Mount Magazine

 It's Spring Break in Arkansas this week, and we went camping to Mount Magazine, which is the highest point in Arkansas. They just completed a prescribed burn last summer, and because it was still early for spring, nothing had grown back. You can read more about a prescribed burn, and how it can help a forest, by following the embedded links.

I'm first going to share with you several links to other peoples videos of Mount Magazine on YouTube, and then I will share a few of my own. Each video offers different perspectives and tidbits of history and information. The last video shows the highest points in each state of the United States. I have now been to two of these points. The first was last summer when we went to Clingmans Dome in Tennessee. You can see that at about the 9.5 minute mark of the video. The second was this trip to Mount Magazine, which you can see at about the 5 minute mark of the video.

Mount Magazine video 1

Mount Magazine video 2

Mount Magazine video 3

Mount Magazine video 4

Mount Magazine video 5

Mount Magazine video 6

Mount Magazine video 7

Mount Magazine video 8

Highest points in each state

Mount Magazine is 275 kilometers from our home in Camden, Arkansas.

Camden is only about 60 meters elevation above sea level. While Mount Magazine is about 780 meters elevation above sea level. So, Mount Magazine is 720 meters higher than Camden.

Because the weather was predicted to rain for the first two full days of our four days stay, we put up the gazebo tent to have a place to cook, eat, and watch movies in the evenings, and stay out of the rain.

And because it got down to freezing, or near freezing each night, we tried out my new thermal heater fan. It worked great.

We went for a drive along the north ridge of the mountain, on a very overcast day before it started to rain.

Lodge.

Cabins.

Blue Mountain Lake

After a cold morning seeing the north side of the mountain, we went to the lodge, which is located on the south side of the mountain, and had some hot chocolate in the restaurant.

We were told that there are about ten black bears in the area, although it was still too early in spring to see any.

On the third day, after the rain cleared out, we took a drive down the north side of the mountain.

This is a lovely lake we saw on the way down.

Looking back at the mountain we had just come down.

There are 23 towns in the United States named, 'Paris'. This one is in Arkansas. (population 3,413)

This is some kind of mushroom.

We spent our final day hiking and exploring, followed by a bonfire that evening.

Laurel Falls

Laurel Falls trail was only about 15 minutes from our camp. The trail itself was not too steep or difficult, and the temperature and humidity weren't bad. I am not used to doing very much activity in my daily life now, and keeping in mind that I am in my mid 50's, plus being quite heavy, this 1.25 mile hike was about the limit of what I can do. Although, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Both sides of the mountain road, in either direction from this trail, were very congested with tourist parking. And we must have seen at least a couple of thousand people along the trail, including many people visiting the United States from other countries.

Not so primitive camping.

Our campsite.

Our camp setup.

Since I had a couple of days off, and the weather was going to be nice, at least as nice as it can be for late January in south Arkansas, we made last minute arrangements to go camping about 25 minutes away.

This is a primitive campsite through the Arkansas Forestry Commission. All we had to do is select a spot from their map, and then call them and tell them how many nights we wanted to stay. It was that easy, and without paying.

Of course we carried everything we needed. It was only for one night, but since we haven't been camping in a month, it was nice to get out of the house.

We found some trash around the campsite, so we gathered it up, and took it away with us when we left. My motto is to leave a campsite cleaner than we found it.

Near the camp was a spot where hunters had setup to clean deer. I think this isn't legal to do here, so I have reported it.

We also found a couple of deer carcasses, a skull, and a hoof.

After we setup camp, explored around our campsite, and cleaned up the trash, we went hiking at the northern end of White Oak Lake, where White Oak Creek continues on it's way after passing through the dam.

We went back to camp and got ready for dinner and a movie by the campfire.

Someone had left a doll head, and we had some fun with it.

Campfire.

The doll head enjoyed the movie, but not the fire so much.

Campfire after dark.

All-in-all, one of our best camping trips. Too bad it was only for one night. We will definitely come back here again.

Last camping trip for 2020.

Our last camping trip in 2020 was after Christmas and before New Years. We went to Millwood Lake, and stayed at another U.S. Army Corps of Engineers campground, called Beard's Bluff Park.

This was a small campground, but one of the best we have been to, and very well maintained.

We only stayed two of the three nights we had planned, because of bad weather moving in for the last day, but we had a wonderful, relaxing time.

So far, each camping trip has had something that kept it from being perfect. Sometimes our spot isn't very level for our tent. One campground had freight trains passing near the campgrounds, even at night. The weather can also be a factor. This trip, we drove over an hour to reach our campground, and when we started to put up the tent, realized we forgot to bring the tent poles. We had to return home to get them, and by the time we got back to the campground, it was already dark, and had to put up the tent using our car headlights to see.

Each trip had been special and memorable for different reasons. But what made them fun, was doing these camping trips together with my younger daughter. We love to go hiking together, see new places, be out in nature, ride our bikes, sit around the campfire, talk, relax, and enjoy each other's company.

January and February are the coldest months in Arkansas, so we will spend those months at home, and will return to camping during school Spring Break, at the end of March.

Daisy State Park at Lake Greeson

We had another camping trip, this time to Daisy State Park at Lake Greeson. It was raining all Sunday morning before we left, but stopped in the afternoon. We arrived about two hours before sunset. After setting up camp, we did our usual campfire and then prepared dinner, and enjoyed a movie. The next day, we explored the camp, and went for a hike. Because it was supposed to be raining all day on Wednesday, we decided to leave a day early. It was 21 Fahrenheit (-6 Celsius) when we woke up Tuesday morning. We had left our heater on low all night, so not to freeze our drinking water in the tent. It was still just above freezing in the tent. I turned the heat to high so we could get dressed and prepare breakfast. After breakfast, we went for another hike, and took a picnic lunch with us to enjoy. We found a picnic table setup on the banks of the lake. We ate lunch, and then played a game I brought along, and finally, explored a little bit, before returning to camp and packed up to go home. Even cutting our trip short by a day, it was still nice.

As we were exploring the camp, we saw this squirrel warming itself near a yurt.

Hiking at White Oak Lake.

On our most recently camping trip, we went to White Oak Lake State Park, which is only about 25 minutes from where we live. This is a wonderful and beautiful area, well known for it's fishing and hunting.

One of the most popular activities at the campground is to go hiking. They have three trails to choose from. We took the shortest trail, 'Beech Ridge'.

We saw some incredible fall foliage and views. And the weather was perfect, starting a little cool in the morning, but quickly warming by noon.

Arlie Moore trail and geocache.

We went camping again, this time to Arlie Moore, another Army Corps of Engineer site at Degray Lake.

They have a wonderful hiking trail. While on the trail, we spotted this old pickup truck on the ridge, and had to investigate.

Inside the truck, we found a geocache.

A coral mushroom.

The water was too cold for me.

We were able to park next to our campsite.