Once again we called upon our friends from the north in Joplin to join us on our adventure. We had Evan riding solo in his Toyota Tacoma, brothers Kevin and Brad pulling double duty in Kevin's Toyota 4Runner, and Sarah and I along with a 30-pound sidekick, Harper, in the trusty Nissan Xterra.
Our plan for the trip was to head west to east and start from Clayton Lake State Park. We would start on 9 Pines Road, follow the Clayton Trail, continue onto K-Trail Western Half, cross over the Indian Highway and continue towards the Fire Tower on the eastern half of the K-Trail. We all met up at Clayton Lake State Park Friday night around 11:00pm and set up camp. We shared a few quick chats about the drive up and the wildlife we encountered on the roads, quickly figuring out that we all had almost taken the life of the same crazy armadillo hanging out in the middle of a blind corner.
The weather was perfect the next morning; we had a quick breakfast and packed up camp. We nominated Evan to be the trail guide for this trip and he quickly set us on the path. We headed into town to fill up on fuel and quickly realized we weren't the only people headed out to the K-Trail. There were 20+ rigs, mostly Jeeps, all lined up waiting to get fuel or chatting with their buddies.
With only three rigs in our group, we made the quick decision to blast out in the front of the other groups as to hopefully be able to move through the trail quickly and not get bogged down behind some of the larger crews. We headed down 9 Pines and arrived at the Clayton Trail around 10:00am. From all of our research, the first section of the K-Trail is the most technical and difficult. This was exactly the kind of trail we were looking for and it quickly progressed from small rocks, into exposed rock slab with larger rocks thrown in the mix.
After conquering numerous hill climbs we were moving along smoothly on a rather flat section until Evan came on over the radio with a simple, "Does anyone have a chainsaw?" While I have contemplated adding a small chainsaw to my kit, I have yet to commit on actually doing so. Being the first crew on the trail that weekend, we found ourselves facing a 40 foot tall tree laying directly in our path most likely due to the heavy rains that have been in the area in recent weeks.
*There is no actual tension on winch line during photo, all people were removed from area during actual winching operation.*
We quickly devised a plan to have Kevin back into a small clearing and winch the tree to the side of the trail. We had toyed with the idea of setting up a snatch block in order to be able to pull the tree deeper off to the side of the trail, but were hindered by numerous trees that made it difficult to achieve a quality pull without cutting down a number of trees. After moving the tree as much as possible, we cut off the remaining upper limbs with our Zippo Woodsman axe and saw (awesome tool) until we were able to drive around the tree.
After being thrilled with our achievement and problem-solving skills we continued on the trail. We traveled along more medium difficulty trail features which required a few areas of spotting and route planning. Feeling confident and full of energy, we were faced with our most difficult trail feature yet. Remember that recent rain I talked about? We were faced with a large off-camber rock slab that had been eroded heavily at the base and was holding a large amount of wet Oklahoma clay and mud. We guided Evan's truck up to the feature and he maneuvered the best he could to try to clear the obstacle. Unfortunately as his front tires would almost crest the rock slab, his rear tires, caked in mud would slide sideways and turn his truck 90* to the trail.
With his back end now nicely planted against a 4 foot ravine wall, we had no choice but to pull him back with Kevin's winch. After some shovel action, rock relocation and tense off camber sliding, we were able to clear his truck from the wall without a scratch on it. We now put his truck in the offroading wash cycle. Build, attempt, winch, repeat. We found as many rocks, mud and dirt as we could in order to build up the eroded section that was causing his truck to slide down the slab. We then deployed the traction pads to overcome his caked tires. Finally after the 4th attempt, and perfecting our pueblo building techniques, he was through the section! It was now Kevin and my turn to attempt the feature. We talked over the technique of slight left-hand down steering angle up to the crest and then quickly angling right to help keep the back end of the truck on the high side of the slab. A nice constant throttle application, and we both made it through on first attempt. This was an excellent team building exercise and helped us have the confidence in each other to properly spot, communicate and execute a plan with the focus on keeping each other safe and equipment in good condition.
