The coalition that planned the 45-mile Lake Ouachita Vista Trail -- the LOViT -- will celebrate its completion by cutting a ribbon at 1 p.m. Tuesday in the Avery Recreation Area next to Blakely Mountain Dam in Garland County.
Not just any old length of plastic flagging, this ribbon will symbolize 12 years of trail design and construction by private individuals and public entities. The project was conceived by the Lake Ouachita Citizens Focus Committee and involved a dozen local, state and federal organizations.
It spawned the volunteer LOViT Traildogs, a club of mostly geriatric retirees who have enthusiastically applied professional organizational skills and a gradually attenuating appetite for stoop labor to trail building and maintenance.
Speaking at the ceremony will be Col. John W. Cross of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Norman Wagner, forest supervisor for the Ouachita National Forest; Joe David Rice, tourism director for the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism; Jeff Crow, deputy director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission; and Steve Schneider, regional director of the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA).
Afterward, attendees can bike or hike 2 miles of the Blakely Mountain section of the trail, with shuttles provided for people who don't have time for a 4-mile round-trip.
Designated an Epic Ride by IMBA, the LOViT is a 90 percent single-track path that traverses creeks and springs in valleys and hollers while crossing five mountains on the southern shore of Arkansas' largest manmade lake. With 13 trailheads and parking at intervals along its length, the multiuse path connects to nine campgrounds and six resorts.
More information is at lakeouachitavistatrail.com.
ActiveStyle on 10/27/2014