Are We There Yet?

ARKANSAS SIGHTSEEING: Hike in state park good way to start the new year

Three guided First Day Hikes of varying length and difficulty will set off Tuesday morning on Lake Ouachita’s Caddo Bend Trail.
Three guided First Day Hikes of varying length and difficulty will set off Tuesday morning on Lake Ouachita’s Caddo Bend Trail.

LAKE OUACHITA STATE PARK -- New Year's resolutions are a dime a dozen. And many aren't worth a plugged nickel as the days and weeks unfold. Still, self-improvement is an admirable ambition -- perhaps enough to inspire a First Day Hike on Tuesday in an Arkansas state park.

New Year's Eve revelers will likely be slumbering fitfully when some of the guided hikes get underway on Tuesday morning. That'll be the case at Lake Ouachita, one of the more than dozen state parks with planned walks on 2019's first day.

"Auld Lang Syne" may still be ringing in some ears when three hikes of varying length and difficulty step off at 9 a.m. at the popular state park 15 miles northwest of downtown Hot Springs. On some New Year's Days, more than 100 hikers -- presumably early-to-bed types -- have shown up for the Lake Ouachita group walks.

Led by park interpreters along the Caddo Bend Trail, participants can do the easy itinerary of one mile, lasting about an hour. A middling option is the moderate route, which takes about two hours to cover roughly three miles. The full four-mile route, ranked as challenging, is a three-hour adventure.

Free of charge, all three hikes will set off from the picnic tables at the visitor center. A campfire and warm drinks will be available at the start. Hikers are reminded to dress warmly and to wear sturdy boots or shoes for navigating the rocky stretches of Caddo Bend Trail. Taking water is also a good idea.

For later sleepers, a self-guided afternoon hike along all or part of Caddo Bend Trail is possible on New Year's Day. A brochure available at the visitor center includes a map of the trail that runs along the park's Point 50 peninsula. There's also a detailed account of what can be seen along the way -- including the categories of animal, vegetable and mineral.

Wildlife commonly spotted along the trail "includes squirrels, birds and deer. If you look closely, you might find signs of wild turkey, beaver, fox, coyote and bobcats. Look for tracks, hollow logs, rock dens, droppings, deer rubs on young tree trunks, and beaver-gnawed trees."

The trail "passes through a forest of hardwoods and shortleaf pine. Hardy oaks, shortleaf pine and hickories make up the forest canopy. In April 2011, an EF2 tornado passed over the peninsula and the Caddo Bend Trail. Along your hike, you will transition between areas damaged by the storm and sections minimally affected by the strong winds."

Some hikers "find the geological features an interesting aspect of the trail. The most spectacular of these is at the tip of the peninsula, near Point 50. Of specific interest are folded layers of Paleozoic sandstone and shale, a bluff of conglomerate rock formed by an underwater landslide, shoreline caves formed by the erosive action of waves, and an abundance of quartz outcroppings."

If the Caddo Bend Trail sounds too challenging even later in the day, the mainly level Dogwood Trail is a loop of just a half-mile, starting a bit northeast of the visitor center.

The Arkansas State Park system does First Day Hikes as part of a national endeavor involving all 50 states. The hikes, as the program's website asserts, "provide a means for individuals and families to welcome the coming year in the outdoors, exercising and connecting with nature."

On Jan. 1, 2018, "nearly 55,000 people rang in the new year, collectively hiking more than 133,000 miles throughout the country on the guided hikes. Numerous others hiked state park trails during the day."

However numerous those "others" might have been, it seems that doing a guided or footloose hike on Tuesday would put a person in extremely exclusive company as another year begins.

More information on First Day Hikes at Lake Ouachita and other Arkansas state parks can be found at arkansas.com.

Weekend on 12/27/2018

Upcoming Events