The last sunet of the month, 1/31/03 (no other update since 1/30)s
1/1/03 Cloudy and gray today, and the temp is just above freezing. There is the finest mist I ever felt in the air this morning - you can just barely feel something hitting your face, but there is nothing on the ground. The air, trees, and ground are filled with BIRDS of all shapes, sizes, and colors. And they are making a lot of noise, which when combined with the roar of the rivers below make for a pretty raucous atmosphere - I guess the wilderness is celebrating the new year!
Today is Amber's last day of "freedom" before she goes back to school tomorrow. Sometimes I must wonder about the Jasper school system - they have so MANY half days of school where they don't get anything accomplished in class, then they call the kids back at the end of the week like this when most other schools are out until next week, when they can begin with a full week - it all has to do with money I'm sure. The school system is very good here though, so I guess they know what they are doing, although it doesn't always seem that way.
I'm going to begin the New Year off the right way and go out for a hike around the loop to see if the rest of the mountain is celebrating. They are calling for snow later, so I bet a lot of critters will be out getting ready.
Pam and I had a great hike, along with Aspen, Lucy, and the Trail Cat. That darn cat seems to go just about everywhere we do. We stopped by Bob's garden and picked a couple of turnips for a snack. He has quite a lot of them and no wildlife besides us seems to like them. I must say that this batch was really tasty - sort of like a sweet radish. In a minor confession I will tell you that I have never eaten a turnip before today. But now I will reach for one every time we come across them!
The mist continued to just float on down, hardly perceptible at all. But by noon the air was dry. The clouds looming overhead and the brisk wind out of the west seemed to be saying that snow was on the way. Lots of birds visible all over the place, even an owl.
I spent several hours back at the cabin this afternoon going through my giant pile of paper files that I brought down from the office a week or two ago. It was time to flush out all of the 2002 files and set up new ones. By the time I had reached the back of the large filing cabinet, the floor in the office cabin was piled high with papers, files, envelopes, and all sorts of things that had been hiding in the file cabinet.
After all of that mess it was time for me to hit the woods once again, so I headed out the door. This time it was just me and Aspen and Lucy, out for a genuine ramble. A ramble is when you take off in whatever direction you happen to go, with no particular destination in mind, and not following any sort of trail. It is easy to ramble on in the winter woods without fear of snakes or worrying about poison ivy and sticker bushes. The forest floor is generally open and clear so hiking along whatever route you choose is easy.
After about 30 minutes of just roaming through the forest I found myself at the opposite side of the ridge from the cabin, at a point overlooking the mouth of Dug Hollow and the Buffalo River. I could just barely see the river below, but could hear it loud and clear. Sound travels up quite easily, especially when the air is moist like it was today.
I spent the next hour or so making my way long the top of the bluffline on the eastern end of this ridge, generally walking very slowly, one step at a time, and pausing wherever I felt for as long as it seemed right. Sometimes I feel more a part of the wilderness on these ramblings, especially when there is no time frame for me to be concerned with. The trees and boulders and moss and leaves are my friends, and even though there is no perceptible sound, there often is conversation of sorts, between me and these things, if that is possible.
One thing that I was looking for was ice damage in the trees. There didn't seem to be too much over on this side of the ridge. In fact there were no large chunks of trees like I had seen in the Whitaker Creek Drainage yesterday, and it looked like most of the damage was dead already - limbs that had already given up on life just hanging on until an ice storm or bugs or just plain rotting sent them to their final resting place on the forest floor.
At some point in my walk I began to formulate a plan for a hike that I have always wanted to do. I will start on Cave Mountain Road where the big bluffline that wraps through the entire wilderness crosses the road, and follow the base of that bluffline all the way through the wilderness - upstream, in and to the very back of an then out of each drainage, crossing the river at Dixon Ford, then continuing downstream in the same manner - and coming out on Hwy. 21 between Boxley Valley and Mossville. I have no clue how many miles that is, but that is one of the things I want to find out. I will need to plot out the general course of the bluffline on a computer map and calculate the distance, then will be able to tell how many days it might take me. I'm thinking maybe four or five days hiking. In some of the drainages, like Whitaker Creek, that bluffline goes on for miles and miles. I thought about hiking along the top of the bluff, but now think it would be much more interesting to go along the base of the bluff, and camp under there whenever my day comes to an end. Maybe later this winter or spring. I have a project or two to get finished first.
It was just beginning to get dusky dark when I made my way back to the cabin, and I could quickly tell that something good was going on inside - my bride was cooking! She doesn't do that too much, but when she does, it is normally a fine meal. I had good intentions of cooking a grand feast for our New Year's dinner last night - grilled salmon - but for some reason it turned out rather dull and unappetizing. TONIGHT would be a different story though, and Pam rolled out a pan of enchiladas that disappeared in a hurry.
We have gotten a bit lazy this past week or so, staying up late and sleeping in since Amber had not had school. But all that comes to an end tonight - it will be a 5:30am wakeup call tomorrow. They are calling for two inches of snow by morning. It won't be quite to tough on Amber to go to school with snow on the ground since she got to play a couple of days in it over vacation (AND we got to make snow ice cream and a snowman!).
Amber going back to school marks the end of our mini-vacation too, as both Pam and I have a ton of work to get on with. And now since I have that big hike in mind, I will need to get my schedule cleared out more so than ever. Hum, I guess I had better let my wife in on my hike plans. I will have to fit it into her schedule of drawing classes that she will be taking this spring in Fayetteville, Amber's soccer games in Harrison, and well, all of my other stuff. The new year is barely a day old and already I am looking forward to it with a great deal of zest! It is going to be a fun year.
I wanted to pass along the following note from Chelsie's dad about her condition:
"Chelsie started the new year off
with a bang today....she started talking again...her first words were momma
and
daddy..........and then came i
love you from her little lips...but then i asked her how much she loved
daddy and then came the
big surprise..she said she loved
me bunches.....something she had started telling me since she was 2 yrs
old on a daily
basics..i knew then the ole chelsie
was beginning to appear.....and lots of prayers had been answered.............the
only thing
the doctors have to say now is
.........remarkable........the nurses say now nothing she will do will
surprise them........"
Chelsie is the young lady that was injured in a car accident a couple of months ago and has been in a coma. Many of our Journal readers have logged onto a special web page that was set up to send her good wishes (www.geocites.com/love4chelsie), and they certainly are working! I told her dad that I expect to see her hike into Cloudland later this spring!
1/2/03 We began to get some rain early in the night - it sounded great on the tin roof! But the temp was 35 degrees, so no snow. Then in the span of about 30 minutes around 2:30am the temp dropped to 27 and the sound of the rain stopped - it was snowing! The snow continued until almost daylight, although it was very light and didn't pile up too much - actually less than an inch of snow. But it was VERY wet snow, the kind that sticks to everything. The trees and branches were covered with white, and it looked like a lot more snow.
Pam and Amber got up and went out to the bus stop, but the bus decided not to run. They cancelled school in Mt. Judy and Witts Springs. We found out later that there was no snow at all in the lower elevations like Jasper, but the mountains were covered with white.
It was a weird sight at first light - very black clouds overhead, bright white trees and landscape all around, and there was a frozen fog of sorts blowing up from the valley below. Only after all of the white stuff blew away did I realize that the snowline was about half way down the mountain - the river area didn't get any snow at all.
The three of us decided to take a hike down to Bob's cabin and deliver a package of books to Benny Stovall, who had been staying at the cabin this week. He had been out wandering around on the mountain these past few days just like me, and reported having a grand time of it. Both cats followed us through the snow to Bob's cabin.
After a short visit with Benny, we headed back but split up once we got to the Faddis meadow - Amber wanted to bushwhack through the snow back to the cabin. I went with her, while Pam took the road back - she wanted to get back before us to haul in a bunch of wood for the fireplace - I had promised a roaring fire once we got back.
Amber took off into the woods, weaving in and out of the thick, snow-covered brush. This girl loves to bushwhack! It really was a beautiful snow. But only an inch of it.
Those black clouds continued to hang around, but didn't produce any more snowfall. I had to make a quick trip into town, and was surprised to see no snow at all there - looked like the snowline was at some point between 1500 and 2000 feet. But there was plenty of the white stuff to greet me upon my return this evening - didn't look like any of it had melted, although the roads were all just fine.
Oh, oh, one more point about our morning. Once we all got back to the cabin and I built up a roaring fire, we all settled into a relaxed "cabin" of reading, doing chores, etc. And just when we were all about lulled to sleep, the alarm rang out from Pam - EAGLE!!! A giant mature bald eagle was floating just outside the back door of the cabin. We all rushed out onto the decks to see. It was one spectacular sight for sure, especially with all of those black clouds and the snow all around. And then as if on command, the eagle landed in the top of a tree at the edge of Mom's meadow - right there in front of us! No big deal if you are in Alaska. Or even in Arkansas near a chicken house. But we've never had an eagle land here before - they normally just cruise on through and we get a good look at them for a few seconds and then they are gone. But this guy today gave us a nice look. HOWEVER, no sooner had his talons grasped the snag when Aspen and Lucy came charging out of the cabin, growling and barking and snarling like we were under a bear attack. Needless to say the eagle took off for more quieter country!
1/3/04 Bright stars above and cold (24 degrees) when we rolled out of bed at 5:30am to get Amber off to school. Still lots of snow around. As daylight began to creep into the hills and valleys around us the birds showed up in great numbers. We normally have a lot of birds around here anyway, but Pam has four feeders on the western side of the cabin that really perks up the activity. I built a big fire and we worked in the cabin office all morning before Pam had to make a quick trip up to Missouri.
By late afternoon I was ready for a hike. The temp had only risen to the upper 30's, but the bright sunshine made it look much warmer (it wasn't!). I decided that I wanted to take a major bushwhack trip down the big hillside below the cabin, so I put on my "full size" hiking boots which are much stiffer and heavier than my normal dayhiking shoes. I had to distract the Trail Cat to keep her from following - all that takes is a bit of food or milk.
We (the dogs and I) dropped down below the bluff and took off on a 45 degree heading DOWN the hillside. While the dogs were able to simply float on down the hill and were running around like crazy on the benches below, getting down the nearly-vertical slope was more of a controlled fall for me. The reason I opted for the heavy boots was because my feet would be constantly tangled up in thick brush, rocks, crevices, and no telling what all else down along the ground - I hoped that my weak ankles would not get caught too much and snap.
One thing I noticed on the way down was the number of full-sized trees that had fallen over. Some of these guys were monsters, yet had not broken up and came tumbling down all in one piece. Normally they would create a good-sized crater in the earth, with a mound of dirt surrounding the root ball, but most of the soil on this hillside is very rocky, and the root systems of even these big trees is rather shallow, so they don't take much earth with them as they fall.
Many times you will be hiking through the forest and come across a depression in the ground and wonder what the heck it is. Sometimes these are actually sink holes, conduits down into cave systems below. But most of the time around here these depressions are what is left after a big tree is blown over. Naturally if the tree is still attached it will be easy to tell. But most of the time the tree has long since rotted away. It is easy to tell if it is a sinkhole or where a mighty tree once stood - if it was a tree, there should be a mound of dirt on one side of the depression, which is the remains of the root ball and all the dirt around it. There is a really neat area a couple of miles from here where there are hundreds of such depressions/dirt mounds. In a few years it will really be a mystery what the heck caused them, but right now there are still just ghostly remains of large trees on the ground, almost completely decomposed, but still barely there. The trees are lying in different directions - the result of a tornado that swept through the area probably 10-20 years ago.
