Buffalo River Trail: Erbie to Pruitt

Concluded. The last day of hiking the Buffalo River Trail started out wet. It had rained in the night, and though we expected it we were a little disappointed to see the rain clouds lingering as we broke camp. We hopped in the car and went to get the other one parked at Steel Creek, debating the whole time whether or not to finish the BRT with the risk of rain or to save it for next year. In the end, we decided to go for it, figuring even if we got wet we'd end up in a dry car no matter how the day went. After dropping a car at Pruitt, the final trailhead on the BRT, we went back to Erbie and began.

The hike between Erbie and Pruitt was a gentle one. Sure, there were ups and downs, but for the most part we stayed right along the mist-shrouded Buffalo River. I couldn't have been more thankful for gentle terrain; my hotspots from the day before had developed into full fledged blisters, and pretty much every step was pain. I guess that's where my stubborn streak came in, as I all but refused to slow down or stop. I wanted to finish the trail, and nothing was going to keep me from it!

The trail took us through a little more open land than we'd seen so far, winding through a pine forest in places and along clear creek beds in others. The rain we worried about set in within a couple miles, forcing us to pull out our rain gear as we plodded along. It only rained hard for a bit, though it never really went away, sometimes misting, sometimes drizzling, sometimes with enough persistence to wet our jackets. A little bit of moisture on the carpet of leaves meant our trail became a little more treacherous, and we had to watch our footing more carefully as the leaves slipped under our shoes.

Torrey and I didn't talk much, prefering instead to listen to the crunch of leaves and whisper of wind. I withdrew into my own head, letting my imagination run wild in an attempt to take my mind off my wet feet and hot blisters. The littlest details caught my attention and more than once I stopped to poke at a mushroom peeking through the leaves, or to run my hand over the furry moss covering a tree trunk. I fell behind as the day wore on, and found myself walking alone through the autumn woods.

Almost at the end of the trail Torrey waited for me on a fallen log. As we rested we watched the river and glimpsed a bald eagle soaring over the bluffs around us. The final approach to Pruitt was slow and, on my part, painful. My feet hurt, and it was with a sense of relief and accomplishment that I approached my car. We ditched our packs and headed to the river, determined to touch it just once on our hike before calling it a day. Exhaustion melted away as we stood on the banks of the Buffalo River, gazing from its teal waters to the blue-gray bluffs towering above it, then on to the forest hugging the cliffs around us. We'd done it, we hiked the entire Buffalo River Trail from start to finish. With last year's trek from Boxley to Steel Creek added to this year's Steel Creek to Pruitt, we finished the 30+ mile BRT! We'll be back next year, but we aren't quite sure where we'll hike quite yet. Maybe the day hikes in the area, maybe explore other remote areas of the wilderness. Some day we'll float the river, but that'll be a summer adventure. Until next time, BRT! We'll be back.

Buffalo River Trail: Kyle's Landing to Erbie

Spent. Our first full day back on the Buffalo River Trail was going almost exactly as we'd planned, with the minor hiccup of missing the spur to hit the toilets and a picnic table at lunchtime. We just found a flat rock in a sunny place for lunch instead, and continued our hike along the thru trail. Our views along the trail continued to impress, with glimpses of the river through the trees and a few high spots that allowed us to overlook swaths of the Ozarks.

One thing we did miss out on, however, was the chance to fill up our water bottles. We'd planned on filling up at Kyle's Landing, if not from the taps that were likely closed for the season then at least from the river using our filter. We missed our turn, though, and walked several more miles before we found a small pool set in the shade of an alcove where we sat for a few minutes and drank our fill. It was around this time that I realized I hadn't been taking proper care of my feet, and I was beginnning to fill the hotspots that hearlded a comming blister. I took a few extra minutes to remove my shoes and cool my feet, changing my socks and hoping the damage wasn't too bad.

Of course, as we continued hiking it became pretty apparent that I hadn't acted quickly enough. My feet hurt, concentrated on my right heel, and I found myself compensating by walking with a pronounced limp. We still had several miles to go before we called it quits for the night, planning on reaching Erbie Campground and one of our cars at the trailhead. Torrey offered to slow down several times, but there was no point. We still had the same amount of ground to cover, and in my head hurrying through them was preferable to prolonging my discomfort.

