Trail Work

Sunday March 20, 2016

We have not had a chance to go to Oklahoma and check on our 2.5 mile adopted trail section of the Ouachita Trail since September 27.  Wow, that is six months ago, but it has been Winter so hopefully it is not too grown up.

As usual we drove up to Broken Bow, Oklahoma on Saturday evening when Tom got off work and stayed in a hotel there to get a good night's sleep, and breakfast on Sunday morning before heading 60 miles north to the Big Cedar Trailhead and off into the woods.

Sunday morning dawned cool with clear blue skies, a great day to be out in the woods!

We were surprised to see several vehicles parked at the trailhead since we had never seen anyone on our previous trips here.  It is good to know that hikers are out on the Ouachita Trail!

Only a short distance from the Big Cedar Trailhead parking area, the Ouachita Trail crosses Big Cedar Creek, which was flowing pretty good.  As I stood there contemplating how/where to cross, Tom went upstream and crossed over on these rocks without getting his feet wet.

As he carefully made his way across using his trekking poles for balance several of the rocks tipped a little but he made it alright.  For some reason I was suddenly fearful of crossing where he did, afraid of the wobbly rocks, afraid of getting my shoes wet, afraid of my foot slipping on a rock and me falling into the cold creek water, so instead I turned downstream picking my way along the edge of the creek looking for a better way to get across.  In the meanwhile Tom is on the other side of the creek being patient but I am sure he is thinking "Come on already"!

After thrashing around along the edge of the creek for probably ten minutes and not finding any way to get across, I finally turned around and picked my way back upstream to where Tom had crossed.  "This is ridiculous, Flame!"  "What's wrong with you, Flame?"  "Come on Flame, you walked 2,181 miles on the A. T.!"  "You can do this!"  "If Tom didn't fall in the creek, you won't either!"  These are the thoughts crashing thru my head.  "What's wrong with me?"  "I lived thru fording creeks in Maine on the A.T.!"  So I gingerly made my way across, exactly where Tom did , on the same wobbly rocks, and did not get my feet wet!  Whew!  Glad that's over!
This experience reminded of something I read somewhere "our thoughts are the most effective weapon in our human arsenal";  I had just let fearful thoughts control me momentarily.  Glad that's over!  Crazy, huh?

As we made our way along the trail we were greeted with the first signs of Spring!                              Trailside ferns...

                                              Wild looking mushrooms!

                ...and lots of these pretty purple wildflowers.

Most of the trees have not even leafed out yet, but the redbud trees are in full-bloom!

Last September, we observed the erosion at this location where the trail has eroded away down the mountainside, and knew that we needed help to fix this problem.

What a wonderful surprise when our Ouachita Trail Captain, Bill Sears, emailed us recently informing us that the Forest Service had went in and repaired this eroded section.  Awesome job, guys!  As you can see in the "before" and "after" photos they wedged rocks and logs against that tree and shored the trail up to prevent future erosion

Our section of trail did not need too much trimming or clearing.  We did come across this tree that had fallen across the trail right above Red Spring.  It has been down long enough that passing hikers have made a path around the base of the tree already.

There is a nice stealth camping area at the end of our adopted section, just west of Red Spring, and this is the first time we have encountered any trash there.  Recent hikers left all the packaging material from six MRE's stacked next to the stone fire ring.  Shame on them!!  We bagged it all up and hauled it back down the mountain with us.

 

Maybe we need to place more info at the Big Cedar Trailhead about L.N.T.  Leave No Trace http://lnt.org 

 

As we headed back down the mountain we just enjoyed the scenery and had a little fun!

When we arrived back to our vehicle, we were stowing our tools and the litter we had picked up on the trail, when we saw a backpacker coming out of the woods.  I waved him over to where we were and chatted for a few minutes and offered him a banana and some mixed nuts which he enjoyed.  He was Jacob from Nebraska and had driven his vehicle to Queen Wilhelmina State Park, then was shuttled west to Talimena State Park where he began his 50 mile section hike on the Ouachita Trail.  He was a little past halfway when we saw him.  He said this was his first ever multi-day backpacking trip. 

On our way home, we detoured over to check out how much water was coming over the spillway at Lake Tawakoni.

 IT WAS A LOT!  Lake Tawakoni is over a foot above "full pool"!

 Downstream (which has only been a trickle for years) is flooded and the anglers are enjoying the bounty of fish.