As I made my way down towards the bottom of the hillside I came across this one giant tree that had plopped out of the ground and onto a large rock, leaving the base of the tree up in the air. I would have loved to have seen this one come down!
I had to make my way down through a secondary bluffline that is just above Whitaker Creek - it's about 35-40 feet tall in this area, but I found a place where it was broken up and I could make my way down through. Of course, the dogs found this spot long before me and were already taking a few laps in a pool in the creek by the time I arrived.
Whitaker Creek was flowing, but not REALLY flowing. I guess it would be about average for this time of the year, perhaps a little bit low. But it was a beautiful sight, with the clear waters tumbling past and over many boulders, pausing in quiet pools of emerald green before continuing on towards the Buffalo River.
I didn't really have a specific route or goal in mind today - which means I was on a ramble - but once I hit the creek I decided to turn upstream and just follow it along a while and see what I could find.
At one point I came into an area where the boulders all around were covered with a thick carpet of bright-green moss. Heck, even some of the trees were carpeted - and not just on the north side, but all around the trunk, extending up for a good long ways. I guess this particular area gets a lot of moisture from somewhere, even in the summertime.
There were giant trees all around me as I made my way upstream in this narrow valley. Beeches, sweetgums, hickories, sycamores - so many of these trees were so large at the base that I could not put my arms all the way around them. They are the silent sentinels of the wilderness, constantly watching over all and keeping the peace. That is until Momma Nature sends along a big blow and sends some of them tumbling to the ground. I never mourn the loss of a giant tree like that, for once they are on the ground they provide food and homes for countless numbers of critters large and small for many years to come, and also make room in the forest canopy for other trees to take their place. It's just the natural order of things and the way life is supposed to work.
The waterfall situation in the Ozarks has not been too good yet this winter, even though we have had a number of significant rainfalls of late. The ground is still soaking up all that it can to make up for the long drought during the fall months. I was REALLY surprised when I began to hear the sounds of falling water, and it was not coming from the creek.
The lower bluffline that I had come down through was now a hundred yards or so away from the creek, and that is where the noise was coming from. Ah yes, I remembered - there IS a waterfall of sorts along that bluffline, and it sounded like it was actually RUNNING today! I quickly made my way back over to the bluff and son of a gun, the waterfall was flowing pretty good. This is one of hundreds of waterfalls that did not make it into the new waterfall guidebook - no way to include them all, or even FIND them all. But this one is unique in that it is sort of a spring, being fed with water deep in the hillside and not surface water. I know that because the miniature "drainage" up above it is completely dry right now, so the water has to be coming from someplace else. It was very nice to see a friendly waterfall today!
As I continued up the creek I took note of the fact that the sun had already set above me, and the valley was in shadow - in fact it had been that way nearly all of my hike. Just barely visible through the thick canopy of the forest, and way up above me, I could see part of the big bluffline glowing from the light of the sun that was just setting from that vantage point. Looking closer I realized that the point of rock the Ozarkglow was illuminating was none other than Hawksbill Crag - I was directly below it, more or less.
Darkness comes slowly to the wilderness, so I really wasn't all that concerned that I was at the very bottom of this deep valley and still heading away from the cabin. No big deal - I still had an hour or more to go before it got really dark.
A couple of years ago one of the old timers who had began his life along the banks of the Buffalo River near the mouth of Whitaker Creek came out and took me on a hike down into this valley (Andy Friend). He showed me his old homesite (now just a pile of rocks, a stone root cellar, and a square, hand-dug well). But he also noted that there was an old mule trail that went from his place all the way up Whitaker Creek and out to the main Cave Mountain Road. I had known of an old trail that made its way up through the main bluffline above, but had never seen anything of it down in the bottom of the valley. Andy vowed to return someday and we would attempt to locate the old trail together. He has not been back out, but I have always wanted to see if I could find that trail. "Mule Trail Falls" in the new guidebook is named so because it is next to where the upper part of the trail exits the valley.
As I stood next to the creek wondering what I was going to do next, it suddenly dawned on me that I was looking at part of that old mule trail right there in front of me. There wasn't really a "trail" tread there (it has been 50 or more years since the trail had been used), but it was plain to me that there was a corridor of sorts right there that would allow passage along the side of the creek and up to the next bench. I decided to follow it along and see what I could find.
The corridor was easy to follow as it made its way through a grove of giant, towering beech trees. The forest floor below was mostly smooth and wide open, except for the hundreds of little beech trees. Beeches normally keep their leaves all winter - they turn golden brown in the fall and dry up - so I was hiking through a golden glow of beech leaves.
The old trace made its way up the hillside and leveled out next to a giant block boulder of sandstone that had obviously fallen off the big bluff high above many moons ago, tumbling down the hillside and coming to rest at this level spot in the terrain. There were about a dozen mounds of dirt with depressions all around this boulder, so a lot of big trees had been guarding it but were taken out by storms long ago.
The trail route turned and began to make its way up into what is called on the maps "Lower Fork," which is just simply the "lower" fork of Whitaker Creek. Mule Trail Falls (and Haley Falls and Thousand Kisses Falls) is located up at the head of this drainage, so the trail corridor was going in the right direction.
When I was on a hike through this drainage many years ago I came across a most unusual tree. I had not been back to it since, nor ever photographed it. Since I was headed in that direction anyway, I decided that finding that tree would be my mission today, as well as seeing how far I could follow the old trail trace.
The corridor continued along a level bench, then seemed to come to an end in a boulder field. After looking around for a few minutes I noticed a line of trees going off in one direction, and sure enough, there seemed to be a trail corridor right next to them. This is a mule trail that I was looking for, not nearly as wide as a road, yet a little bit wider than a hiking trail - perhaps two to three feet wide. Sometimes you can look along the ground and see rocks all lined up - a sure sign of an old road or trail. But in this country, there are so many rocks, and they move around as the landscape gives and takes, so you aren't always assured of finding a clear trail after so many years. But I did find a good route, so I continued on up into the drainage. The light was, of course, getting dimmer and dimmer, but I still was not too worried.
And then I found it - THE TREE!!! I was hoping to find this tree, but realized that there were thousands and thousands of trees in this drainage and my chance of actually finding it was slim. But there it was, right next to the trail corridor!
I don't want to get too descriptive here and will let your own imagination take its course, but I swear this thing is exactly as is shown in the photo below. The beech tree is a huge one, and this "limb" or whatever is about a foot long and three inches in diameter. Exactly what it is and how it got there I don't have a clue, but it is part of the tree, and not something foreign that was stuck into the tree. To keep this site mostly "G" rated, we'll just refer to it as the Hot Dog Tree.
By the time I finished taking photos of the tree, I looked up and realized that it WAS getting dark now, and that I had better begin to formulate a game plan for my exit from the valley. Yet I wanted to continue my search of the old mule trail. As it turned out, the corridor just beyond the Hot Dog Tree was blocked with a wall of rock, and I could not find anyplace where the trail continued upstream. It would take a great deal more exploration in order to find how the trail got through this spot, and since it was after all getting dark, I decided to give up for the day and climb out of the canyon.
And CLIMB out I had to do - it was nearly straight up the hillside, hand over fist, grabbing onto whatever I could grab. But before too long I was standing at the base of the giant bluffline, at a spot where the layers of sandstone are multicolored and beautiful. The sun had long since disappeared, but this rock was still glowing, providing enough light for me to locate the spot where I could make my way up through the bluffline (the only spot between our cabin and there to get up).
I could hardly see the trail that I was now following on top of the bluff, but the western horizon was providing a nice show of color - reds, yellows and blues. And one by one I passed dozens of blocks of sandstone that had come from yet another bluffline above, and landed along the top of the big bluff - all silhouetted against the glowing horizon. There is one spot where a pair of pine trees grow out of the top of one of these blocks of sandstone, and I had to stop and take a snapshot or two.
While it is possible to hike along in the darkness, your progress gets really slow since you have to protect your eyes and carefully put down each step. Hiking along the top of a 100' dropoff in the dark was probably not a real good idea, so I decided it was time to leave the bluffline behind and bushwhack up to the very top of the ridge, where I could pick up the dirt road and follow it on back to the cabin.
My plans went along just fine as I made my way up the slopes without too much difficulty. There was enough light from the glowing western sky for me to get along. But then I came into a thick pine forest, and all of a sudden that light was GONE! Oops - the pines were blocking all that light! I managed to skirt around the edge of the pine grove and eventually made it on out to the road. Then it was an easy matter of following the road corridor back to the cabin.
As I began to drop on down the hill towards the cabin I saw a light shining through trees. I had not left any lights on at the cabin, nor was expecting any visitors. I had to laugh when I realized that the light was coming from my computer monitor, which is lined up so that it can be seen through the window.
When I got back inside I found out that I had only been gone two hours. You don't really have to go all that far for a great hike at Cloudland!
1/4/02 Clear blue skies again today, but the temp was a lot warmer at first light - 42 degrees! I must confess that Pam and I both were lazy and slept in until nearly 9 o'clock. Good grief.
As I was sitting here working on the journal from yesterday a friend came buzzing by outside in his plane. The wind was really kicking up - gusting to 40mph - and we figured he was having a bumpy ride up there. A few minutes later he called and confirmed that fact!
It is warming up nicely outside, and Pam and I are trying to decide if we want to go take a short hike, then come back and work on "processing" firewood for the rest of the day, or go on a longer hike. Looks like we are going to have to have lunch before we decide. Some decisions you just can't rush.
We ended up going on a medium hike, then split up in the middle of it to go our separate ways.
We wandered on along the bench west of the cabin, through a nice pine grove of huge trees, then dropped on down through moss-covered boulders to the bench below. The warm temp and bright sunshine had us in shirt sleeves in no time. Ah yes, this miserable winter weather in the Ozarks! It was a perfect afternoon to lay down in the leaves and soak up some sunshine. Aspen seems to have perfected that, and now takes every opportunity that he can get to crawl into a pile of leaves - usually in between a couple of boulders - and borrows down until he has a nice soft bed all around him. He did that today and I got a great photo of him - the look on his face was priceless. Only problem was that I forgot to retrieve that particular photo from my little disk before I erased it, so you will just have to picture his smile in your mind.
We dropped on down through the big bluffline and came to the base of Upper Haley Falls, which was just barely running, as expected. We met a couple there that had just come from Mule Trail and Thousand Kisses Falls with waterfall guidebook in hand. Seems like many folks we run into these days have that guidebook in hand - we passed four different groups today that were using it. I LOVE to see folks getting outdoors enjoying life, and am happy to play a small part in giving them the excuse to do so.
This couple was well versed in geology and fossils so we started talking about the bluffline we were standing next to. I showed them a bunch of fossils in the ceiling, and they proceeded to give us a grand education about them, as well as dozens of others that they pointed out. I could spend hours, no days, in the woods with folks like these - I know so little about what I explore and discover. And while I could not pronounce most of the names they cited, it was great to know about them.
We continued along the base of the big bluff - this short stretch ahead is one of my favorite parts of the bluff. It is always so colorful, and the rock layers so varied. The photo below is of just one little spot that we found - no telling what created all those marks and color, but they are just part of the rock.
At Mule Trail Falls we sat down and let the dogs roam around and explore each inch of the place. While there wasn't all that much going over the falls, the lower part of it was actually quite nice. After running down a neat section of rock and forming a pool of water, the earth soaked up Momma's Magical Liquid and the creek below was completely dry. We are still WAY behind on rain, and could use a foot or two.