We took what shortcuts we could, following a forest service road instead of the trail itself until it spit us out at Erbie Historic Site. After poking around the homestead a bit we hopped on the road, knowing it would take us up to the campground and the luxury of our car. As is my usual, I began to second guess myself if we were heading in the right direction, if our car really was only a mile or so up the road and not three miles up like I suddenly began to fear. It was close to dark, and night falls quickly in the mountains. A mile we could handle, three miles would mean we'd be walking in a dark forest, alone, with only our headlamps and night noises for company. I confessed my fear to Torrey, convincing myself with every step that I'd somehow messed up and parked further away than we really needed to, prolonging my already intolerable foot pain into something that surely counted as self-torture.

You can't imagine the tidal wave of relief that crashed over me when we saw the sign for the campground after only a mile on the road. I grinned like an idiot, ridiculously pleased with myself that I hadn't managed to screw up this year. As I limped up to the car and dumped my pack I could have cried. As it was, we really didn't have all that long before we lost the light so we hurried to pick a site where we set up the tent and began dinner. We stayed out at the picnic table far longer that we would have hung around if we were in the backcountry, watching the stars come out above us as we listened to the river rushing past, contemplating the next day and the end of our trail. Then, of course, we hit the bathroom before bed and Torrey decided to take us on a joy ride to the creepy abandoned farmstead just down the road. And I really did cry. Read about the night we confirmed I'm a wimp here.

Buffalo River Trail: Steel Creek to Kyle's Landing

Steady. Although we missed the leaf peak by two weeks, autumn in the Ozarks couldn't be passed up. Torrey and I were back in northern Arkansas, planning on finishing twenty-five miles of the Buffalo River Trail over four days in the middle of November. We arrived in the tiny town of Ponca at midday on Friday and spent a few hours getting ourselves oriented and settled before dropping a car off at each trailhead. We only had an hour and a half or so of light left, and spent about forty-five minutes hiking at a quick pace along Steel Creek until we made camp for the first night, settling in a hollow next to the creek just off trail.

I did mention it was autumn, right? It got cold that night, cold enough that I regretted not placing my pocket warmers somewhere I could find them when I inevitably woke up in the wee hours of the morning, freezing my toes off. I didn't really get back to sleep after that, shivering too much to relax in my bag, so I was up with the sun as I tried to bring feeling back into my fingers and toes. We ate a hot oatmeal breakfast as we waited for the forest to warm up around us, watching droplets of water fall like rain as the sun melted frost from the upper branches of the trees.

Soon enough we were on our way, gaining elevation as we rose above the creek to come out on a bluff high above the Buffalo River. Fading leaves carpeted the forest floor, crunching under our shoes as we waded through ankle deep piles blown around by the wind. Frozen trickles of water laced dry creek beds, echos of springtime rains and gushing falls, and we passed more than one overhang that surely boasted water pouring over its edge during summer storms. Not for the first time I wondered what the trail would be like to hike in a different season, perhaps late spring or early summer, when water was abundant and a green canopy obscured the sky. Maybe one year I'll find out, but for now I'll stick with the oranges and yellows and whitish blues that come with autumn leaves and open skies.

Even with our packs on the trail was relatively easy and we ate up miles. Several times I commented to Torrey that our hike this year seemed easier than the section we hiked last year. The views certainly were better, with the trail more closely parallelling the river and affording views of its greenish-blue waters more frequently. We planned to hike from Steel Creek all the way to the BRT's end point at Pruitt, though our short-term goal was Kyle's Landing where we planned on breaking for lunch.

At least, stopping at Kyle's Landing was the plan. We did great on the approach, making miles and time as we estimated we would. We knew we were getting close when we began losing elevation, leveling out at river level and hearing voices of day trippers. We even saw a few other hikers, presumably enjoying a short walk from the parking lot. Somehow or another, though, we missed our turn. Instead of taking the spur and heading to the parking lot and river, we kept going on the BRT, and it took us asking each other if that last tenth-mile felt like a lot further than it should have before we realized we'd missed our turn. It wasn't really a huge setback, though. Sure, I'd been looking forward to dumping some trash and using the pit toilets, but we had the forest to ourselves and we could empty trash at our next stop, where we planned on making camp that night. So, as the sun shone directly overhead Torrey and I found ourselves a couple of nice rocks and ate a cold lunch, resting up for the next leg of our hike.

