Alum Cove Natural Bridge

About a week ago, we took a little drive over to Alum Cove Recreation Area to hike the "Natural Bridge". It took us a little longer to get there than it should have, but it was well worth the drive. (Hint: Find the SHORTEST way possible BEFORE you leave the house. Once near the Buffalo River, cell service is scant and so are your chances of searching for the next direction...)

I have to say, a good GPS (or in our case, our phone when it would work) helped a lot because the signage to get to this was NOT easy.

But we were determined, and we finally made it.

This hike is a short hike...1.1 miles. It is also not particularly strenuous other than a few inclines. However, I will list it as moderate due to those. (To get an "easy" label, it has to be about as flat as a pancake which is near impossible in our state) It was a kid friendly hike though, as well as dog friendly. We took our pup for the first time; she LOVED it.

After making our way down the hill (gradually and with several benches along the way), we came to the Natural Bridge almost immediately. I wasn't expecting that! This bridge is really neat; it is over 130 feet long and one of the longest natural bridges in the area. There should be a creek beneath it but we have been without rain for quite a while. When you are on the bridge, you don't realize how incredible and vast it is until later when you are UNDER it.
The path is fairly narrow and mostly dirt/rocks. But we didn't have any difficulty maneuvering it.
There were typically "stairs" if you had to go up or down. That helped quite a bit.

The scenery throughout the hike was beautiful.

There were several "bluffs" to walk around/through.
Just look at these rocks...amazing!
The kids had a grand time running through and climbing some of the rock formations.


I imagine this is a creek during the wet times of the year...

Absolutely beautiful
This is a view (a sneak peek) UNDER the natural bridge. I told you, you can't get the full awesomeness unless you go under it...)
And one more view from the top of the bridge before we headed back up the hill (which to me was the hardest part of the hike :)
All in all, this was a kid friendly hike. In terms of scenery, it was one of my favorites. I think there is even a waterfall IF we had had any rain). It was very peaceful (other than when my kids were all talking at once) and a good starting hike for the pup who had no trouble keeping up even with her short little legs.

I hope we get to go back!

Happy hiking!

Robbers Cave

Technically this blog is "Hiking in Arkansas", but because of our location (NWArkansas), we actually have fairly easy access to Missouri and Oklahoma. We do have amazing trails here we have yet to discover, but once in a while we venture over to other states. That is what we did yesterday.

Robbers Cave State Park is about three hours from us (maybe 2 1/2...we stopped for lunch along the way) in Wilburton, OK. If I remember correctly, we took 540 to 271 then near Wilburton we took 270. That is the simplified version. :)

Once you get to the State Park, just go in the main entrance and follow the signs to the trail.

The trail is only about a half mile long but it is a workout. It involves a lot of climbing, so I am classifying it as strenuous. I am feeling every bit of it in my legs today!

The good news is that you barely have to walk onto the trail to find the fun stuff. It is like a giant playground for kids...rocks everywhere. My kids have become mini rock climbers and eat this stuff up. Right off the bat, we ran into the "Devil's Slide".
One child (and his daddy) successfully climbed up this "Devil's Slide". The rest of us took the stairs.
I think OK has a little more in bloom than we do. Seems like spring is slow in coming this year. But this tree was beautiful!
Here are the "stairs" (they are rocks) up the trail. It was very steep, though we all did it without a lot of huffing and puffing. I do think there is a gentler way up the trail, but either way, you are climbing about 80 feet. We just stuck to this one.
If you are a spelunker, I don't think I would go expecting much of a cave to explore. This "cave" was a hideout years ago for some of the more famous outlaws, such as the James brothers. It is not very deep but it is very steep inside.
After you leave the "cave", you continue along the trail to a beautiful overlook. I will say this was a very popular trail. We saw several large groups along the way. We also got to watch some rock climbers/rappellers.
The overlook was beautiful. Obviously these are bluffs so you want to be careful with your kids. That being said, there was plenty of space to look without being right on the edge, so I never felt nervous.
The trail continues through the woods. After the large rocks, the kids were disappointed with this part, though they found some smaller bluffs to explore. It was pretty though, and I am sure when everything is in full bloom, it is quite lovely. The good part was that is was DOWNHILL.

After following the yellow markers (which clearly marked the trail), we returned to the other side of the large rock hideout. This part was equally fun, if not more since it wasn't as high off the ground. LOTS of areas to explore.


You can see the yellow arrow below which shows which way to go. I found those helpful and comforting when I couldn't keep up with the kids. :)

It was a fun little trail...a good workout and plenty of places to explore. We didn't really see any wildlife other than lots of kids. :) I would recommend it for most...I would probably hesitate to take someone very young on the trail due to the rocks and bluffs. Joshua though did enjoy it and could climb much of it with ease. There were only a couple places that we insisted on holding the hands of the little ones.

We did take part of another trail but didn't get to finish it. Joshua was done at that point. So I guess I will have to go back sometime and try it. :)

Reba

Lincoln Lake- Eagle Loop

A couple weeks ago we discovered Lincoln Lake which is ironically located just outside of Lincoln. :) I have directions in my earlier post...just scroll down a bit. Anyway, when we realized what a beautiful day it was going to be, we had no doubt we needed to get outside. Even though we were just there, we were eager to hike that area again. So we headed down the road to Lincoln Lake.

Last time we went, we hiked the Piney Loop, though we regret we didn't hike it all. This time around, we decided to try the Eagle Loop.

The first several feet I was questioning our decision. There was a switchback or two which means INCLINE. Then once we had gotten up to where the trail was, the first part of the trail was an old service road. It just doesn't feel as much like hiking when it is a service road...

However, we were treated to a sign of spring!


The views of the lake were just beautiful. It was a very warm day and there wasn't much of a wind, so the lake was very calm.

We did walk along some of the bluffline. Don't worry, we keep the kids close. Mark is kind of a drill sergeant about bluffs.
We visited some of the overlooks. They were just beautiful. We had amazing views of the lake. We saw several boats out and heard a lot of geese in the area.
I really wish I knew more about flowers. We saw several of these along the path. They looked like a lily (which is my favorite flower ever) but all were "bowed" down to the ground. They were really pretty though.

You would think I would be used to it, but I cannot get over the beautiful bluffs and rock areas in our state. They are like a ready made playground for the kids and just some of the most interesting formations I have ever seen!
I actually climbed up this rock. It was like a large flat rock lying on its side. It was at just the right incline to climb up carefully but not feel scared (obviously if I did it too...I just don't have picture proof for me).
This is another view of the lake from the rock.
I should add that there were two parts of Eagle Loop. This was the lower part, and actually the above pictures are taken a bit off the path (we were encouraged by a park employee to do that...it is a big rock climbing area for real rock climbers). If you ever go, just ask me, I think I can tell you where it is.
We really thought this picture (below) looked like an elephant's head...it was a tree against one of the bluffs.
Again, I know nothing about plants, but this looked like some sort of cactus.
More of the rock formations along the trail
Since it was a loop, we ended up right back where we had started. It was a neat hike. Had we not had one really tired little boy with us, we might have had more time to explore. But it is something I wouldn't mind doing again. I know there are more parts to this trail and the other trail we have yet to see.

I would consider this one a moderate just because there were a few hills/inclines. The path is not totally clear...Joshua with his little legs tripped a lot. The overlooks were my favorite part as well as the rock climbing area. Safety wise, it was moderate too. I would be careful at some of the overlooks with kids, but that was really the only time we got nervous. The only wildlife we saw this time around was a spider and some vultures. I still give it two thumbs up...three out of four kids loved it. One was too tired to truly know. :)

Reba