At this point we decided to split up for the rest of the hike. One of the many great things about the relationship between my lovely wife and I is that we always try to support each other's aspirations. That doesn't mean that we each have to participate in them, but do support them. For instance, Pam loves to rock climb. I prefer to keep both feet on the ground. And while I will often send her on her way to go climb with other folks, I am also quite happy and eager to go along, help set up top ropes, and now have the equipment and have learned to belay her, a very important part of the process. But I really don't want to climb, and am perfectly happy to stay at the bottom and watch. Pam knows that locating this historical mule trail has become a minor obsession with me, but she probably does not share that obsession, which is fine with me. So as we were sitting there literally on top of the old mule trail at the falls, she knew that I wanted to continue my search for it. She was willing to let me do that, and was perfectly happy to strike off in another direction on her own to pursue her own interests (one of which was to get the mail, which we had to do anyway). I kind of like this bride of mine in case you couldn't tell.
So Pam headed on up the drainage towards the mailbox and I started down the old mule trail. It was easy to find right at the waterfall, but I had never actually followed it downstream towards the place where I had lost it coming up from the bottom the day before.
The first hundred yards was easy, then the trail disappeared, but I figured there was only one way for it to go, so I continued along that route. Aspen helped me find the next trace of the trail, just as it was about to cross the rocky drainage below the Lower Haley Falls. If you look close in the photo below you can see that Aspen is right on the old trail, and there are numerous rocks piled up along the lower side of it for support.
I followed the old trace across the steep hillside and onto a level bench. The hill below me was REALLY steep, and the trail probably could not go down it, although I knew that the trail had to get down there at some point. The bench I was following had several areas of significant boulders, and I was able to locate where the old trail went through each area. Sometimes it was merely a twenty foot stretch where the rocks were cleared out and lined up on one side - that was all I needed. Of course, on top of all this was 50 years of downed timber, trees growing up all over the place, a foot or two of leaves, and new rocks that had rolled into place here and there. Sometimes I simply had to stand back and imagine what the place might have looked like so long ago, and where someone might like to ride a mule.
This bench was located a couple of hundred feet below the big bluffline, which I could see UP to my left. No doubt that when the trail was in use most of the trees were gone - cut down for lumber - and the view up to the bluff would have been quite stunning. This area of the bluff had a great deal of iron in it, and catches the evening light, which creates a 100 foot tall wall of glowing red rock.
At some point along this bench I decided that I had lost the trail, and that it had to have already headed down into the deep ravine to my right. I gave up for the day and began to make my way back towards the cabin. At one point I had to go around a large boulder, and when I did, I found yet another piece of the puzzle - a narrow corridor through the trees and a few rocks lined up - I was still on the trail! Then a few feet later the old trace did indeed leave the level bench and headed on down the hillside - this was the connection point I had been looking for.
The trail lead down into a very steep part of the hill, then cut a switchback to the right, then a second switchback to the left. This all made sense because the trail had to go all the way down the hill at this point because the Hot Dog Tree was just below me - well, a LONG and steep ways down below me.
Just as I was getting a big smile on my face at having found the magical connection, I lost the trail. It simply disappeared. I spent the next 20 minutes climbing up and down the face of that steep hillside, looking for what should have been obvious traces of the trail cut deep into the hill. Not a trace. It just didn't make sense - that trail had to have come down SOMEWHERE!
Once again I had given up in my mind, and started for home, which meant climbing back up the hillside. I called for the dogs, who had been out there at the edges of my sight exploring no telling what. As I struggled to get up the steep slope I looked up and saw Lucy easily jogging up the slope. This dog always puts me to shame, but today she made it look just a little bit too easy. LUCY - WHAT A GOOD DOG! She was running up the old mule trail. She had found the connection, the route that the trail took from the second switchback all the way down to the BOTTOM of the hill - YIPPIE!!! Getting off of that hillside was the most difficult part of the trail, and was the section of the trail that I really had to find in order to uncover the complete route of this historical trail trace. This was indeed a grand discovery, and I owe it all to Lucy!
The trail route that she was on was just barely visible, and only if you looked really close. But it WAS there, and obviously was the old trail. So now I had the route located between the waterfall and the bottom of the valley - counting the stretches of the trail that I had found yesterday. Making the connection from the creek below on downstream would be fairly easy - there really was only one area where it could go. I would have to locate exactly where the trail started/ended at the old settlement at the mouth of Whitaker Creek - that might be a more difficult job because there was no doubt many old road/trail traces throughout that area. I would need an old timer like Andy Friend to help me find that one of these days. I will also need to see what I can find up above Mule Trail Falls - the trail went from the falls all the way on out to Cave Mountain Road, and on that end too there will be many old road/trail traces so it may be impossible to find the exact route. But the way down through the bluff and steep, rocky hillsides into the bottom of Whitaker Creek is the important part of this trail. Thanks Lucy!
I climbed on up the slope to the base of the big bluff then followed it back towards the cabin, coming under Hawksbill Crag (which was lined up with people). About half-way back to the cabin I came to the cave that is located up in the middle of that big bluff. I wanted to go have a look, and was able to climb up onto a ledge that led into the cave opening.
This is really not a "cave" that goes back in very far but rather just an overhang that does go back pretty far. The opening and cave itself is about 15-20 feet wide and tall, and it goes back perhaps 30 feet. I was greeted with a lot of noise when I walked back into the opening - there were about a dozen rock doves hanging out in there, and they made quite a racket when they all took off! It appeared that the doves had been spending quite a bit of time in there, as evidenced by the droppings on the cave floor. These are the same doves that like to hang out on Hawksbill Crag, and I bet they come to roost in the cave on weekends when there are a lot of hikers visiting the Crag, like today.
This is the cave that I think faces a direction where at some point in time the full moon could be seen rising while you were standing in the back of the cave, especially before the big trees that guard the entrance were there. I envisioned that Native Americans used this cave for rituals or celebrations at that time. One of these days I need to go down and have a look see as the moon rises.
Pam beat me back to the cabin and was sitting in the swing with her feet propped up on the railing when I got there, enjoying the afternoon sunshine and reading a book. There was still plenty of that daylight left, so I took the opportunity to fire up the tractor and bring down a couple loads of firewood (our wood box was empty).
As I was putting the tractor away I noticed that the western sky was beginning to look really interesting. I headed on down back to the cabin. The sky began to turn colors. My pace quickened. For the next 30 minutes we were treated to one tremendous sunset! I got out the camera and began to shoot, one after another after another. Just when I thought I was through, the colors got even brighter and more intense, so I shot more photos. Thank goodness for digital film! (which is free, no matter how many shots you take) FINALLY, the color began to fade, and I could relax and fire up the grill and have dinner. It had been yet another wonderful day at Cloudland.
1/9/03 As I am writing this the eastern horizon is just beginning to glow - a few hints of orange and red near the base of a stack of clouds that rise up and across the sky to a point above the cabin. I suspect all of those clouds will light up here in a few minutes, so I may have a bit of trouble getting to the end of this paragraph before having to sprint out the door with the camera. It has been an odd sort of week out here, with VERY warm temps. For some reason I decided to hole up in the cabin most of the week and read. Reading is something that really doesn't come naturally to me (just ask any of my teacher in school!), and there was a time not too long ago when I could honestly say that I had written more books that I had ever read. But this week I could be found most of my waking hours in the big leather chair or on the couch with book in hand. I've only been on one short hike all week, and have not left the mountain other than a quick trip down to Boxley to complete the "rescue" of sorts of some hikers. I did spend some time up on the tractor working on the road, and hauling a few loads of logs down to the cabin. Actually most of my time has been spent at the computer - doing misc. paper work and answering a deluge of e-mails from hikers and others asking all sorts of questions. I am always happy to answer e-mails, but many of them these days seem to be filled with really odd questions (I have, no doubt, asked thousands of odd questions myself over the years!). And lots of folks who have been using the new waterfall guidebook have been writing in with their adventures since Christmas morning - it is GREAT to hear from all of you!
OK, the sunrise is progressing slower than I had anticipated so I can get into a second paragraph, but this may be it. Sunday morning sent four desperate - or should I say thankful - backpackers from Missouri to our front door (a man and three boys, all very nice folks). They had put in nine miles upstream at Dixon Ford and had planned a two-day hike through the wilderness, along the river, to exit at their vehicle at Boxley. By the end of the second day they had not even made it to Whitaker Creek yet, and ended up bushwhacking for five hours in the dark just to reach it. They were supposed to have already come out at Boxley and been on their way back home by then. Somehow they located the historical ladder trail the next morning and climbed up the hill and came to our cabin, asking for a phone to call several sets of anxious parents. It was still an eight-mile hike along the road to get to their vehicle, but none of them looked to be in any condition to do that, so I offered a ride. (OOPS, here comes the sunrise, so I have to run for a few minutes!)
OK, I'm back, and the color were even more brilliant than I had expected. Actually it wasn't really the sunrise, because it still isn't up yet, but rather the color and light before the sun shows up - that's always when the best color is (and AFTER the sun has set in the evening) - so many folks aren't even there when the best color is going on.
Where was I, oh yea, the lost hikers. They really weren't lost, but rather late - it took them a lot longer to bushwhack through the wilderness. The going is very slow when there is no trail, especially when you are carrying a backpack instead of just a daypack. This was the first trip of its kind for the group, especially for the boys. The man kept apologizing to them, and to me for what he had "done" to the boys in taking them into the wilderness unprepared for the long and difficult journey. I thanked HIM for making the effort to take the boys into the wilderness for such a long and difficult journey, and assured him that while they may be tired and beat up now, that this would prove to be one of their greatest accomplishments to date, and that they would speak of this adventure for many years to come with great fondness. Just sit back and listen to folks tell stories of ill-fated trips into the outdoors sometime - the worst adventures always turn out to be the best! These boys no doubt grew up and broadened their minds, skills, and souls a great deal during their time spent bushwhacking through the wilderness. I recommend it highly to just about anyone!
Later that day I spent several hours up on the tractor, hauling wood down to the cabin, and dragging the "box blade" on the road, back and forth, back and forth, in an attempt to smooth out some of the rough parts and fill in potholes. We have a pretty good road down to the cabin now, but the more traffic we get, the worse it gets. While we don't mind visitors to the cabin for an outside view too much, we prefer that they come on foot to help save our road.
Pam and I went on a hike around the loop the other day, in the warm afternoon sunshine. Soon after we began the hike I stopped to do something, leaned up against a small tree, and wound up knocking it right to the ground - it was quite dead and ready to come down, and I nearly fell over backwards when it decided to give up the ghost. That seemed to ignite some sort of spark in Pam, and she spent the next good bit of the hike searching out similar dead snags and trying to push them over. When you really stop and take a close look around the forest, there are plenty of them out there - an amazingly high number of them, from saplings all the way up to full-grown giants, towering over the landscape, but ready to come down in the slightest breeze (or when a hiker leans up against them). Of course, these dead trees coming down with a great boom are just a natural part of it all - and YES, they DO make a noise in the forest when no one is there to hear, no matter how small they are! While dead trees provide foot and shelter for all sorts of critters while they are standing, they provide at least as much of the same - probably even more - once they hit the ground. One of the neatest sights in the woods is a big fat log, half buried in the leaves, and covered with a carpet of bright green moss, with a mushroom colony or two poking out from within the guts of the old tree. If you look close there is almost always a great deal of critter traffic on the log - everything from lizards sunning themselves, to chipmunks scurrying about, to what often seems like miles and miles of ants marching along. Not to mention the countless beetles and grubs working their way deep into the wood. And eventually on a hot and steamy summertime night, the log might be ripped apart by a hungry bear, eager to slurp up as many of those little critters as he can. Yep, a dead tree is anything but . They continue to provide life for a long time after they come to the ground.