A Snapshot and The Scoop: The Night We Confirmed I'm A Wimp

It looks fairly nondescript, doesn't it? An old farmstead, a historical site, at Buffalo National River in northern Arkansas, right along the Buffalo River Trail that Torrey and I were busy finishing up this year. We passed by Erbie Historical Site in the afternoon, after something like fifteen miles of hiking with our packs on. We still stopped to check out the homestead, peeking into the old house, the barn, the chicken shed, and other smaller buildings on the property. It was cool, neat, a bit of history. Then we moved on, eager to make it to our car and the luxury of camping for the night. Until, that is, we needed one last run to the bathroom before hitting the sack. We were cold and lazy, and yeah ok I really didn't want to walk from our campsite all the way to the other side of the campground in the pitch black night where not even the stars were shining. So I convinced Torrey to drive us there. And boy did I regret it, because no sooner had we finished up at the outhouse than Torrey decided it would be fun to go for a late night drive along a forest service road. To check out that old farmstead. Did I mention it was so dark that there weren't even stars out? So me being me and hating being scared, I did the only practical thing I could aside from voicing my vehement disapproval (which fell on deaf ears anyway): I covered my eyes. I straight up refused to look, gloved fingers pressing into my watering eyes so hard I was seeing bursts of white light erupt behind my eyelids. The bumpy, twisting forest road felt like a lot further than the mile or whatever it actually is, and at the end of it when Torrey turned her headlights on bright to illuminate the farmstead in all its midnight glory, I still refused to look. Her commentary didn't help, saying things like "Oooh this is creepy. Why did we do this? This is terrifying! Why did I think this would be a good idea?" And I refused to even peek, despite her goading. And when she had sufficiently freaked herself out enough to turn around and leave, Torrey missed the turn for our campground, essentially forcing me to open my eyes long enough to help her get us back to our site. My gloves damp and tears still leaking down my face (because apparently that's my reaction to fear, and what a wonderful reaction it is, eyes welling up like a freaking garden hose), I had to pay attention to this stupid forest service road illuminated only as far as the headlights could reach past every twist and turn, convinced we were going to round a corner and find the ghost of the farmstead's last owner in our path. Did I mention I hate being scared? I make up too many stories in my head for things like this to make me comfortable. Once we finally returned to the safety of our campsite we got into our bags, Torrey mumbling about how it had been a bad idea to go and how she wouldn't be able to sleep. I may or may not have been a little smug when I told her I wouldn't have a problem sleeping. I didn't look, after all.

A Snapshot and The Scoop: Fairy Land

Apparently I have an overly active imagination. The last Snapshot I wrote I described zombies popping out of the ground and chasing Torrey and I through the backwoods of Arkansas all because I stepped on a rock that moved, and now I'm about to spout off about how much the Buffalo River Trail made me think of what I envision the mystical land of fairies to look like. The little spring pictured above, bubbling from between the mossy shelves of Ozark rocks, fed a little forest pool that Torrey and I circumvented while hiking the final leg of the BRT this autumn. Maybe we'd been on the trail too long and maybe I had nothing better to do than make up stories in my head instead of thinking about how much my feet hurt, but I couldn't help but think the forest we passed through would be the perfect setting for a story about fairies, practically seeing the woodland creatures playing around the little spring in real life. With the last vestiges of autumn drifting to the forest floor around us and winter settling in, a cool drizzle soaking our outer clothes but not enough to chill us, the setting for a fantasy story seemed ripe for the taking. And maybe I just wanted to be out of my head for a bit, and making up silly little things helped. Who knows. Do you believe in fairies?

A Snapshot and The Scoop: That One Time I Noped Out

I take a lot of pride in travelling, hiking, and camping. Especially alone. However, in order for me to be able to continue enjoying myself there are a couple of ground rules I stick to that allow me to sleep soundly at night when I'm by myself in the backcountry of who-knows-where, and the number one rule is to avoid scary things. Mainly, this means I avoid scary movies like the plague. If someone turns on a scary movie, I leave the room, and if I can't leave the room I put in headphones or go to sleep. I definitely do not need the mental images of the main actors getting chased down by some creepy guy in a mask in the middle of a dark forest. Can you blame me? Another rule I have is to not go poking around creepy abandoned places, like an old farmstead or a random cemetery right off the side of the trail. Like the one in the picture above. Torrey and I came across this cemetery on our final day of hiking the Buffalo River Trail in northern Arkansas, shortly after we began the day's trek. Torrey likes historic sites like this, so I humored her by checking out the gravestones overgrown by the flora of the forest. That is, I went with her until I took a step and felt the ground shift under my feet. In all reality it is likely a grave cover had become overgrown with grass and hidden by the fallen leaves, and my weight shifted it just enough to make it wobble, but one thing led to another and then I was imagining zombies popping up out of the ground and chasing Torrey and I through the backwoods of Arkansas where we hadn't seen a single person on the trail since we'd began two days before and nobody would be around to witness our gruesome deaths. Yeah, I might have let my imagination and my minimal experience with scary movies get the better of me, but I was out of that cemetery so fast I'm pretty sure I left a puff of Natasha-shaped dust in my wake. I was doing that thing I do when I get scared where I tear up and giggle madly as I retreated to a distance that was by no means safe but at least gave me a headstart over Torrey if my nightmares came to life. At least her and I have been friends long enough for her to not hold it against me. It wasn't long before I convinced her I needed to move along for my sanity's sake, and we left the little cemetery behind. I may or may not have been keeping an ear out for the groans and rustling leaves that would signal we were being followed.

