Day Fourteen of the Ouachita Trail

Well it did indeed blow last night and I was glad I was in the shelter warm and protected. Even with the one side of the shelter open, it was the leeward side, so all was relatively calm. I heard at least one tree blow down and the wind worked all night to try and pry the corrugated roof off the shelter, but failed. It was a wild night.

This morning the wind continued unabated, but all the mountains were enveloped in a kind of mist. Quite pretty, but curious to me with the wind. However, the mist eventually burned off and I had blue skies and wind all day.

And then there was a love story. I was following a dry drainage down along the trail when she caught my eye. She was a pretty little rivulet of water slightly flowing for a foot or two in an otherwise dry stream bed. She intrigued me, so I looked down in the stream bed from time to time for any other sign of her. Oh! There is a small pool, and another. As I descended the trail, she formed the tiniest of brooks. I got busy watching for trail markers and when I finally checked her out again, she was beginning to look like a creek. I could hear her faintly singing as her water splashed among the rocks. Eventually, the trail brought me right down to her, even crossing over her, and she was beautiful. But as she turned a bend she disappeared. The stream bed was dry once more. The trail took me up over some boulders and when I came over the top, I could see her below re-emerging in her full glory. She was a real stream. Stunning in the sunlight. She descended through a series of pools in a narrow canyon of rock overhung by large pines. I was in love. But just as I realize that, the trail took me away from her and up a large hillside. I never even got to say goodbye.

On the far side of the hill I was climbing was a bigger river and possibly a ford. As I caught sight of Crystal Prong, I thought this is going to be an interesting ford. That stream is pretty wide. But the trail brought me to the exact point where a geological formation cross the path of the stream. Several layers of hard rock cut directly across the flow. Small gaps allowed the river through and it would just be a matter of hopping across those gaps to get to the other side. Now the rocks had been polished by the water, and the angle was a little bit wonky, but with careful balance it wasn’t too hard and I was across. What a great place for lunch I thought. So that’s where I ate.

Then it was on to Flatside Pinnacle. A knob of rock with its south face being a 200 foot cliff. It was off the trail about 2/10 of a mile, but I set my pack down and hiked up to take a look. Of course the wind was still blowing, probably about 20 or 30 miles an hour up there, but I held on and got a picture of a pine that has seen it share of wind.

After the pinnacle, it was mostly downhill for the next 3 miles to the Brown Creek shelter where I am staying tonight. The wind is supposed to continue into the night and the temperature supposed to get down to 38°, ( wind chill in the low 20s) so I am pitching my hammock, one more time, inside the shelter.

Tomorrow will be a shorter day as I get ready to leave the national forest on Friday and finish out the last two days to the end on Saturday.

Until tomorrow, happy trails…