Yesterday the temp got up into the low 70's, and it felt kind of odd looking at the snowy scene on the calendar. But that is part of living in the Ozarks - we have quite a few wonderfully warm days in the wintertime here. We opened up all the windows and doors in the cabin and let the place air out. Pam donned my neoprene waders and spent much of the afternoon in the pond in front - fishing out leaves and other debris that had settled on the bottom - and chasing the remaining fish around. I say "remaining" because it appears that some of our fishes have disappeared - in fact ALL of the smaller ones have not been seen by us in quite a while. The eight largest ones (up to 14-15 inches long these days) all spend their time huddled under a rock shelter that I put in for them in the deepest part of the pond. The little ones used to be under there with them, but no more. We are not really quite sure if they were all eaten by raccoons (have not seen any sign of them), got swept into the skimmer and out the overflow hose (no sign of that either), or if they simply are hiding elsewhere in the pond and will show themselves once the water temp gets back up above 55 degrees in the springtime - we are hoping for the latter, but are prepared for the worst.
Amber and I had a little adventure on the way home from school one day. Most of the time when I go out and pick her up I let her drive home - she sits in my lap and does all of the steering while I work the gas and brake pedals. One day she wanted to go down and check on Bob's cabin, just to make sure everything is OK there. What she really wanted to do was practice sharp turns - there are a couple of them on the way to Bob's. Once we got to his cabin and found everything just fine, we continued on past it, to the North meadow. She wanted to go even farther, so we took the road - which was getting smaller and rougher all the time - on down to the Woods Boys Cabin, a place she had never been to. She handled the wheel the entire time and drove us right up to the front door. After we made sure everything was OK there, Amber drove me on back through the woods and the rest of the way home. I want her to get comfortable behind the wheel as early as possible just in case an emergency comes up and she is forced to drive out to get help. And, of course, when it comes time for her to drive out in the real world, she will be that much ahead. One problem we are going to have though is the fact that the nearest stoplight is an hour's drive away in any direction, so we're probably going to have to drive into a town to teach her how to deal with that. Just one of the many drawbacks to living in the wilderness!
Just FYI, a couple of the books that I have been reading are A SEPARATE PLACE by David Brill, and MANY RIVERS TO CROSS by M.R. Montgomery. One of them is the story of a guy who moved out into the woods in Tennessee and built a cabin while coping with a divorce and separation with his two daughters. The other book is about a guy who is on a mission to locate as many truly wild and native populations of western trout as he can. Both books were on the deep discount tables at the bookstore, but I find them both to be a good read, and filled with many of the same thoughts I have had in the wilderness. One of these days I am going to go through with the promise of publishing the Cloudland Journal in book form - especially since I am approaching the FIFTH anniversary of it! Good grief, have I really been babbling on for nearly five years? (Those who know me say it has really been more like 40.)
I have also spent a great deal of time this week trying to fix some problems that have been going on with our online store. We had to pay dearly to get this store up and running, and to keep it going, and while it never has performed like it is supposed to, it has been a lot of help to our customers and we have been able to process more orders than before. Sometime last week one of the settings in the store was accidently changed by someone "up the line" and resulted in the store being completely shut down for several days. I think we have it all back to normal now, and hopefully even better than before.
If I have not done so already (even if I have, it bears repeating), I want to THANK each of you Journal readers who purchased books, posters, or calenders this past couple of months through the store. While the actual storage space for the Journal is provided free of charge by our great internet service provider - ArkansasUSA, THE NET CONNECTION in Fayetteville - it still costs us money and a great deal of time and effort to keep the Journal up and running. The only way that we are able to continue to provide the Journal free of charge is because of your generous support (I am beginning to sound like national public radio now). I hope the Journal, and the publications that you get out of all this are worth your time and money. THANKS for reading, and for buying!
OK, now for today. As you have already learned we had one terrific sunrise this morning - or I mean PRE-sunrise. As the clouds were beginning to blaze I decided to run down into Mom's meadow and see what they looked like from the Gazebo. I sat in the swing there and watched as the clouds lit up right on cue. There was a slight breeze, it was WARM (52 degrees!), and the river far below was signing out a delightful tune. As the clouds got brighter and brighter, I snapped away with the camera - more than 50 shots. By the time the color began to fade I was nearly out of breath from all the excitement (sometimes I really get worked up when there is such a great scene in front of my camera lens and the "film" is free!). It was just, well, a wonderful moment in time.
A couple of notes about, well, notes. It seems that a lot of you found the humor in and appreciated the photo of the Hot Dog Tree the other day. In fact, I have received more FAN MAIL for the TREE since posting the photo than just about anything in recent history. I wanted to share the following from one of our regular Journal readers:
Is this why they call them beechnuts?
Is that tree looking for a piece of ash?
Is its bite worse than its bark?
I hope bears needing to scratch are careful.
I think in my next life I want to be a tree.
---Tracy Prince
And on another note, I wanted to share with you something that has been going on in one of the bathrooms at the cabin (not related to the tree). I always keep a small yellow pad of paper and pen next to the toilet - the phone ALWAYS rings when I am in there! One day when I came in I found the words "The Rock" written at the top of a blank page. Nothing else, just, The Rock, in Amber's handwriting. I decided to add a second line - "Lives in the river." The next day when I looked at the note pad again the words "By a tree" had been added. So I wrote "Where the squirrels play." Each day or two a new line or phrase has been added - never by the same person twice in a row - and a storyline has developed that involves bears and hawks and eagles and flowers, and all sorts of things going on, now five pages long. Not a single word has ever been said between any of us about this (until yesterday) - the story has simply been unfolding as time goes on and we visit the toilet. Sometimes I can't wait to go in there and see what has happened since my last visit! Apparently during my reading spell this week I have been spending most of my bathroom time outside and have not been contributing much to the story. Amber finally came up to me yesterday and announced that "You need to go add something to the story - it is getting too "girlish!" If this story turns out any good (and ever ends), I will publish it here in the Journal. That led me to an idea - one of these days I might come up with a name for this sort of writing, and encourage others to put a note pad at some location in their house and begin writing the same type of story. Then collect the best of them and publish them in a book (or more likely, online). No telling what stories might be created!
Back to real-time. The sun is gone now - hiding back in the clouds - and it feels like springtime outside. The air is heavy with moisture, and it sure would be great if it RAINED! The waterfalls in the Ozarks are not running too well right now, but a few inches of rain or a foot of wet snow would help them out a lot. Come on rain, come on RAIN...
1/13/03 It's been dry and cool, with no hint of rain. We got to see a wonderful mature bald eagle float past the cabin yesterday. It is amazing how such a large and heavy bird can float so effortlessly through the air, slowly surveying the world below (or in our case, at eye level), then with nothing more than a blink of an eye, the eagle speeds up dramatically, and disappears around the corner, still without moving a single feather. This is probably the same bird that has been visiting us all winter - he is pure black and pure white, big, bold, and beautiful. He did a u-turn and came past the windows of the cabin for a second time, then a third. Amber, Pam, and I all had our faces plastered to the glass, and when I looked over at the sliding glass door, there was Aspen, with his ears perked up, following the flight of this mighty bird too.
Lots of birds out and about these past few days, especially right around the cabin. We've got tons of finches, juncos, nuthatches, a few cardinals, and woodpeckers of all sizes, from the little downy ones all the way up to the Woody Woodpecker look-a-like, the pileated. It is so nice to see all of the activity in the air, on the ground, and up and down the trees. Birds add such a nice splash of color too.
We had lots of sunshine and warm temps this afternoon - in the mid 50's. Just before sunset I went out the door for a short hike up the hill, where I found a perfect rock sticking up out of the ground - it was about three feet tall, four or five feet long, and angled just slightly back. I sat down in the dry, crisp brown leaves and leaned back up against the moss and lichen-covered rock, and soaked up some rays. Aspen and Lucy were tearing around all over the place, chasing no telling what, and the Trail Cat climbed up on top of the rock just above me, and sat there soaking up as I was doing.
We were in deep forest so didn't have an open view of the setting sun, but the chopped-up rays of orange light was getting through the trees. Just in front of an to my left was a large shagbark hickory tree - it had smooth bark where it was not "shagging" off. The sunshine was casting irregular-shaped patterns of orange on that smooth bark. The more I looked at the patterns the more I swear they were moving - not only changing shape but color as well. I tried to focus my eyes tightly, and wondered if the wilderness was playing tricks on me. Nope, the patterns and color were indeed changing as the sun moved to the horizon.
There was a slight breeze at first, and the temp was falling rapidly - it had dropped about ten degrees in the few minutes before I left the cabin, and that wind made it feel even colder. Of course, all I had on was a thin shirt and pile vest. But I was plenty warm sitting up against that rock, which was radiating the warmth it had collected in the afternoon sunshine. There's something about sitting in a pile of leaves that adds to the warmth too.
Just at the moment when the sun dropped below the horizon and the forest went dim, the breeze stopped completely. It was ABSOLUTELY quiet in the forest, almost like the breeze and trees were holding their breath to watch the sunset. A few minutes later the breeze returned again, driving the temperature even lower.
Aspen and Lucy decided to chase the Fat Cat around a little bit - the cat had not made it all the way to the leaning rock before they intercepted him. Not wanting to expend any unnecessary energy fleeing from the dogs, the Fat Cat simply jumped up onto and climbed the nearest tree. He was still up there about 20 minutes later when I got up and headed back to the cabin. I wish I would have had my camera with me - looking up from the ground the 5/8ths full moon was high in the sky and was right up above the Fat Cat, looking over his shoulder.
Pam's mom and dad came down for a quick trip, and I cooked up a big pot of Cloudland Veggie & Ham Soup. Pam spent the day on the road and in the woods and hiked several trails that will go into the new kids (and family) hiking trail guidebook that she is working on. She report that it was a terrific day to be in the woods. I think she is going to like visiting hiking trails all over the state during the next six months of work on the new book. Sometimes she may even let me go with her!
It is getting late now, and that old moon is way up high and producing a great deal of light. I decided to go see if the Fat Cat ever got down out of the tree since he was not at the cabin, and went out for a quick hike up the hill in the moonlight. Such a marvelous night to be outside! The wind died down and it actually seemed warmer than at sunset, although the temp has dropped into the 30's. That wind really makes a big difference. I never found the Fat Cat, so I guess he got down from the tree just fine. There seems to be a lot of mouse activity of late - we see them running across the road in front of the truck all the time. The cats bellies are constantly full, and we have not had any problems inside, so I do believe the kitty's are pulling their own weight. Amber feeds them at 6 in the morning as she is leaving for the bus - but only about half as much as they would normally get fed. We don't want to starve them out, but want to keep them just a little bit hungry so that they will tend to the mice and other assorted critters.
We've got a big fire going inside, and everyone is warm and toasty. It is SOOOOOO nice outside I believe that I will leave the flames behind and go out for another moonlit stroll before turning in.
1/15/03 I woke up this morning in a tent out on the trail - it was a wee bit crispy cold, but not nearly as cold as had been predicted. Yesterday morning I drove over to a new section of the Ozark Highlands Trail that our volunteers have been working on of late. I wanted to hike the new trail (the first of three sections over there) to mark off the exact milepoints and do a description and map for an upcoming revision of the OHT guidebook (the description and map will also be available on the internet). Since I was alone, I would have to hike the trail twice, the plan being that I would stop at the turnaround point for the night, then hike back the next morning.