A Snapshot and The Scoop: A Bouquet of Mushrooms

I think I have a fungus problem. Seriously, I just love mushrooms so much! So many colors and shapes and they grow in every forest I've ever been in. This beautiful collection of fungi caught Torrey's and my attention while hiking the Buffalo River Trail in northern Arkansas a few weeks ago, and I couldn't get over how pretty it is! All credit to Torrey for naming it a bouquet, and doesn't that name just fit it? I mean, with the colored leaves and the whites and browns of mushroom, the dark tree stump, just all of it. Don't like mushrooms? I'll just take my obsession over here, don't judge me!

Just a Learning Experience

Frustrated. After our mulitple nighttime visitors Torrey and I woke up to a cool autumn mountain morning, reluctant to get out of the warmth of our sleeping bags. When nature's call was finally too much to ignore we huddle close to the tent, waiting for sun to crest the ridge above us and warm our bones. I went to make oatmeal, our favorite hot breakfast discovered when we backpacked in the Rockies last summer, and realized I had been a complete idiot in my rush to get away for the weekend. I was dumb and didn't check fuel canister before packing it, leaving us with just enough fuel to heat dinner the night before, but not enough for anything else, including a much-needed hot breakfast. What a stupid, stupid mistake. And it wouldn't be the first one of the day.

We hiked on, somewhat more slowly than the day before as we tried to warm up. It wasn't long, maybe a couple of miles from our campsite, before a brick slid into my stomach as dread took my breath away and a realization hit me that made me stop in my tracks: I'd left my car keys in my purse, which was currently hidden in Torrey's car back at the trailhead where we started. And we were hiking away from it, toward my car parked at the ending trailhead, where we were supposed to get in and drive back to Torrey's car before we parted ways. With no small amount of shame I confessed my mistake to Torrey, and we had a short discussion about how to handle the issue. We were almost exactly half way between the two trailheads. We could turn back and be done with the hike once we got to Torrey's car, drive around and go pick up mine then go home, or we could continue on and hope someone would give us a ride a few miles to go back to Torrey's car and my car keys.

Any surprises about what we chose to do? Sometimes I hate my stubborn streak, where I commit to something and will do just about anything to see it through, including placing a bet on whether someone would be kind enough to pick up two stinky women with giant backpacks and take them back to their car, where one of them was stupid enough to leave essential items behind in the first place. I mean really. The entire trip was accident after mistake after mistake, and most of it was my fault. That's what I get for getting cocky and being desperate to get outside. Many times for the remainder of the seven miles we had to hike I mentally kicked myself, reflecting that it seemed like we should've just stayed home, or called it off after I hit the deer. I refuse to regret it, though. I just try to see it as a learning experience. One lesson after another, and lessons I took to heart. You can bet I'll triple check whether or not I have my car keys from now on!

Not only were we dealing with my stupid mistakes, we ended up taking longer to get out than we'd planned. The miles crawled by while the minutes flew past, and Torrey and I were both mentally done with our hike but still had miles to go before our feet. I didn't enjoy the last two or so miles of the trail, and some day want to go back and have a do-over when I'm in a better mood. All I could think about is how much of an ordeal it would be to get a ride once we reached the end of our hike, and the fear that we wouldn't find someone willing to help us ate at me. In hindsight we should have just turned around when I realized I didn't have my keys, but again, that stubborn streak. My fears were heightened when we finally reached the end of our trail and the first park ranger we came across couldn't give us a ride even after we explained our situation.

We were left with two choices: start walking back along the road, or hitchhike. We opted for the lesser of the two evils and approached two nice older ladies. Once they got a good look at us and I admitted to my mistake, we were piling ourselves and our packs into the back of their Prius and they took us back to Torrey's car chatting the whole way about the river, the mountains, traveling, and whatever else came to mind. For my first time hitchhiking it was definitely not a bad experience, I'm just not keen to do it again. I'm self-reliant and independent to a fault on the best of days, and having to admit to mistakes and ask for help fixing them leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But sometimes even I have to swallow my pride, especially if it means we don't have to walk another fourteen or so miles with already-sore feet. The rest of our adventure was thankfully uneventful. The ladies dropped us off at Torrey's car with a wave and a wish of good luck and a thank you from us. I promptly dug out my car keys, and Torrey took us back to my car and the Buffalo River for our goodbyes. We parted ways, her heading north and me heading south, with the promise of meeting there again someday soon, maybe next fall, and hiking another section of trail or floating part of the river. Next time, I'll remember my car keys.

