Walking in woods, dousing the kids with bug dope, and roasting yummy things in a campfire.

The three of us before the hike. I was SO proud to be there!!
 
Early summer in Arkansas is not the optimal time to be in the woods. I was there with the kids to fulfill a promise. Carlton, in the depths of the winter, had decided that we needed to go camping. He wanted to go into the “deep, deep woods” and sleep in a tent. He also decided that we should have a fire, marshmallows and we would have to sharpen sticks and hunt for our food - my five year old son has a very active and vivid imagination. While I persuaded him from the hunting aspect of his plan, he did elicit a promise from me that the next time I came to see him that we would go camping. I love sleeping on the ground, looking at stars, seeing nature and sharing that love with my children is one of my greatest desires. After promising Carlton, I called Madison and asked her about joining us. She likes to camp, but in the past it has always been in a RV or car camping – she had never hiked with a pack and carried her gear with her. I told her exactly what to expect and she sounded excited to go.

Every time I called Carlton in the months after our initial discussion, he would steer our talk toward camping. He had decided that we would need a map – good call considering my history – and that we would need a flashlight. Ghost stories were also mentioned, but I gently talked him out of that idea – all I would need was two crying, hysterical children miles from a car, deep in the woods and hills of the Ozarks.

Work and other commitments conspired to keep me from traveling to Arkansas before the poison ivy and tick bloom. I booked my ticket for a weekend just on the cusp of the heat of summer. Bugs are one thing, but sleeping in a tent in 95+ degree temperatures, on purpose, with children would be suffering bordering on masochism.

I gathered all the gear fro the trip and placed it all in a huge expedition duffle that I have. I threw in my big pack for carrying the bulk of the gear, a small crag pack for Madison, and an even smaller expandable hydration pack for Carlton to carry. Included in the duffle were all the necessities: tent, sleeping pads & bags, pots, stove, cups, food, chocolate, graham crackers, marshmallows, etc… I flew into Little Rock on a Friday and made it to Carlton’s just in time to see him play in a t-ball game, getting 3 hits and running home twice. After the game, we grabbed his gear and drove to Madison’s. She was feeling bad and I told her that it was OK if she didn’t want to go, but the mention of smores and a campfire sent her running to her room to get her clothes. We spent Friday night in Little Rock at a friend’s house and were off fairly early Saturday morning on our drive to the Ozark National Forest.

My plan was to hike a scenic part of the Ozark Highlands Trail that would afford us relativity easy access to some waterfalls, which was an item on Madison’s tic-list for the trip. The drive north took forever and finding the obscure dirt road that led to the trail access was an undertaking in itself. I left the car in a wide spot in the road near the trail crossing and we started walking around 2:00. Madison carried her clothes, a sleeping bag, a ground pad and a little food (20 pounds or so). Carlton had his sunscreen, bug dope, and a 70 ounce Camelbak full of water (less than 7 pounds). My pack weighed under forty with all the rest of the gear and a gallon and a half of water. The past winter had been really mild (a condition that contributed to the damnable ticks) and the Spring had been wet so the woods were thick with new vegetation and the path was somewhat overgrown. There were blackberries and blueberries ripening on the sides of the trail, but I didn’t pick any to eat. It would have been fine it it had just been Madison and me there, but Carlton is a little young to see someone eat wild berries in the woods. I will wait a couple of years before I show him what little I know of foraging as I don’t want him to decide with a five or six year old mind that something is OK to eat. We walked slowly just below a gentle tree-covered ridge on a rolling trail that crossed 3 barely flowing springs. There was a water break about a mile in and the kids just sat on their packs sipping water. Neither complained about their packs and both seemed to enjoy the walk and the woods.

 

Taking a break on the trail
 
Around mile two, Madison heard water running and our path brought us to a series of four little water falls that flowed into a deep sandstone grotto. The pool there was some sixty feet across and looked fairly deep with small to medium sized fish that Madison was the first to spot. Smack in the middle of the blue water was a beaver lodge that had fresh cut saplings jutting here and there. The kids wanted to jump in and cool off as the temperature was hovering around eighty degrees under the canopy of trees. I had to explain to them that the pretty blue color of the water meant that it wasn’t healthy to swim in. They took the news well, with knowing head nods. We had two other waterfalls to scout out and I told them that there might be swimming at one of them.
 

The Beaver Grotto
 
Just as we left the area above the beaver grotto the trees opened up on the left side of the trail to show us a great camping area for the night. Someone had gone to considerable trouble building a large two sided fire pit and four stone benches that surrounded it. It had been used enough that there was a beaten path leading to it from the main trail and there was a small cache firewood by one of the benches. The area was neat and free of trash except a Jagermeister bottle consciously placed in top of the fire pit. The site was near the trail and near the waterfalls that we had planed to see, so I decided to set up camp and then explore a little bit. I found a flat spot for the tent and Madison helped me set it up as Carlton watched and passed out tent stakes. We sat our packs down and after a tick check hopped back on the main trail for our visit to the first fall.