This new section of the trail is really nice, with some terrific views of the Spring Creek Drainage (right next door to the Leatherwood Wilderness area), and several places where the trail comes up and runs right along the base of a bluff. Some of the trail was quite rocky and the footing tricky, but I made pretty good time. The temp was in the low 40's, and I wore just a thin capeline shirt and pile vest, plus blue jeans and low-top lightweight hiking shoes. I was pushing a large, orange measuring wheel (made up like a bicycle tire with a solid, flat rubber tire - it can take a lot of abuse). This wheel measures the distance in feet. I did a running commentary into my tape recorder as I hiked along of the route of the trail, and interesting things to see along the way, all keyed to the distances. At each 5,280 feet I would note the mile point on a nearby metal trail blaze (in permanent ink), then zero the wheel and take off hiking again. It was GREAT to get out and do some longer-distance hiking, if only for a day or two. This section was supposed to be about nine miles long, so I was doing an 18-mile hike.
Normally when I hike like this I tend to lean into that measuring wheel and set a brisk pace. I knew that I had plenty of time to make it to the end by dark, so TRIED not to get in any hurry. But I really have just one hiking pace, and that is fast. Any other pace is uncomfortable for me. One of the many thousands of reasons why I married Pam was because her hiking pace is very fast as well. My only problem with hiking this fast is that I normally do a number on my legs and feet - they get sore in a hurry. But today everything was just fine, and my hiking machine was well-oiled and didn't squeak too much.
I arrived at the end of this first section by 3pm - my pace was just under three miles an hour, pretty good for me considering the wheel, and stopping all the time to do the mile markers and explore around a little bit. I don't ever stop to eat, but rather just munch on granola bars as I move along.
I moved another half mile down the trail and veered off into the woods and found a nice flat spot on top of a little ridge to make camp. The temp had been dropping for the past hour, and it was near freezing by the time I had my tent up and supper on the stove. I brewed up a big mug of tea, put my ramen noodles on to boil, then settled back against a log and enjoyed what was left of the day.
As I was sitting there watching the last rays of sunlight filter through the trees, it occurred to me that I had not seen a SINGLE critter of any description all day - no birds, squirrels, or deer. That was sort of strange. Even as quiet as I had been sitting there at camp, nothing stirred. I fully expected for a deer or two to come creeping through the forest, a squirrel or two to come out and play, or at least a few birds to fly flew. Nothing.
The wind that had been blowing all day continued and in fact picked up a bit just before sundown. The forest was quite dry, and with the wind blowing I decided not to build a fire. Anyway, after being up since well before daylight, I was tuckered out and ready to go to bed. My plan was to get up early the next morning and hike back to the truck, then return home. That was around 5pm.
At 7:30 I woke up (pm). The moon was bright and high in the sky. I was wide awake, and my muscles were not sore. What the heck, I thought, I might as well get up and go hiking. You know how I LOVE to wander around in the moonlight! So instead of aimlessly hiking around with no particular destination in mind, I decided to go ahead and hike back to the truck - after all, it was only 9 miles. So I gathered up a few provisions in case I broke my leg on the way, and headed on down the trail. The temp was down in the 20's by then, with the wind still blowing, and I added a thin fleece shirt to my capeline and pile vest layers. While I was rather chilled when I started out, it didn't take long for me to warm up - I never had to use the down jacket or gore-tex jacket that I had in my fanny pack.
It was absolutely GORGEOUS out hiking! The moon was really bright, and provided all the light that I needed for me to find my way. The wind was blowing some, but it spent about as much time perfectly still. I don't know what it is about hiking in the moonlight - it just has a completely different look and feet to it than when hiking in the daytime. I was having a blast and the miles went by effortlessly.
And just when I was really moving on down the trail and all was well in the world, I was startled into reality, and nearly scared to death. I began to hear a noise, but with a stocking cap pulled down over my ears could not really hear it quite clear enough to determine if it was the wind or something moving out there in the brush. I stopped in my tracks, pulled up my cap, straining to hear better. And then my hair stood on end and a giant chill shot through me as that sound combined with movement right in front of me - what seemed like the entire hillside just a few feet away from me was moving. It was a herd of wild pigs, and they were grunting and snorting and making all sorts of noise! Now I have seen a number of packs of wild pigs running around in the Ozarks, and while I have always kept my distance and kept an eye on them, I have never really felt all that threatened. These wild pigs are a combination of domestic pigs gone wild through many generations left out in the woods, and wild Russian boars that have been brought in and released into the wilderness by locals - they come in later and hunt them. These bands of wild pigs have become quite a nuisance, as they spread diseases and really tear up the landscape as they root around for grubs. After a few generations they begin to grow tusks, just like Razorback hogs. In fact when I was in college, and was a Razorback swimmer for the University of Arkansas, I used to put a wild boar skull that I had found while deer hunting around here - complete with tusks - at the far end of my swimming lane. It never scared any of my competitors, and I in fact never won a single race in college, but it looked pretty neat.
What really put the fear of God into me this time was not only the fact that it was, afterall, NIGHTTIME (and things are just that much scarier at night!), and also that fact that they really were very close to me, but the fact that Pam and Amber had just seen a National Geographic special on TV the other night about "man-eating wild pigs" in Africa or someplace, and their description of the show was not pleasant! I would much rather have come face to face with a big black bear than I would this band of wild pigs, no matter if they were the man-eating kind or not!
Should I try to yell at them and scare them off, like I would have a bear? What if they came charging at me? Should I go climb a tree? I'd never been faced with having to make this choice before, so I tried to be cool (that one was easy), calm, and collected. I knew they saw me standing there, but they didn't seem to be paying too much attention to me - they continued their grunting and snorting and rooting around. So I simply continued hiking,, slowly at first, and then my pace quickened. They did not follow. It took me several minutes before I stopped looking over my shoulder. In 18 miles of hiking those were the only living critters that I saw.
Even though it was very delightful hiking in the moonlight, and with the possible exception of the wild hog encounter I had a terrific time, it was good to see the glint from moonlight bouncing off of the windshield of my truck. I had covered the nine miles this second time in just under two and a half hours. I am not quite sure if this little night hike gave me my fill of it, or if it was so great that I will want more longer hikes - I suspect more. You just don't know how WONDERFUL it is until you do it!
It took me a half hour to drive back to my camp, then I got to hike another half mile through the forest in the moonlight to the tent. I crawled into my down bag, zipped the door shut, and drifted off to sleep. It had been a grand day. And while I normally don't sleep all that well out in the woods (I never sleep well at home either), it was a very restful night's sleep for me, and I only woke up 11 times (normally 25 or 30 times). Hum, I guess a little bit of wild hog games in the nighttime was good for me.
I was up before daylight (the moon had set a couple of hours before so it was pretty dark out), packed up all of my gear, and hiked out to the truck. The temp was in the low 20's, but there wasn't any frost on the ground. I beat a hasty path to Hardees in Harrison for a French Toast Breakfast Sandwich. My bride was waiting for me back at the cabin with a big hug and a warm fire. I will return to this new stretch of trail next week and continue from where I left off and hike the next two new sections. This trail is still under construction, so it will actually get longer as the springtime goes on, but I have to send off the guidebook by the end of January with the new sections of trail in it to be printed. The rest of the new trail will just be a dotted line.
Just after the sun went down here at the cabin tonight Pam called me outside to look at the sky. We counted more than 30 jet trails in the western sky - you can see about half or them in this one photo. I hope they had a traffic director up there!
There is a strong wind coming out of the east tonight, which normally means WEATHER is moving in. The temp is just below freezing, but the wind chill is close to zero. I do believe that we are in for some frigid days and nights ahead, but we are quite prepared with a good stockpile of firewood and plenty of indoor chores to do (LOTS of outdoor work too!).
1/16/03 There were shouts of glee coming from the loft when the 5:50am radio broadcast announced "Jasper" as being one of the many area schools closed today. Normally you would think that meant that our little Amber would go crawl back into her warm bed and sleep in. Nope, not our wilderness girl! She came downstairs and sat next to me in front of the fireplace while I built the glowing embers into a blaze that would radiate warmth into the entire cabin. I gave her the choice of going back to bed or getting to work in the cabin office, and she immediately said that she wanted to work. So here I sit, 30 minutes later, still dark outside, with my little helper next to me folding price lists (she is actually practicing her math, although she doesn't realize it - I'm paying her 2 cents for each fold - same as the print shop charges me - and she has to calculate how much she can add to her total for each stack). She is wearing an insulated grey nightshirt/sweatshirt that goes down to her knees, and a bright red pair of down booties. It is a bit chilly over in this corner of the cabin, but she doesn't seem to mind. She's a good egg.
Oh yea, the weather. It's 26 degrees outside, with a slight breeze bringing in light snow. The ground is frozen under a thin blanket of white. No school today in most of the Ozarks, at least this part of the Ozarks. It's not so much the snow that did it, but rather the thin layer of ice underneath. They were predicting lots of snow all day, but have already backed off of that, so we may not get enough accumulation for ice cream or snowmen. But we've got plenty to do to keep us busy just the same. As the day begins here in a little while the scene out in front of us will be mostly white - it has been all brown and grey for the past couple of weeks. The bluffline will remain dark, and the snow will create many things that lay hidden in the sea of brown and grey to stand out. I suspect there will be little bird activity early, but as the day progresses and the birds get used to the snow (and get hungry), they will come out to feed, and we will be able to sit in front of the fireplace and watch them.
Before I could stoke up the fire this morning I had to go outside and chop some wood. Pam has a large pile of split wood already stacked up in the carport, and the wood box is nearly full inside, but I needed smaller chunks of wood to get the fire going. I guess that I should spend an hour or two getting a large supply of this split up, but I actually enjoy going out into the frigid morning air and doing my little chore every couple of days. Of course, I used to have to go out and split ALL of the firewood - which was both a fun thing for me to do and a real chore sometimes. Now that we have the log splitter, it takes care of all this heavy work.
It snowed all day long, but there was still only less than two inches on the ground. This was perhaps the lightest, fluffiest snow I have ever seen - it was white and everything, but really didn't have any feel or weight to it. The birds flocked to the feeders all day long, and in fact they completely drained all three feeders in about five hours.
One little junco has taken a liking to Aspen. This bird sits below one of the window feeders, clinging to the narrow edge of the window frame, and constantly looks into the cabin to see where Aspen is. Most of the time Aspen is asleep on the leather ottoman that is right in front of the fireplace (smart dog). It is amazing how often these two make eye contact. Of course, I think Aspen's interest is purely culinary.
Most of the day the snow was light and we could see deep into the wilderness, but there were times when the snow got real heavy and we could hardly see beyond the edge of the decks. As the afternoon wore on the sun tried to come out - MAN, what an INCREDIBLE sight that was! The snow was coming down in big flakes, backlit by the bright sunshine. Looking out across the big valley there were tens of thousands - perhaps millions - of white diamonds gracefully floating down from the sky. I've never seen anything like it! We all just stood at the windows in wonder and awe - no way to photograph something like that.
Amber and I went out once for an hour or so to work/play in the snow - I spent my time raking leaves out of the stream in front of the cabin. If there is enough build up in the stream it can cause an ice dam, which could divert the water out of the main stream course - we would lose all of our water that way, so we try to avoid that at all cost. The wind was strong, driving the wind chill down near zero, but otherwise it was quite pleasant outside. Pam spent a good bit of time keeping the woodbox filled. She went on a terror and cleaned out our main walk-in closet up in the loft, while I spent the day down in the exercise room installing a set of cabinets and countertop. This room will become home for all of our outdoor equipment and clothes, and will the place where we go to pack and unpack for trips. Everything from boots to tents to stoves and lanterns will be kept there (we have at least seven tents that I know of, each one good for different types of trips).
