Day Thirteen on the Ouachita Trail

First up, I got a good night’s sleep last night. No bears, dogs, or cold to keep me awake. And then the sunrise was exceptional.

As I was having breakfast in the shelter, the predawn clouds made quite a show. Unfortunately, my picture does not do it justice. Then I packed up and was on my way and it just got better. I wasn’t ever able to get a picture without trees in the way, but that’s the nature of this trail. Still the sun and the clouds kept teasing me for almost an hour after sunrise with varying hues of oranges and yellows. It was kind of fun to chase it as I was walking east.

The hiking was fairly easy this morning, some up and some down but nothing too terrible. I hiked past a couple of wildlife ponds, which would’ve been good options for water had I needed it.

Eventually, the trail brought me down to the middle Fork of the Saline River. It was more of a creek at this time, and it was near Highway 7. The interesting thing is that it had a very nice pedestrian bridge with a bench at one end! An actual place to sit down and have lunch. So I did.

The trail then followed a sidewalk that had been installed along the river for a couple hundred feet. That was very nice, but it abruptly ended and turned into a rather gnarly piece of trail that ended down at the river where you had to cross on steppingstones. That seemed pointless to me since there was a bridge, but that’s how they did it.

The last 7 miles of a hike were basically uphill some of it very steep. My goal was the Oak Mountain shelter, which I knew had no water source. So, at the last stream before I got to the shelter. I loaded up with 4 L. and lugged it up the 700 feet over 4 miles to the shelter. Tiring!

I’m at the shelter now, so far by myself. The winds up here are predicted to be between 24 and 52 mph tonight. I have elected to hang my hammock inside the shelter to see how that works out. It certainly will be less windy than tied to trees that are waving around in a 52 mile an hour wind.

So overall, a good solid day and the weather is calling for good conditions through Saturday when I end my hike. Hopefully.

Until tomorrow, happy trails…