We're blessed in the fact that we live within driving distance of so many trails and recreational ares. There is so much to see in the Ouachita National Forest and as an added bonus much of it is not as well known as the Ozarks are to our north. We've been researching different places around us and making plans on visiting the ones we can this year.
We actually held a family meeting about it. My wife and I use those to see how the kids really feel about where we're going and what we do when we arrive. We'll have to curtail our geocaching to accommodate our new plans but that had to happen sooner or later anyway. We still plan on hunting some, but we've abandoned all our plans for geocaching trips alone. This way we can work harder on getting the kids outdoors more often and teaching (and learning ourselves) how to be more responsible outdoors/man/woman/kids.:-)
During that meeting a plan to make a run to Fort Smith to hunt geocaches turned into finding a nice trail to enjoy a short hike on. I was so proud of them. So with a forecast calling for just perfect weather for a dayhike, the kids and I decided to hike Lover's Leap Trail in Queen Wilhelmina State Park. it's a wonderful 1.3 mile trail with a beautiful overlook a short distance from the northern trailhead. We usually hike in from the southern trailhead but with the temperature in the 40's on the mountaintop and a good wind blowing in from the north I decided to reverse our normal route to get the wind at our backs as soon as possible.
The beginning of the hike was very cold. I was a little worried since I wanted to keep my hands in my pockets
and curl up inside my hoodie but the kids where happy as clams. They were singing and jumping from rock to rock playing those games that always entertain children and inevitably always make parents nervous.We arrived at the overlook and the view was the best I had ever seen from Rich Mountain. The cool dry air allowed for viewing far into the distance. The kids sat down for a snack and I had to call my wife at work to try in vain to describe what I was seeing. The overlook is aptly named. The splendor of the Ouachita Forest opens before you and at once you yearn to have what you love most close beside you.
We visited the ParkCache located there so I could drop off some TB's
that have been sitting in one of my caches for far too long. Two or three different groups of people arrived but they all returned to the trailhead as we continued on our way around the loop. Not far from the overlook is a nice stone marker that marks the point where the Ouachita Trail continues west and Lover's Leap Trail turns south. This is my favorite section of the trail. Hiking under the overlook there are great views of the bluff and some just fantastic rock work done on the trail in 1996. The trail starts climbing up from there and the kids took another break for snacks. Well, the boys ate trail mix and my daughter picked every single M&M out of it. LOL. With the kids rejuvenated by nuts and raisins, in my daughters case on a sugar rush, we continued down the trail.
There's a neat wooden bridge we crossed just before the trail turned east. The slope is much more gradual at this point and the walking was easy. We ran into a nice couple (the only people we had seen since leaving the overlook) along the way. I was surprised to see anybody hiking the whole trail and I almost laughed when they caught back up to us and asked me where the overlook was at. They were kind of surprised to see that the kids had hiked the whole trail.
The kids did great the whole hike. We've started to assign a hike leader when we hike. The hike leader is responsible for ensuring that everyone follows Lightfoot's checklist when hiking.
The leader also carries the leader stick which is a small green hiking stick I painted. They were amazing and I was so proud of them. No rocks thrown from the trail, they were even quite when we hiked. Well as quite as you can expect young children to be. They were very eager to help clean up trash along the way and I was surprised to see how much we picked up.We finally finished off the day with one of my wife's outstanding picnic lunches she packed for us and playing on the playground there. The cold weather eventually drove us off the mountain and we returned home. They've already asked where we're hiking this upcoming weekend so I have plans to make! Eventually I'd like to see our whole family take two or three day hiking trips. That will take awhile though and we're working towards that goal. There is still so much to see in Arkansas and we're looking forward to the new places we'll see and visiting our favorites again. I thought I'd leave off with a picture of our daughter enjoying the picnic we had after our hike. It was just one of those sweet moments I feel blessed to share with the kids.
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