Saturday, September 25, 2021 8:00 am to 11:00 am Tompkins Bend Day Use/Picnic Area, Shangri-La Road, Mt. Ida, Arkansas Water, Restroom, free parking, hand sanitizer, and trash bags will be provided. Volunteers are encouraged to bring gloves, grabbers, bug and sun protectors and anything else they might need.It is an easy way to make a difference in your community…find something you and your whole family can do together or bring a group of your friends along. Use your boat or take a hike. Trash that is picked up is left on the boat ramp and will be picked up and hauled away. Hosted by the Friends of Lake Ouachita (FOLO) and the US Army Corps of Engineers and Keep America Beautiful and Keep Arkansas Beautiful.
Attached are photos of some of the ongoing issues faced with the management of the Lake Ouachita Vista on Hickory Nut Mountain. Over the Memorial Day weekend, there were large crowds on the mountain, filling the campground with extra campers spilling out into the nearby woods and many along FS Rd 47 between FS RD 50 and Crystal springs Rd. Two of us traildogs went up the mountain on Tuesday, June 8, 2021, to pick up litter and look for further damage after we received photos of two vehicles parked on at the Vista, one of whom decided it would a great idea to pull the front wheels of his jeep up onto the Vista’s wall. Fortunately, someone took photos of this event and sent them to the sheriff’s office and to our email. We are actively trying to identify the jeep owner and have requested the U.S. Forest …Click to read the full article
Volunteers from the Friends of Lake Ouachita (FOLO) and the LOViT Traildogs met atop Hickory Nut Mountain at the Lake Ouachita Vista parking area this past week, January 19, 2021, for a “Pickup & Clean UP The Mountain” event. The over sixty-year old recreation area atop the mountain includes a large rock-lined vista with a spacious parking area. The north side of the Vista offers unparalleled views of Lake Ouachita and its tree-carpeted islands almost a thousand feet below. The south side of the Vista falls away into a lush valley stretching east to Crystal Springs and west to Mt. Ida. The Vista has once again become a magnet for unique events such as the star watching of the conversion of the planets and annual meteor shower displays brilliantly seen from the mountaintop, unfettered by light pollution. In recent years, the Vista has served as the launching site for rehabilitated Bald Eagles to …Click to read the full article
On May 4, 2019, over thirty friends, family, colleagues and trail enthusiasts gathered at the elevated Watchable Wildlife walkway section of the Lake Ouachita Vista Trail (LOViT) to celebrate Tom Ferguson’s life and long career. Tom was an outdoorsman’s outdoorsman. He enjoyed opening the beauties of nature to any and all that could keep up with his long stride in his many forays into the wilds of nature. Tom was known throughout the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) as a man who enjoyed the complexities of nature and its impact on those who enjoyed the adventure of a hike through an untamed forest. He was part of the first teams to explore the possible creation of what is now known as the LOViT Trail. Tom along with other USFS trails professionals scouted the Ouachita Mountains bordering the southern shore of Lake Ouachita searching for the best possible route. Tom seemed to always …Click to read the full article
Local Traildog volunteers gathered near Denby Bay of Lake Ouachita the week of January 14, 2019, to repair the planking on the trail bridge over the Gap Creek part of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990) Watchable Wildlife handicap accessible portion of the 45-mile-long LOViT trail system. The Gap Creek Bridge was originally constructed by a trail coalition team in 2010, lead by the US Corps of Engineers, and supported by the Traildog volunteers, with funding through a grant from the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission. The thirty-foot-long pedestrian bridge is a low maintenance structure made of structural fiber and wooden planking. It rises almost twenty feet above the creek bed and is above the Lake Ouachita’s high water mark. During the construction stage, the Corps of Engineers constructed a temporary road from the Old Highway 270 road, known locally as “Blow out Bridge Road,” to the construction …Click to read the full article
One of the highlights of the Christmas season this year was an event atop Hickory Nut Mountain a few days before Christmas. Over two hundred people crowded the parking area of the old vista area to witness the release of a rehabilitated bald eagle back into the wild. It was a stirring site to see this magnificent bird that had been struck by a vehicle almost a year ago suddenly leap into the air with a mighty push of its now repaired wigs and soar down the slopes of the mountain to the lake surface almost a 1000 feet below. It was heartening to see so many people on the vista all gathered to wish the old eagle well and to drink in the beauty of the view on a sparklingly clear day. There were so many vehicles the large parking lot could not accommodate the crowd, forcing latecomers to …Click to read the full article
Hittin’ The Trails “Guided Hikes” (First Published in the Montgomery County News, April 1, 2018) Fifteen years ago, the idea of a hiking and biking trail along the southern shore of Lake Ouachita was born. Support from both land mangers of the proposed route – the US forest Service and the US Army Corps of Engineers – was sought and received by a small band of local trail enthusiasts who later became the Traildog Volunteers. A plan was developed to construct a trail from the Denby Bay area of the lake to the Blakely Mountain Dam Avery Recreation Area forty-five miles to the east. The US Forest Service agreed to take the lead in the training of volunteers in trail design, construction and long term maintenance. Some ten years later and over a million dollars of grants, in-kind labor and donations, the Lake Ouachita Vista Trail, or as it known …Click to read the full article
Traildogs Al Gathright and Jerry Shields hit the trail today to do some trimming and to install two plaques on sponsored benches. We drove to the Brady Mountain Trailhead parking area for the 3/4 mile hike into the first bench, located on the banks of the small creek the Trail crosses. This bench was purchased by the Traildogs to be sponsored for Jeff Smith of the Hot Springs Sentinel Record, who was tragically killed in a car accident. Jeff had followed the development of the LOViT from the first day of construction until his untimely death. He wrote hundreds of articles about the Trail’s development and was instrumental in bringing the Trail’s existence into the public eye. We installed a brass plaque in honor of Jeff’s support. The location is a beautiful, secluded location and has a very nice view of the creek and the small waterfall just upstream from …Click to read the full article
Saturday November 8th was a perfect fall day on Hickory Nut Mountain as six Traildogs met at the Trailhead for some trail maintenance. We had four certified sawyers, myself, Jay Marsh, Dan Watson, and Al Gathright, along with Chuck Dumas with his trusty weed trimmer, and Mike Curran with his historic one man four foot hand saw. Our first order of business was to install the new trailhead sign furnished by the US Forest Service. It took a bit of digging in the stone-infested ground, but we finally concreted in the 6 X 6 post and sign just to the left of the Trailhead map sign. We also cleared all the downed trees and limb debris from the campground located adjacent to the Trailhead. There were two overnight campers in the campground, but the tents’ inhabitants were out taking advantage of the perfect fall weather to enjoy the Trail . …Click to read the full article
One perennial mud hole gone from the trail! After celebrating with the Ouachita Mountain Hikers on Saturday, Oct. 25, I met members of the Boy Scout Troop 262 out of Little Rock at the Tompkins Bend Trailhead parking area. Six Scouts, their troop leader, and several parents joined in to assist Bryan Wornock complete his Eagle rank project of building a 12′ foot bridge about a 3/4 mile east of Shangri-La Road. The team started to work around noon and finished at 5:00 pm, with the new bridge completed and ready for use. Bryan utilized the existing design of our other small bridges to construct the bridge over an area know to bikers and the “Slick Spot” where you can easily take a spill if not careful. Hikers refer to the spot as the “Mud Hole”! We really appreciate the Scouts supporting the Trail! They exemplify the best of young …Click to read the full article