By late afternoon Pam announced that she was going out to hike around the mountain. Amber, me, Aspen, Lucy, and The Trail Cat quickly followed. It was a delightful hike through the winter wonderland. The snow continued to come down heavy, while the sun peeked through it all every now and then. A bitter north wind cut right into us, but we kept up a brisk pace which helped to keep us warm.
On the back side of the mountain we came across this hollowed-out tree that was large enough for Amber to get inside of and stand up in. This is a favorite tree of Aspens - there is almost always some squirrel activity there. And sometimes there may even be an odd critter lurking.
ON the way back to the cabin Amber insisted on bushwhacking, and I swear it was even easier than hiking along the trail. This snow was really SOFT underfoot, and so was the thick layer of dead leaves, and even the soil underfoot seemed to give with each step. We sort of floated along through the woods wherever we wanted to go. Oh yea, and we started singing some songs from the Sound of Music, and I must say that while I bet some of the wildlife did not appreciate our music, I though we did a pretty good job!
So our total snow for the day was about two inches, but there is no telling how many inches were blown away and never reached the ground - the wind blew hard all day long. It is late at night now, and the temp has dropped to 21 degrees. The sky above is clear, and the moon is bright and inviting. As soon as I post this update to the web page I am going to try to convince my bride to go out for a night hike in the snow with me. She is the sort of gal that just might say yes!
1/18/03 A full moon day. When we went to bed last night the temp was 12 degrees - looked like it was on the way to being the coldest day of the season so far - it had got down to 9 the night before. It was clear outside, and the forest was just about as bright as midday, with a near full moon bouncing off of the thin layer of snow on the ground. But sometime during the night a heavy cloud cover moved in, and not only insulated the earth from losing more heat, but also brought warmer temps with it. By 7am this morning the temp had climbed up to 22 degrees. It's an hour later now and the temp is still rising, and it is snowing HEAVILY. Big, wet flakes. The sort of flakes that completely covered up Lucy in about 60 seconds. And it all seems to be coming from the south - that would make sense, with the warm weather and moisture and all.
Looks like we have a problem with our waterfall/stream this morning. I spent about an hour yesterday breaking up all of the ice along the watercourse - it was actually making some neat ice patterns, but I was worried about it freezing solid and creating an ice dam, which would divert the water over the edge. Everything was running just fine when we went to be. But this morning the water has stopped. I don't know if that ice dam happened during the night, or the pump simply froze up. My biggest fear is that the pump burned up, which would not only cost a great deal of money to replace, but would probably mean that we would not use the pump at all during the wintertime, which would be a shame because the system cost such a huge pile of money, and it is nice to have it operating during the winter. We certainly can't watch it 24 hours a day. The fish will be just fine without the water running - all we have to do is keep a hole open in the pond for gases to escape. I just hate to spend all of that money for nothing. We'll see.
I'm headed out the door here in a few minutes to go do one of the things that I enjoy most in life - splitting firewood in the snow! Our log splitter still does all the big work, but I like to split up some of the logs into smaller pieces to use as an intermediate step between the kindling and the larger logs. So I have to do a lot of chopping. Apparently I am not too good at it since I broke two mauls this past week, including one of those "unbreakable" fiberglass-handled ones. NOTHING is unbreakable around me! I got a new and different-styled one last night that I am anxious to try. It is actually more of an axe, although still has some heft to it like a maul.
We've got at least 100 birds just outside the window - most of them on the ground, but also Aspen's fan club up at the window, looking in to see where their buddy is this morning. I will make sure that we feed him before sending him out to play!
All of the dirt roads around here are still snow-packed, but not really all that slick. There does not seem to be any ice under that snow. Snow is much easier to drive on than ice, even without four-wheel drive.
Oops, I can see the snow beginning to get lighter - I had better post this and get to chopping before it quits!
1/21/03 It is cloudy, grey, and hazy at first light this morning. The temp is just above freezing. No wind. Birds are on the move.
We had a cabin full of guests over the weekend, as we got together to celebrate the full moon, grilled tuna, and even a little bit of guitar playing. I cannot confirm this fact because I had left the room for a moment to refill my glass, but it was reported that Pam's mom was up on the dance floor cutting a pretty good rug while Scott played some lively Spanish guitar music! (I just picked up my guitar again the day before for the first time in a long while, and was only able to produce any real music with two songs - I need a LOT of practice!)
And for the very first time ever at Cloudland, cries from an infant in diapers echoed throughout the cabin during the night. And try as they might, the ladies were unconvincing in their attempts to get me to agree to produce one of my own.
We had a couple of prominent nature photographers on hand - one already with a two-page spread in National Geographic and several magazine covers to his credit (Ray Scott), the other having had several images and articles published in regional magazines in his very first year of freelance life, with lots more on the way (Glenn Wheeler). While the two talented guys certainly will compete head to head in the future, there didn't seem to be any of that going on this weekend, although I do know for a fact that one of them had a severe case of tripod envy! It was kind of nice to see someone other than myself getting all excited and running for the camera gear as the clouds above began to turn bright colors near sunset, and to hear the basement door opening at 4:30am as one of them slipped out to hike over to Hawksbill Crag to get a timed-exposure in the moonlight. You will be seeing a lot of their work in the years to come, and it takes that sort of extreme drive to produce really great images.
Speaking of the moon, the full moon rise on Saturday was quite stunning - it was the color of a pumpkin on fire as it crept up over the horizon and reached for the sky. And it did so way far to the north on that eastern horizon - about as far north as any moon or sun reaches. I can never figure out where that darn thing is going to come up - it has a mind of its own, as apposed to the sun that takes a very definite path to the north in the summertime and back to the south in the winter, inching its way a little bit more each day.
Ray and his lovely bride Susan left the festivities at the cabin sometime before midnight on Saturday and hiked out into the glowing moonlight, only returning after they had been along a couple of different trails and out to the Crag. They reported a splendid outing - the rest of us were probably a wee bit too wobbly to have gone with them.
We had a feast of biscuits and gravy provided by the Spanish dancer on Sunday morning, then many of us went out for a hike. It was amazing how hillsides that had been covered with bright white snow just the day before had turned brown with no trace of snow at all in such a short time. Glenn remarked that the snow had even been there at 5-something in the morning when he returned from shooting the Crag in moonlight, but the snow was completely gone just a few hours later. The sun was shining brightly, and the temp was on its way up.
We hiked to the Crag then made our way down below the big bluffline there, and followed it all the way back to the Ladder Trail. That bluffline never fails to amaze me with its range of textures and colors. The rock climbers in the group searched for new routes - most of this sandstone is too crumbly for safe climbing, but there were a few places here and there that would be challenging but doable.
Oh yea, I am happy to report that I got the waterfall running again on Saturday. It took me about 30 minutes to break up the ice in the pond and stream, then I filled the pond up with more water and held my breath as I turned on the switch for the pump. I was afraid that it might have burned itself up during the night, but it came on and began to produce the waterfall just like it was supposed to. The problem was that any ice that forms in the creek/pond is taking water out of the system, and at some point there is not enough flowing water left to keep the pump going. Some of the ice on the pond was more than two inches thick! By Monday afternoon ALL of the ice had melted and we were back to normal - until the next really cold spell. It would be best if I simply shut the pump down before everything froze up, but seeing the water flow in the snow and ice is part of the beauty of it all! I'll just have to keep a closer eye on it from now on.
It did get rather warm on Monday, and after the remainder of our guests left I spent the afternoon outside working with wood, while Pam trucked up to Missouri to get Amber. I attacked a rather large pile of logs that had been stacked up in front of the cabin for six months now - waiting for the day when I had the time to cut them all up into firewood. Today was that day, and it took me nearly two hours to get through the pile. All of this wood is small enough that I don't need to split it, but it did require the services of the tractor to move some of it over to our official wood pile in the upper car port. It was great to spend the day outside working with the wood.
I was out on a night hike when Pam and Amber arrived home. Amber immediately climbed out of the truck and grabbed my hand. We hiked all the way back to the cabin in the dark, hand in hand, looking up at a sky filled with bright stars and trying not to run into any trees (the moon was not up yet, so it was very dim out!). She is becoming quite comfortable in the nighttime woods, which is a good thing for a wilderness lady.
Speaking of wilderness ladies, Pam has decided to go along with me on my hike at the base of the bluffline through the wilderness. I sat down at the computer the other day and computed what the mileage might be - turns out that this little wilderness has a LOT of bluffline! Looks like it will be a hike of at least 60 miles, and probably 75 or even more. There are no trails under that bluffline, and the going is often quite rough, especially with a heavy backpack. We may not even be able to make 8 or 10 miles a day. I'm not sure that we can take off that much time in one chunk this spring, so it may be next year before we are able to do it.
1/22/03 I got to take an unexpected hike yesterday, and a bike ride in the dark too. For some reason, it was 10am before I decided to go hike the remainder of the new trail that has been built by our volunteers over on the Sylamore Ranger District south of Mountain Home (I did the first of that new trail last week). This late-in-the-day-decision was prompted by the arctic weather that was going to move in. By the time I got my stuff together, bought a new tape recorder at the Harrison Wal Mart, and got my stuff set up out on the trail, it was 2pm before I started hiking. I had nine or ten miles to hike before I could quit for the day. That would be a bit of a stretch, especially considering the fact that I had never been on the trail before, some of it was not marked, and I would be pushing the measuring wheel and stopping to locate mile points along the way.
My plan was that if I had not reached the end of the first stretch by dark I would sit down and build a fire until the moon came up, which would not be until 8:30 or 9pm. Then I could continue along the trail and make it to where I had wanted to camp. Not wanting to repeat my long hike in the darkness of last week, I stashed Pam's mountain bike at the end of this stretch so that I could ride back to my truck instead of having to do it all on foot.
I took off at a fast pace, and the trail was easy to hike and follow. It went though some nice areas of the forest, but then I came to a point on a road where the blazing stopped. The Ozark Highlands Trail is marked with 2" x 6" white blazes and is easy to follow. I had been told that a short stretch of this new section had not yet been blazed, but that the entire unblazed section was on an old road - no problem there. I made it to the end of the blazing and turned onto the road, but when the road met up with another road there still were no blazes.
The "short stretch" of unblazed trail turned out to be more than FIVE MILES of no blazes, and much of that was on old roads and four-wheeler trails where I had no idea if I was on the trail or not. One thing that I can do pretty well is sniff out a trail - with really no time built into my schedule for me to waste, I hoped that nack would continue on this trip.
While I did have to hike an extra mile to double-check the location once, I was able to follow the exact route of the trail all the way to where the blazing picked up again. It was just about pitch dark when I finally reached the end of the section and got to my bike. I could have camped there and done my shuttle the next morning, but I decided what the heck, I would go ahead and ride the nine miles (on highway) back and get the truck. As soon as I climbed up onto the bike I looked at a warning label that I could barely read in the dim light - DO NOT RIDE THIS BIKE WITHOUT YOUR HELMET, OR AT NIGHT. Oops, I had no helmet and it was definitely nighttime!
With the exception of riding out to the mailbox to get the mail once in a while a year or two ago, I have not ridden a bike since I was a kid. The bike didn't fit me too well, but I managed to get on down the road OK. I had worked up quite a sweat making those last few miles before darkness fell, which didn't bother me too much while hiking, but really caught my attention once I started going down a hill or two on that bike - YIKES, IT WAS COLD!
I managed to make it back to the truck in the darkness without killing myself, but I sure did have a sore rump by the time I got there. Oh yea, and once during the trip the chain came off. Mind you I had no flashlight with me (actually I did have one but it did not work), so I had to put the darn thing on by feel - not much fun in the dark when you are cold and shivering. Although, come to think of it, the next time that chain comes off I won't have any problem putting it back on again.