We decided after our victory we would stop for lunch and relax a little bit. Continuing on after our break, we headed towards the Indian Highway crossover. This is where things turned narrow. We had all heard about the heavy overgrowth that the Kiamichi Trail has and we were right in the thick of it. After crossing over the Indian Highway, the trail turned extremely flat, narrow, and with little to no technical sections to speak of. We charged through this section as best we could, and by the time we reached the Fire Tower lookout, we were all bored and beat down from the somewhat monotonous drive of the eastern half of the K-Trail. Like everyone has mentioned before, you will incur heavy pinstriping on the K-Trail, there is no way around it. The heaviest section of overgrowth is all after the Indian Highway crossover.
We all breathed a sigh of relief as we saw the Fire Tower peek over the treeline and knew we were finally out of the woods, literally. We arrived at the Fire Tower around 5:00pm and spent the next few minutes climbing to the top of the sketchy structure, taking photos, and talking about dinner.
Continuing on, we charged towards the Three Sticks Monument, hopped on 259 and headed north further into the Ouachita National Forest . We set up in the Winding Stair Campground and enjoyed some food, drinks, and stargazing; I learned two things this trip, you can see satellites with the naked eye, and everyone gets itchy when they roll around in grass, it wasn't just me (different story).
The next morning we woke up, made breakfast and headed towards Mena. We routed mostly through backroads and made it to Mena right before lunch time. Making a plan, we headed south to cruise around the Wolf Pen trails for a few hours before we all headed home. Mostly populated with ATV's and side-by-sides, Jeeps and small SUVs are allowed and can pass through the trails just fine. We even encountered a gentleman pulling a 25 foot trailer loaded with a side-by-side and riding lawnmower with his extended cab F150 on the trails. Quite the sight. We found a nice water crossing to hang out in and a small swimming hole to enjoy. Spending about an hour here, we decided to head back to Mena and call it a successful weekend.
Conclusion
After running the K-Trail, we came back with mixed emotions. We thoroughly enjoyed the western half of the trail. It was technically demanding, required us to think on our feet and challenged our skills. The eastern half after the Indian Highway crossover was the exact opposite. It felt like every tree limb slap to the windshield and every screech of a clear coat cutting thorn was a direct slap to a bored face. We would go back; but we would not worry about making it to the Fire Tower, we would travel the Clayton Trail, and the western half of the Kiamichi Trail and either loop back to the beginning at the Indian Highway or turn around do it in reverse.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this trip report. If you have any questions about our route or anything pertaining to the Kiamichi Trail, please ask in the comments section.
Keep Exploring!
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12/31
We left Dallas around 10a.m. and headed north towards Mount Magazine. We were scheduled to meet up with the rest of our group on New Year's day so we were in no hurry to get to Mount Magazine. Our first stop of the day was a late lunch at a small diner we have passed many times but never had the opportunity to stop, Pam's Hateful Hussy Diner in Talihina, Oklahoma. The name instantly strikes fear in every man's heart, but they make a pretty good hamburger.
After lunch we continued our way to Poteau, Oklahoma where we decided to stop for the night. We found a small camp site to settle into and ended up going to bed early with no intentions of staying up til midnight.
1/1
Happy New Year! We woke up to a sub 30*F morning and a nice layer of frost on the ground and truck. The buffalo in the field next to us didn't seem to mind the temperature at all. We packed up the car and headed into Poteau to find some breakfast. We always search for something new when we visit small towns and try to avoid chain restaurants at all costs. The choices in Poteau seemed few and far between but we settled on a run-down building called Blondie's Diner. If you are looking for an experience and getting out of your comfort zone, eat at this place! My 6'4" height had me ducking under every doorway and nearly brushing the ceiling as I walked through. Not the cleanest or most updated establishment, and a pretty basic menu. I had the Hobo Breakfast; everything they have on the breakfast menu, thrown onto one plate, and mixed together. The food was good, but I am going to check Blondie's off the list of "been there, done that" and probably not go back.
We headed towards Mount Magazine and knew we had made the right trip decision when we started driving up the tight switchbacks to get to the top. Heavily tree-lined roads and small waterfalls surround you the whole way up. Once to the top, we drove passed the mountain lodge and parked the Xterra. We walked to the edge of the cliffs and took in the view.