An Ozarks Adventure

Determined. My adventure began before even arriving at Buffalo National River in northern Arkansas, deep within the Ozark Mountains, where I was going to meet up with Torrey and backpack a section of the National River Trail. I was making my way closer to our meeting place, winding around curves on mountain roads and actually going under the speed limit (unusual for me to be going under, given how much I love mountain roads) when I came around a curve and was faced with a small deer, looking right at me. I didn't even have time to gasp, let alone hit the brakes. In the blink of an eye the deer was flung, dead, into the ditch and my car screeched to a halt, fortunately on the shoulder where I wouldn't be in what little traffic there was. I'd never hit anything bigger than a rabbit before, and took several minutes to calm my racing heart before I got out of the car to figure out how much damage was done. I'd hit the deer head on, and it hadn't come up over the windshield, so the damage was relatively minor compared to what could have happened, and the car was still drivable. I made the necessary phone calls, and decided to continue on my way. I mean, I was already almost there, and the car was functional. I figured I'd get it looked at when I got back home. So, onward.

Torrey and I met in a tiny little town about halfway between our homes called Ponca, Arkansas. I'm pretty sure the only draw in the area is the Buffalo River and all the recreation opportunites it entails, along with one of the few elk herds native to Arkansas. Torrey and I were slow start, we hadn't even met up till noon, and it was another hour and a half before we were ready to begin, but neither of us were in a rush, knowing how many miles we needed to cover before we headed home the next day. We intened to hike point-to-point instead of a loop, so parked one car at each end of the trail for ease; I've never had the chance to hike point-to-point before, as whenever I travel with someone we're usually in only one car and that makes hiking in loops much more practical, so I was eager to push the distance we could cover as far as possible, prefering to see as much of the trail as time would allow.

Once we finally started, the Buffalo River Trail didn't disappoint. We'd missed peak leaf-peeping season by a week but it was still a gorgeous autumn weekend, filling the forested mountains with soft golden light that lit the leaf litter and canopy with the same rusty-pink color above us and under our feet. We began smelling wood smoke as we crested a ridge and entered a deep valley, soon passing by a beautiful campsite where someone else clearly hadn't properly extinguished their campfire. We weren't interested in trying to survive a forest fire, not with the blowing leaves and dry conditions we found ourselves in, so we put the fire out properly with what water we could spare. We seriously debated staying there for the night, though we were only a few miles in to our hike and that would mean more distance to cover in the morning, so instead we passed it up, choosing to make a few more miles before we called it a night.

Once the light began to dim and the evening closed in around us we chose a flat spot in the trees off the trail a ways and settled in for the night. We hadn't seen anybody on the trail all day, and we didn't see anybody else as we made our dinner and it grew dark. We did, however, hear something walking right near our site after we crawled into the tent and closed the flaps on the night. Twice. There are black bears in the Ozarks, and the occasional mountain lion, but what we heard was definitely hooves, though your mind doesn't tell you that when it is too dark to see your hand in front of your face. Also, given the last time Torrey and I camped together we came face to face with a bear, both of our overactive imaginations took us right to the worst case senario. Then, of course, being me I yelled at it to go away and whatever it was actually listened. Between our first hoofed visitor and our second, somewhere to the left of our tent the loudest mouse or forest rat on the planet decided to serenade us with the song of its people, by peeping at regular intervals for minutes on end. No amount of noise we made, shuffling, or blinking lights could get it to cut it out, and I had resorted to stuffing my head under a pile of close to try to block out the annoyance. Finally, on its own, it quit, and I was able to get some sleep.

A Snapshot and The Scoop: An Arkansas Homestead

While backpacking along the Buffalo National River in northern Arkansas last November with Torrey we made a stop on our second day at an old homesteading site tucked back away from the river and accessible by a side trail to the one we were trekking. Old homestead sites, cabins, ghost towns, and the like are always interesting to poke around in, if you're allowed to do so. This particular site even had a prefabricated concrete outhouse, which at the time was state-of-the-art technology. A dugout fruit cellar, always cool even in the humid Arkansas summers, a smokehouse where they preserved meats, a chicken coop, and a few other smaller buildings littered the area, and it wasn't difficult to imagine a family living there, scraping together a living from the land and their own bare hands. A touch of the past, indeed.