The temp was 22 degrees this morning when I got up just before daylight. I packed up my gear, spotted the bike at the far end of the next section of new trail, then drove back and started to hike just as the sun began to reach the tops of the surrounding hills. Most of the first mile of hiking was in the shade, and my hands nearly froze to death before my body got into heat-production mode, helped out finally by a few sunny rays. You see, I have to hand onto this metal measuring wheel with one hand as I push it in front of me along the trail, and sometimes that hand gets mighty cold.
But it was a great day to hike, and the trail was easy to hike and follow. Before I knew it I had covered the next several miles to the end of that section. It was still early, so I continued on until the new trail ran out. Then I hiked back to the bike, and rode/hiked back to the truck once again. Part of the ride today was up a mile-long and VERY STEEP hill, which I was in no shape to ride up, so I pushed the bike along. All in all I hiked about 20 miles yesterday and today, plus about 12 or 13 miles on the bike.
This new section of the OHT will be a great hike - we've still got about 6-8 more miles to build later this spring. A map and description of it all will be on the OHTA web page in another week or two, once I get the time to transcribe all of the tapes.
It is late at night in the cabin now, there is a big fire in the fireplace, and the temp outside is dropping - supposed to get really cold tonight and tomorrow night. We have plenty of firewood to keep things nice and toasty. I actually like extreme cold weather - even down below zero - and we have not had enough of it these past many years. I pulled several ticks off of me today - that is one reason why we need sub-zero weather in the Ozarks. There should not be ticks out in January!
Speaking of things being out in January, I am happy to report that the witch-hazel bushes have been in full bloom this week, and their wonderful aroma kept me company for many miles yesterday.
1/23/03 I got up two times in the night to refuel the fireplace, which kept the cabin really warm - it never got below 70 degrees up in the loft and 65 down in the main level. One thing about our fireplace is that it cannot be turned down low - it only burns full blast. We normally have a ceiling fan going on top of us up in the loft, and sometimes have the window open, so it remains comfortable. The low temp this morning just before daylight (which is right now) was 5 degrees. We got a dusting of snow during the night, and looking out through the trees it is hard to tell if it snowed at all - there is just a hint of white on the ground.
The Jasper school system is starting class two hours late today and tomorrow because of the frigid weather - that means a more leisurely start to our day. Amber and I put that to good use, which produced one of those special Cloudland moments for me. After I fixed her hot chocolate and myself a cup of tea, and stoked up the fire once again, the two of us sat on the ottoman right in front of the fireplace together, snuggled up for extra warmth, with both dogs at our feet (Pam was upstairs doing a million things to get all of us ready for the day and missed out, although I think she was peeking through the railing with a smile on her face). If that wasn't good enough, Amber turned around and pointed out the incredible glowing eastern horizon - while still 30 minutes or more away from sunrise, the sky was bright orange and red. That is not especially rare here, but the fact that Amber had noticed it and was so pleased was a great thing to witness. Kids her age don't always notice such things, and it was good to see her doing so. It was a fine morning at Cloudland.
1/24/03 The temp barely got into single numbers this morning - it was only down to nine degrees. Another nice, colorful sunrise. Pam and I had a ton of chores to do this morning before two of her friends from back home arrived for the weekend - Sara and Carrie. They had come down for a couple days of waterfall hunting, although we all knew that the winter drought we are in right now would not allow us to see any waterfalls - everything in the Ozarks is nearly bone dry these days - although normally right now is one of the best waterfall viewing times of the entire year.
I had to make a quick trip out to the mailbox to catch the mailman while the ladies took off on the hike. I parked the truck part way back to the cabin and bushwhacked down to meet them in the woods. We went to Haley Falls, Mule Trail, and Thousand Kisses, then followed the creek downstream. While none of the waterfall were running at all, there were some nice ice formations at each of them, so it was definitely worth the hike. Of course, I think just about any hike in the wintertime in the wilderness is worth the hike!
The creekbed was equally dry most of the way, with a small frozen pool every once in a while. This short stretch of Whitaker Creek known as the "South Fork" has some really nice boulders right in the middle of it, and as we scampered along trying to make our way we could imagine how beautiful it would be once the water started flowing again.
After a quick visit to the Hot Dog Tree, the ladies led the charge STRAIGHT up the hillside, back up to the main bluffline. Here we split up and the girls went back to the cabin while I continued to climb up the hillside back towards the truck - I had to meet Amber's bus coming back from school.
On the way through the woods I wandered off on a route that I had never taken before, and came across a relic from the past - an old model T car. While some folks might consider this a piece of junk, and perhaps even very un-wilderness and bad for the environment, I sort of liked seeing it there - it's a genuine piece of Ozark history. Just imagine what that old body had been witness to - what was the countryside like when it first came up onto Cave Mountain? And what about it's very last trip before coming to rest in the woods - was it a drive in the countryside, a ride into town for groceries, or was it driven into the ground by a desperate man having no more money for gas? While I know life in these here parts must have been really tough back then, I would love to have been able to visit that life, for just a little while.
While Amber and I were on our way back to the cabin we
saw a barred owl fly up and land in a tree at the edge of the Faddis meadow.
Pam and Amber has seen what was probably the very same owl this morning
- with a big, fat mouse in his claws. We stopped the truck, rolled down
the window, and snapped a few photos. When the owl would not look directly
at me - he was focused on something out there in the woods (perhaps another
mouse) - I asked Amber to give her "Who Cooks For You" call - it worked,
and the owl looked directly at us. A few minutes later he launched himself
and flew across the meadow into the woods and out of sight. What a magnificent
animal.
Aspen and I are feeling a little bit outnumbered tonight - it is just us two boys and five girls! Life can be rather tough at Cloudland sometimes.
1/25/03 Today was going to be a very long day for me, so I slept in until after sunrise. After a quick breakfast we all headed out for a hike into nearby Dug Hollow, with Amber leading the way. The temp was not too cold, and the terrain was all downhill. We all sort of floated on down into the hollow. Once we arrived in the bottom we found more water than expected, although most of that water had been transformed into white ice. Funny thing ice is - with just a few degrees colder weather and the normally clear water turns a very noticeable white. Same stuff, just a different molecular structure.
The upper waterfall was mostly just a frozen column, surrounded by a few sheets of icicles. The turquoise pool below was frozen as well, and that beautiful color was hidden beneath several inches of ice.
As we were making our way down towards the lower waterfall area, Amber decided to go hide from the girls. We found her a nice deep bed of leaves to borrow into. I love wintertime in the Ozarks - no bugs, no snakes, very few people, no poison ivy, the forest floor is wide open and free of thick growth, and there is often a bed of leaves to lay down in!
While there was more water than normal in the creek, we were really surprised to find no water seeping at all along the southern wall of the great overhang around the lower fall area. This is the place that produces some of the most spectacular ice formations in the area. But not today - nothing but dry rock. The lower falls was completely frozen, trapping what was left of the water flow - not even enough to fill up the pool below.
The hike out of the canyon was not quite as relaxing for all of the group as the trip down had been, although I think everyone made the climb out easier than they had expected (it's the fine air up at this altitude that helps!). And before long we were back at the cabin warming our backsides at the fire.
The rest of the group was going to head back out for another hike this afternoon, but I had to go pack up the truck and head down to Little Rock to give a program for the annual awards banquet of the Arkansas Sierra Club. It was a good group, and we sold quite a few books and calendars. It was great to meet several journal readers there. I have not shown the two new slide programs in a while, and I found myself getting lost in the images and the music, tapping my toe to the music, and even humming at one point (Pam has warned me to watch out for my humming, but there is this one tune that just brings it out in me!). It was 1am before I got back to the cabin, and I was one tired puppy.
1/26/03 My good friend Erna from Hot Springs came to the show in Little Rock last night to bring me a 1/2 gallon of FRESH squeezed orange juice that she had made for me. I was quite happy to jump up out of bed this morning and run out to the truck and get that juice - it was the BEST orange juice that I have ever swallowed! I say "was" because I have already consumed the entire 1/2 gallon - it was so sweet and just perfect. We are blessed with so many great friends all over the place, and Erna is at the top of the list.
It is a lazy day here at Cloudland today, and quiet. Sara and Carrie left at mid-morning (passing the big barred owl that has been working the Faddis meadow on the way). Pam is working on some PTA stuff for school on her computer (she just put an apple crisp into the oven and the aroma is already beginning to fill the cabin!). Amber is playing pioneer girl in her room. Aspen is, well, Aspen has been spending a lot of time in front of the fireplace these days, and that is where he is right now. I've been playing catchup on the computer myself, but am about to get cabin fever and head outside to see what sort of trouble I can get into. Oh yea, I know what I am going to do this afternoon. THE HOT TUB IS COMING! THE HOT TUB IS COMING! And I have to get ready for it. They are going to deliver the hot tub tomorrow, and I have to go down to the spring in Boxley Valley and get 400 gallons of spring water to fill it up with. I have to go get the big tank installed on the big trailer, and get the trailer all ready to do. My plan is to take Amber to the bus early in the morning, then continue on down into the valley so that I can be the first one at the spring. It will be a little bit chilly, and dark, but that way I will get the best water of the day.
The sun is shining and we've got blue skies today, although it is a bit hazy. Lots of birds outside the window. The eagle has been flying by a lot this past week - or should I say eagles. Besides the one mature big boy, we have also been seeing an immature eagle now and then. They make one or two passes - in close at window level - then we don't see them again for the rest of the day. The last one we saw was not soaring at all, but rather flapping and working for each foot of travel. Still, it looked so darn easy. This is a great time for the hunters in the sky - they seem to really enjoy the winter, or perhaps we just notice them a lot more now. But the hawks, eagles and owls seem to be everywhere.
1/27/03 It was 15 degrees when I backed the trailer up to the little spring in Boxley Valley at daylight this morning. The long winter drought in the Ozarks has taken its toll on the creeks and rivers - many of them are bone dry right now when they normally are at their high flows of the year. The spring was no exception - still running, but just barely. And to make matters worse, the hose coming from the little contained spring area was on the ground and the contained area was dry - this is done during the wintertime to keep the hose and contained area from freezing solid. All of the waters of the spring come out of the hose and onto the ground.
I made a quick calculation of the water flow and determined that it would take at least 4-5 hours to get enough water. Hum, I really didn't have that much time to spend, nor wanted to hog the spring that long as there certainly would be others in the area needing water (there was someone else at the spring when I first arrived, and he as just topping off his 100 gallon tank - he must have been there LONG before daylight). I thought that I would go ahead and begin to fill the tank and see if anyone else showed up.
In the meantime I took off on a hike out through the middle of one of the large hay fields in the valley. The rising sun behind me was lighting up this field. There had been a heavy frost, and the ice crystals that had collected on the grass were as large as I had ever seen - I was hiking across the largest diamond field in the world! Man, oh man it was incredible!!! I was wearing dark sunglasses and still could hardly take the brightness of it all. And each step reveled a million more sparkles. WOW!!!!!
I made my way across the diamond field and over to the river to a local swimming hole. There was plenty of water in this part of the river (just like there is up near our cabin, but the river goes underground just below us, surfacing just upstream from this swimming hole, then goes back underground again before reaching the Hwy. 21 bridge across the Buffalo). I was a bit surprised to find that most of this hole was frozen solid, and I mean SOLID. The ice was more than two inches thick in some places, even around all four of the large boulders that stuck up out of the river.
