October Arkansas Wandering

Sunday, October 23, 2022

October Arkansas Wandering

A new angle of presentation materialized on the recent journey south into north central Arkansas. It seemed it might be fun leveraging Google Earth to share these adventures. A lot of consideration ensued with that in mind, and the road unfurled under beautiful blue skies.

The weekend lived on the backroads, a few of which were captured on the GoPro. It all started with a detour down AR-66 in Leslie. Weary of the view from US-65, the alternate route east along AR-66 from Leslie offered considerably less traffic and beautifully windy roads. Turning south on AR-263 just before arriving at Timbo took the expedition south to AR-9 at Rushing and on to Shirley and the old Missouri & North Arkansas Railroad bridge that crosses the Middle Fork of the Little Red River.

The crossing was assembled in 1907 and opened to travel in 1909, running until 1946. After that it received concrete makeover for motor vehicle traffic and nobody looked back, or down for that matter. Passing through can be somewhat hair-raising.

Ghosts and ghouls greeted the evening of arrival, through an array of decorations for the Halloween holiday. It was quite a site.

Checking in on Mossy Bluff National Nature Trail the next day found things a bit dryer than usual. This year had been hard on cascades and waterfalls.

Following up on a a personal project initiated on the last visit to this area, scouted yet another old logging trail within the Jim Kress Wildlife Management Area. This led along a path of shedding pines dry creek beds, leading from Warren Mountain Road to the Big Creek crossing of the same road.

Circling around and following along a few new highways back to home base led to yet another Big Creek crossing at Tiger B Road.

A good dinner and conversation with family and friends closed out adventures for the day, with thoughts towards how tomorrow would unfold.

Heading north the next day found skies threatening to cloud over, but remaining relatively dry and clear for a journey down Gunner Pool Road. It was a good thing. Rain could have made things very messy. As it were, the camera proved uncooperative enough in the first couple of kilometers, becoming unstuck and drifting this way and that a few times.

A peaceful and quite 150 meter descent over 2.8 km along an old fire road, now horse trail, set the day in perspective. It was not a huge task, though a little steep near the end, but nothing unmanageable. This part of the forest is usually overgrown in August and September, and typically dying back by this time of year, before the growing season begins again in March.

A month earlier would have witnessed spiders and their webs, devouring most of the insect life. The rest of the year, they cannot seem to keep up and the random assortment of insects are overwhelming.

Increasing frequency of hikers have left their trashy mark here and there, but nothing too awful, yet. The intrusion of ATV, shattering the pristine quiet of the scene suggested that "yet" may come sooner than later for this part of the abandoned.

Otherwise, it was a peaceful and quiet walk in the woods. Out and back means what goes down must come up. The hike out is no more exerting than it is going down though.

This late mid-October late morning visit, all was dry, except one of the few running horsetail falls in the Ozark National Forest this season. Most ran out of water much earlier in this dryer than normal year. A couple of nearby springs feed this one, ensuring a fairly constant flow. It would be interesting to see this one after, or during, a good rain.

The return trip to home base paused momentarily at an old "swinging bridge" over South Sylamore Creek. The wire suspension, wood deck bridge is open to two-way traffic, but be prepared for one lane of traffic. It is only about 3.5 meters wide. The structure was built in 1943 and spans 60 meters to cross the creek and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

Later that afternoon, one more excursion into Jim Kress WMA, discovered Litaker Ridge Road, a reasonably good cut through the area. Civilization does not exist here. The wind and their passage through the pines is all that matters in the moment.