Friends of the Ouachita Trail, or FoOT, is a nonprofit volunteer organization with its members serving as the boots on the ground to maintain and improve the 223-mile Ouachita National Recreational Trail. Forestry officials are also designated to help maintain the trail, but there are over 900 miles of trail under the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Forest Service’s Arkansas jurisdiction. So, FoOT is filling in where there is a lack of manpower.
FoOT won the Volunteer Program Group Award for the organization’s maintenance and project efforts. One of the major projects FoOT has undertaken is building trail shelters every 10 miles along the trail. This is an improvement on some shelters that were built around 20 years ago by the U.S. Forest Service.
Tom Ledbetter is a Ouachita National Forest recreation technician who understands the unique challenges that go along with maintaining the trail. Ledbetter built the first new shelter in the Jessieville
district. He calls the shelters Adirondack-style structures, noting that they are emulations of similar shelters on the Appalachian Trail.
“These folks put these things together in some very inaccessible places,” Ledbetter said. “Most of the time, the lion’s share of the work is, physically, going to be getting [the materials from where they are] unloaded to where [the shelter is] going to be constructed. The logistics are quite interesting to us.
“We have 192 miles of the Ouachita trail. It’s a linear trail. It actually begins, or ends, depending on how you look at it, in [Talimena] State Park in Talihina, Oklahoma. You’re looking at a linear trail of that length. Quite a few sections are going to be accessible, you know, by major highways or Forest Service roads. Then you have some sections that are quite inaccessible because [they] will traverse through wilderness areas.”
Robert Cavanaugh, FoOT’s vice president of development, said the group wants to have 12 shelters built by the time the project is finished. After 16 months, seven shelters have been completed.
“When we build one of these shelters,” Cavanaugh said, “there’ll be 10 or 12 of us show up, and we’ll work hard for 3 1/2 to four days. And I’m talking about a 10-hour workday. It’s hard work, it’s unpaid, but it’s fun. We have a great time out there.”
Aside from building shelters, the group also has its members adopt a section of the trail to maintain. When a group of trail enthusiasts made their way to the Ouachita trail in the wake of an ice storm in 2000, FoOT was born out of the need to make sure the trail has proper upkeep.
“Things were pretty well torn up,” Cavanaugh said. “Trees were down; the trail was in danger of disappearing.”
To preserve the trail, members of the group banded together. Now the organization has ballooned to include around 200 people. The members pledge to maintain a stretch of the trail. Whether it’s a mile, two or five miles, the group is consistent in its endeavors.
“They’re very resourceful,” Ledbetter said, “very dependable and very passionate about what they do. I enjoy working with them.”
One of the most rewarding parts of working with FoOT for Cavanaugh is when he hears from people who enjoy the results of the group’s hard work on the trail.
“We have a journal in each of these shelters,” Cavanaugh said. “It’s a notebook and a couple of pencils or pens there. Campers and hikers write comments in there, and they’re always so positive it makes you feel very good to read them. I ride my mountain bike a lot, and I enjoy riding the trails, stopping in the shelters and reading the journals. It makes you feel good about what we’re doing.”
Cavanaugh got heavily involved with FoOT after he retired in 2007. His job is to secure grants and other means of funding for the group’s projects. FoOT was awarded grant money to build shelters along the trail in Oklahoma and acquired private donations for the three shelters built in Arkansas.
The group has a website and a Facebook page for interested parties, and the website features a trail-conditions map that is updated to reflect the status of the trails.
“Last winter we had a pretty bad ice storm over to the west of the Mount Ida area,” Cavanaugh said. “It took us awhile to get that cleared up. We try to let people know what the trail’s going to be like.”
Cavanaugh said he has pride in the praise members of the group receive and believes their work has an impact on the future of the trail.
“That’s what we’re trying to do,” Cavanaugh said, “leave something for the people that come after us. It’s good to be recognized by the Forest Service, as well as by the average hiker.”
Staff writer Morgan Acuff can be reached at (501) 918-4508 or morgan@syncweekly.com.