I spent the next 20 minutes determining the thickness of the ice (by knocking holes in it with stones). What I discovered is that the ice was not a uniform thickness - it was thick in some places while quite thin in others where you expected it to be thick. There did not seem to be any pattern to the thickness, although I'm sure that underwater forces of some sort were the reason. And it was tough to tell just how thick the ice was simply by looking at it - you had to break through it in order to tell. All this is a perfect illustration why - in this part of the country at least - you should NEVER attempt to go out onto the ice - no way of telling where it might be thinner and unable to hold up your own weight. I know that this is generally not a problem up north, where the ice is much thicker and more uniform, and where the folks are more "winterized" and tough enough to survive. Us Southerners are mostly wimps, and a fall into freezing waters would quickly produce hypothermia, with death soon to follow. So my advice is - enjoy the ice, but STAY AWAY FROM IT!
After playing at the edge of the ice for a while, I went back out into the diamond field, and began to make my way upstream along the edge of the field. There are actually four such fields at this end of the valley, this one being the largest, and the second one if you are heading upstream. All of these fields are actually owned by the government, but permitted to a private individual for hay production.
As I hiked along the edge of the field, and nearly freezing to death because it was rather chilly - I noted that there was no frost on the thick forest of river cane that was growing along the river side of the field. This stuff was growing so close together, there was no room at all in between stalks. I had a hunch about something, and decided to play like an animal and go inside this green kingdom and see what I could find.
The cane was growing about 8-10 feet tall, and it was easy for me to push my way into it. I was instantly a lot warmer inside there, even though there was no sunshine to be found. I decided to just go along for a while inside the cane cave, and wound up hiking more than 200 yards inside there before exiting. I felt really protected from the outside world while inside.
Next I crossed the third field, keeping to the river side of it because that was the only part where the sun was shining - the temp did not seem to be getting any warmer! At the upper end of this field I found an elk trail through the river cane that led me to the bank of the river once again. Here I found more water, and this time it was all moving with not a single area of ice. Moving water tends to not freeze unless it really gets cold.
Finally, I crossed the fourth and uppermost field in the valley. It is the smallest field in the bunch, and ends up against a wall of towering trees. What an instant change it was to have been traveling in a world of diamonds for so long and then to step into a sea of brown leaves underfoot - it was a lot darker in the forest! I went over to the river to look at a man-made object that was there. It was a USGS gauging station put there to keep tabs on the flow of the river. I do not know if this is one that you can go online and look at the current readings of, but there are many like that in Arkansas. Once again the river was flowing at this point, and not frozen. Upstream just a few miles was my beloved skinny dipping hole.
I spent the next hour or so wandering around in this upper end of Boxley Valley, and area where the valley was wide and rich with dark soil that produced crops of one sort or another for many generations. It is where the valley meets the wilderness coming down from upstream, where you can wander up into for many days and not be found. That was my world upstream, an area I had spent much of the last five years exploring, yet had only scratched the surface of. I would come to know a lot more of the wilderness in the years to come, that is if I can stay off the ice!
No one else ever showed up at the spring, so I continued to let the water tank fill up, but finally had to leave once it got about half full - that would be almost enough to fill up the hot tub.
Back at the cabin, it was tough to get any work done the rest of the day - Pam kept yelling out "he's back!" which meant there was an eagle or two circling the cabin or soaring out in the wilderness somewhere. When that happens you just have to drop what you are doing and go have a look.
The hot tub never arrived. They called late in the day and said it would be the next morning.
Sometime in the evening, after a fiery sunset, the wind began to blow. And blow, and BLOW!
1/28/03 The wind howled all night long, thrashing the trees around the cabin back and forth, back and forth. Pam loves to sleep in the wind, although I am a very light sleeper so was awake most of the night. I am awake much of the night when the wind is not blowing, so no big deal. The temp at first light this morning was in the mid-40's. I breathed a big sigh of relief because I was worried about my big tank of fresh spring water freezing in the night. It is hazy outside, and feels quite moist, although there really isn't anything coming down. Although I guess it could be raining hard, but the wind is blowing so hard the drops are pulverized and turned into mist. Come on rain. COME ON RAIN!!!
I know a bunch of kyakers that are telling me they have paddled the Ozarks for more than 20 years and have never seen anything like how dry it is right now. We are in the same boat, so to speak, because there are no waterfalls running right now, and it is normally the peak of the waterfall season. COME ON RAIN!
Remember the owl that I took some snapshots of? Pam and Amber have seen the owl in the Faddis meadow. So have Sara and Carrie. When I came through there yesterday there was a big, fat red-tailed hawk in the same spot. The day before it was the owl. The day before that another hawk. Seems like that particular end of the meadow is a mecca for mice-eating birds, and all of a sudden too. We have seen a hawk patrolling the other end of the meadow all winter, but nothing on this end until we started seeing the owl there. I see a lot of hawks perched in the forest or moving silently through the trees this time of the year. That is what I would probably want to come back as if I ever did - a hawk. Or Aspen - he has it pretty good too.
1/30/03 My plan today was simple - I was going to spend the day at the computer transcribing the tapes of the hike along the new trail section that I did in the past couple of weeks, write up the description and post it on the web page. Pam was going to get up early and head out to hike five different trails for possible inclusion in the new kids dayhiking guidebook that she is working on. A couple of things got in the way with my plans - as is often the case - and now at nearly noon I have not listened to a single word from my tapes.
The first item was an e-mail from a friend about the national park service's plans to burn nearly 11,000 acres of the Lower Buffalo Wilderness in March. I had received the very same massive "Draft Fire Management Plan for the Buffalo National River" a few days ago, but after spending some time looking through it and unable to make any sense of it, finally tossed it into the trash - the place where many such government reports belong. But after spending another hour going through it carefully this morning, I did indeed find where they are planning to do this huge burn later this spring.
I will state right here that I am in favor of controlled burns in the forest - for a number of different reasons. However, a burn of this magnitude is unheard of in the park, and especially in a WILDERNESS area - those places are supposedly off limits to this sort of management tool. Hunting, fishing, camping, and hiking trails are allowed in wilderness areas, but the regular management practices that are often used for the rest of the park or forest (and we are talking about the national PARK service here and not the national FOREST service - there is a world of difference).
Anyway, I spent a great deal of time going over all of this material this morning. I'm not sure what can be done to stop this gigantic burn - probably nothing - or even if it is worth the effort. Burning is generally good for the forest. The park service says that they intend to "set both ridges on fire and let the blaze burn all the way down to the river." I would hope that they do this in smaller compartments and not set the entire 11,000 acre blaze at once. We'll see.
And just as I was in the middle of this fire stuff, Pam came back from taking Amber to the bus and commented about how incredibly beautiful it was outside. What? It was still pitch black outside, how could she see anything? Turns out our little area here was engulfed with a heavy fog bank. That is often pretty, but not "incredibly beautiful." Then I glanced at the weather station on the wall for the outside temperature - it was 23 degrees. Temps that cold and thick fog can only mean one thing - HOAR FROST!!!
At about the time Pam loaded up and drove off to go hike her trails at Bull Shoals State Park, I got dressed myself and grabbed the camera. Just as an afterthought, I also picked up an extra set of batteries for the camera - turned out that I would really need them.
The sun was not up yet as I made my way into the forest. It was still a little bit foggy, but it was thinning and lifting. However, the fog had left its mark, and I stepped into a magic wonderland of ice crystals, or whatever hoar frost actually is. Every single thing that was off of the ground and up in the air was coated with ice crystals. At first glance they all looked like sticker bushes - hundreds of thin spikes on each twig. But when you reached out and touched those spikes they broke off or melted in your hand.
I won't go into great detail here about how really gorgeous and stunning this landscape was, but rather I will simply post a bunch of photos of what I found. I will say that as soon as I came into the forest I began to picture a couple of different scenes in my head that I wanted to photograph - one was of a leaf on the ground covered with that wonderful ice pattern that you often see in the winter. The other was of a batch of red berries - dogwood berries or something else - that would be covered with the ice. I quickly discovered that the ground did not have ANY ice on it at all, so there would be no ice patterns on the leaves. I guess that happened because the ice crystals were actually the result of the moist air surrounding an item and clinging/growing out in all directions. The ice did not settle onto the ground and form like frost does.
No matter how much I looked, I could not find a single dogwood berry anywhere - the birds had already swept through and eaten them all - every single one on the hundreds of dogwood trees in the nearby forest. There were still sumac berries around, but they were not all that photogenic. I did have one last chance to find red berries - the deciduous holly tree that I have photographed so many times for the journal. It was right on my route. But as I approached it my heart sank - a flock of cedar waxwings or other small bird had discovered it too and there were no berries in sight. But as I looked closer, I did find a single red berry that had gone unnoticed by the birds. It was the photo that I was looking for, and I hope that you like it.
One thing about this time of the year is that there are none of those terrifically-constructed orb weaver spider webs. The only spiders out at this time of the year produce a tangled web with no particular geometrical shapes. I would have killed for an orb weaver web this morning, but had to settle for the other kind - beautiful none the less.
Speaking of the photos, before I had made my way back to the cabin I had gone through BOTH sets of batteries and shot nearly 400 photos! It was one of those rare times where there were great images literally everywhere, in all directions, up and down and left and right, right in front of me and behind. It was indeed an orgy of photographic opportunities, and I was the only man in the middle of thousands of beautiful wilderness sirens. There were several times when I spent a frantic five or ten minutes making exposure after exposure after exposure when I finally had to tell myself to STOP. Then I would stand there, nearly out of breath from all the excitement, and would take the time to simply gawk and admire what was all around me. It was truly a spectacle of nature, and one that does not happen very often.
And one of the weird things about this morning was that while I was surrounded by all of this frozen beauty, the sky above was pure blue - all of that ice and a blue sky was a great combination.
(As I am writing this I had to stop go outside - a mature bald eagle just flew by the window, and I had to go take a look.)
And I must say that as I hiked along and was blasted with all of this incredible beauty, it was nearly impossible to capture the look and feel of the overall landscape in a photo - while it was all super-incredibally-wonderful, the real beauty to me was in the details - the closeups of the ice, and the delicate patterns that it created. So most of my shots were macro shots, which were tough for me to take correctly because I had left my tripod at home. Digital media is very forgiving, and I was able to get some sharpness and detail in the macro shots even without the tripod. I though about running back to the cabin to get the tripod, but knew that once the sun came out the ice structures would begin almost immediately to break down and melt. So I was happy to simply shoot what I could with what I had. I hope you enjoy some of this great beauty as I did.
(Keep in mind that none of these twigs are sticker bushes - all of them were smooth before the ice formed.)
Even man-made stuff like this old fence looked pretty neat this morning!
The spider web (above)
That is ALL ice on a smooth branch
What an incredible fairytale world I hiked through this morning! And within fifteen minutes after the sun came up, it was all GONE!
Oh yea, by the way, I know a lot of you have been concerned about this, and I am happy to report that after four or five hours of work we were able to get the hot tub installed the other day. It is back up and running once again, yippie! One word about this tub. I have had four of them over the past 20 years, and the one that I bought four years ago is far and away the best that I have ever had - it is a Hot Springs Spa. Not only does the system work the best and is the cheapest to run of any that I have had, but the customer support and warranty is excellent. The shell developed a hairline crack in it some months ago. The company sent out a crew to remove the tub, then they trucked it back to the factory in California. Where there they completely overhauled the tub - inside and out - putting in all new electronics, refinishing the tub surface inside and refinished and repainted the entire outside of it as well. After four years and daily use here my old tub was looking a little bit ragged. But the unit they returned to me looked as good as new. Needless to say I highly recommend Hot Springs Spas!
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