We hiked around and enjoyed the views for about an hour. We then set out to explore the surrounding areas. I had searched through my Gaia GPS app before leaving for the trip and plotted some 4x4 and maintained dirt roads that I thought would be fun to explore. Unfortunately, most of the 4x4 marked roads were for ATV and side-by-side use only and had narrow wood gates to keep trucks and SUVs out. We stuck to the maintained dirt roads and ventured our way east and circling back north of Mount Magazine.
Along the way we found an old church and cemetery with grave-sites dating back to the early 1900's. After seeing this, Sarah was on a mission to find more early churches and cemeteries. We searched through Gaia on the Ipad and found all of the marked cemeteries in our vicinity. Making our way along the dirt roads, we passed a few Jeeps and trucks out exploring as we were and managed to find a few more old cemeteries. One that stood out to us was the Antioch Cemetery. The smallest of all the sites we visited, we initially drove right passed it because it blended in with the surrounding trees.
The Antioch Cemetery had 6 gravestones with the oldest dating back to 1863. We were both pretty taken aback seeing something that old and thinking about the people who lived in the area in the 1800's with no sign of their existence other than a very simple gravestone.
The sun was setting and we headed north to our meeting point with our friends. As a group we decided to rent a small house, outside of Paris, Arkansas for the two nights as temperatures were supposed to be in the mid-20s at night, and hot showers sounded too good to pass up.
1/2
We woke up, cooked breakfast and made a plan. A number of people in group hadn't been to Mount Magazine or Petit Jean State Park. We decided to hit both of them, and throw in some 4x4 trails to mix it up a bit.
Everyone set out in our small three truck caravan. We immediately drove onto maintained dirt roads but quickly followed our planned route to 4x4 trails we had found through forest service maps. Luckily all of these trails were accessible to trucks and not marked as ATV only. About a mile in we reached what turned out to be one of the best trail segments we had ever been on. As we crawled over small rocks through the trail, we came up on a creek with an old abandoned bridge that looked to be out of commission for over 30 years. A medium sized tree now stood at the place where the main bridge should have connected to the surrounding land. Our only way to continue on was through the creek. We initially had our doubts of the depth of the creek as the water was moving at a decent pace and none of us wanted to enter the frigid water to check its depth. We found the largest stick we could find and climbed on top of the remaining bridge. After checking the depth, we elected a guinea pig and we chose Kevin. He climbed into his 4Runner and sent it through. Upon entry the water reached about mid fender height and he made it through successfully. Evan and I were still hesitant, but decided we might as well go for it.
Mount Magazine Water Crossing from Habitat Offroad on Vimeo.
After making it through the water we were immediately presented with one of the best hill climbs we have come across in northwest Arkansas. For the next 150 yards, loose rocks and two and half foot rock shelfs were directly in our path and tire placement was really important. After making it to the top, we could look down on a section of the creek we just crossed.
We headed on towards Mount Magazine and took in the view once again, stopping at a few overlooks that we hadn’t seen the day before. We stopped for lunch and headed to Petit Jean State Park. Not wanting to lose much daylight, we took the main roads to the park. We all decided to take the hiking trail to the Petit Jean falls. There had been recent rains in the area for a few weeks and the falls were roaring.
We all woke up early to make our way to Oark, Arkansas. We have visited the Oark General Store in the past and wanted to get lunch there before heading back home. There are also numerous 4x4 forest service roads in the area. We drove about an hour to Oark and went straight for the trails. We had routes already marked that we had taken when we were part of an Ozark Overland Challenge event the previous year. The group decided to take one of our main routes and see what we could find following along on GPS and recording our tracks. We played around in the woods for a few hours until we all started to get hungry. Arriving at Oark General Store, there was a small 15 minute wait to get seated so we perused the antique shop next door. If you haven’t been to Oark General Store, you need to go. They have awesome burgers and milkshakes, and you can get some locally made blueberry jam!
After lunch we all headed our separate directions and made plans for our next group adventure.
Conclusion
Mount Magazine is an amazing spot to check out in central Arkansas. With views for miles and plenty of areas to explore, it doesn’t disappoint. The offroad trails in the area are not the most technical as the majority are maintained dirt roads, but there are hidden gems if you have the time and desire to explore. Keep Exploring!
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