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.