuilders raised more than $2 million in grants, donations, in-kind work and land transfers from private timber companies.
The first 5.2 miles between Denby Bay and Tompkins Bend campground were hacked, grubbed by hand and sweated upon through the winter of 2005-2006. That effort made the Traildogs willing to pay for earthmoving equipment.
“We didn’t have it on the first leg, but since then we’ve been able to get grant money and rent equipment,” Cavanaugh said. “Forest Service operated it for us, and the Corps operated some. And then the last two years we’ve hired Progressive Trail Design, who are mountain bikers out of Fayetteville. They build these trails all over the country. They really do a fine job.”
Progressive Trail Design used specialized earthmovers to carve and smooth the final 10 miles over Brady and Blakely mountains, allowing the Traildogs to hand-finish the tread with significantly less struggle.
But “I have blisters that I got today,” said Derwood Brett of Mount Ida, a retired newspaperman who has been a Traildog for seven years.
Besides Brett, Shields, Gathright and Cavanaugh, the final day’s workers included the oldest Traildog, 75-year-old Mike Curran, a retired Forest Service district supervisor, as well as John Joswick, Jay Marsh, Jim Baggenstoss, Bruce Alt, Wayne Shewmake, Melody Lindhag, Doug Pence, Chuck Dumas, Dan Watson and John Nichols.
Nichols and Marsh were “hatted” - given Traildog logo caps - along with not-subtle hints that they are expected to help maintain the trail’s newest section.
Attention now turns to installing signs about the history and geology of the area, direction signs and more benches. The benches honor supporters who donate $500 to the trail.
Shields said he expects a grand opening event in October when all the signs are in place.
ActiveStyle, Pages 23 on 04/21/2014