Greg had mapped out a backcountry overnight camping trip in the Ozark National Forest.
The Forest covers 1.2 million acres, mostly in the Ozark mountains of northern Arkansas. Finding the trailhead in this vast park was a bit of a challenge. Our trusty GPS said 'don't do it', Google said 'it couldn't be done but we finally managed to find the dirt road that would take us to the trailhead.
Nightfall was approaching and we would have to hurry to get all our gear organized and make some headway on the trail. We set off on our 13-mile loop hike at around 7:30pm and within minutes came across an armadillo, a black snake, tiny frogs, and box turtles.
The trail was well marked in most places but Greg had to show the kids how to push back the blackberry briars where they were growing over the trail so they wouldn't get scratched by the thorns.
We hiked at a good pace but it was getting darker the deeper we trekked into the forest. We found a spot to set up camp for the night about 1.5 miles into the trail.
Greg quickly set up the tent with help from the kids and I got dinner started. I boiled 2 cups of water using Greg's homemade alcohol cooking stove (see earlier post for a description of the stove) and added the boiling water to a Ziploc freezer bag that contained cous cous with dehydrated vegetables and dried herbs and spices. I sealed the bag and popped it into a “cozy”-an insulated pocket customized to fit around a quart size freezer bag. After 10 minutes in the cozy, dinner was ready. We added sardines to the cous cous for the calories and omega-3s. Dinner was interrupted by a moth the size of Jonah's head who was very attracted to the kids' headlamps. We cleaned up quickly and tied our food up in a tree and hit the sack.
We woke up around 7am and had some hot oatmeal before setting off on the long hike ahead of us. We were in search of some waterfalls but were not sure at which point on the trail we would find them. We quickly learned that we would need to take advantage of any water bodies we found along the way because we were consuming more water than anticipated. It was about 85 degrees but incredibly humid. We were sweating buckets as we hiked. Greg would take off his shirt occasionally and wring about a cup of water out of it!
Every bothersome insect and bug imaginable was on the trail with us. Mosquitos, gnats, ticks, biting flies, biting spiders, and bees are the ones I could name. The ticks took a liking to Greg's legs and Jonah's private parts. We were diligent about checking ourselves every few hours. (Two days and 500 miles later, we were still pulling ticks out of Jonah!) There was also a large variety of butterflies and wildflowers (echinacea, black eyed susans, daisies, etc.) that we could enjoy when we weren't busy swatting pesky bugs.
The kids would take turns accompanying Greg trailblazing the path ahead while I kept up the back of the line with the other kid. At around noon, Liliana and I caught up to the boys and Greg told me he had just lost his footing and fell onto his hand with all his weight. He was in a lot of pain and his hand was starting to swell. We kept going.
We stopped for lunch at around 2pm and enjoyed some rehydrated ditalini with homemade tomato sauce plus some leftover cous cous from the night before. We had been hiking for over 6 hours and Greg and I knew we still had a long way to go. With lunch eaten, we had only a bag of mixed nuts and dried fruit and water left to snack on until we were back to the trailhead. Wild blackberries would sustain us in the parts of the trail where they were ripe enough. We hadn't found those darned waterfalls yet either.
Despite some occasional complaints from a bug bite or minor fall, the kids met each new mile with gusto. Even when I was devising ways to call a rescue team and have us lifted out of the forest by helicopter, they were bouncing along the trail and discovering new things.
We came to an area that looked like there had once been a waterfall and I was convinced that there would be no waterfall on this trip. The kids were excited nonetheless and Greg was having the time of his life. I had a headache and just wanted to get to the car.
With less than 3 miles to go, we came to a pool of water that led to a waterfall. We stopped to soak our feet in the cold water and I could finally see the end of the tunnel.
Refreshed by our stop, we continued at a brisk pace and got back to our car just before nightfall. As we loaded up the car and the kids put on their pj's, the caretaker of the campsite came to welcome us back to civilization. After some small talk, he said, “No bear?”
No Bear! You've got to be kidding me!
Next stop: Amarillo, Texas via Oklahoma.
A roadside picnic enroute to Arkansas.
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