The ticks were EVERYWHERE!! I had to stop on the two mile hike in to do a tick check and once we established a campsite we had another check. I pulled seven off of Carlton (two had already attached) and Madison found two crawling toward her waistband. I was slathered in 100% Deet. While I may eventually grow a third eye or five nipples from exposure to such a harsh pesticide, I was free of the burrowing blood sucking little devils for the entire weekend. Madison was similarly slathered, but Carlton is real sensitive to chemicals and even a diluted drop of Deet stings him and causes puffy red whelps – I thinks the bugs could sense this and decided he would be a tasty meal.

Hobo Falls was easy to find, as it pours (sometimes) over a bluff just off the trail. With all the rain that Spring I had hoped that the water would be still running going strong, but we only found a trickle of water flowing over the lip of the bluff about 10 feet from the ground. The wall behind was wet and moist, but there wasn’t enough water at the base to do much in besides wash dishes. Hobo Falls West, about one hundred yards down the bluff and at the terminus of a small dark canyon was still running, but the flow was little more than the amount that one would find coming from a good hotel’s shower head. Again, there was no pool left at the base to swim in for the kids. After snapping a couple of picture of the falls and of the kids, we headed back to camp. I had hoped for a more dramatic experience concerning the falls. I think that I have been forever spoiled by the raging falls of Yosemite along the Mist Trail on the hike to Half Dome. I wanted the kids to see that kind of natural power and beauty. There will be other falls…
 

Hobo Falls running at full blast during the Summer.
 
Back at camp, we all collected firewood for about half an hour. Since there were plenty of fallen limbs in and around camp we had a nice little pile ready when I lit the first twigs of the fire. The wood was dry and before too long we had a nice warm blaze going. I started dinner with a serving of Miso soup and boiled water for our meals. I had packed in a small stick of summer sausage for snacking and decided that it might taste great if warmed in the fire a little. My daughter has decided that she is a vegetarian. At eleven, I think it is cooler for her to say than to actually adopt in practice. She does eschew most meat, but will happily eat bacon if it “happens” to end up on her sandwich. As I cut chunks of the summer sausage up and placed them on the BBQ prongs that I brought I asked if she would like some. She wrinkled he nose and brow and shook her head as if I had just ask her to touch a snake. Fine, more for the boys. I roasted a piece for Carlton and as he sat on the bench next to her, wiggling back and forth with delight and noisily smacking his lips, reveling in the warm tastiness of the meat. The smell of it finally pierced my little girls’ quasi-vegan shield of self-denial. She looked at me sheepishly and asked quietly if she could “maybe, sort of, have a little piece.” That little piece led to her consuming about a third of the stick, roasting chunks above the fire, doing the same seated side to side dance of yummy beef joy that had first overtaken Carlton. She enjoyed it so much that she was too stuffed to eat the Vegan dinner that I had made for her. A poster child for PETA that one is!!
 

Carlton enjoying the fire right before we turned in for the night.
 
After letting our food settle for a while I broke into the Smore fix’ins. I put a marshmallow on Madison’s BBQ skewer and passed it over. I got a look form her like I was the village idiot and she promptly resituated the marshmallow on the prongs and put it in the flames. Carlton doesn’t yet have the dexterity to hold the marshmallow out of the fire or off the ashes, so I let him help me roast his. Madison’s marshmallow quickly blackened and caught fire. After putting out the flames, she put it on the chocolate and between the graham crackers. When I mentioned that she had burnt her key ingredient, I was told very matter of factly the she liked it that way. Carlton’s marshmallow heated to a golden brown with not a hint of charring and a perfect gooey center. As I made his smore, Madison looked at me in the same way as she had just before breaking her vegetarian resolve before dinner. I made her a Smore just like Carlton’s. After another one, she said very softly after looking around to make sure that no one else could hear that I made great Smores. My heart sang!! Twice in a two hour period my almost teen daughter admitted that I was not completely retarded. I am marking this down to remind her of in later years when she is gripped in the black throes of adolescence, armed with the knowledge of vast mental superiority of all whom she surveys and I become an intellectual turnip to her.

I told both kids before the trip that it would be primitive camping and there would be no campground restrooms to use. They seemed unfazed and still agreed to come along. When the reality of the situation hit, their reaction was somewhat different. Shortly before dinner Carlton told me that he had to potty. When I told him to go behind a tree again, he said “not that kind of potty,” as his eyes scanned back and forth in the woods for a luxury restroom to materialize. I led him up a hill, down into a dip, and dug a hole for him to use. He looked at me with a mixture of understanding, doubt, and horror as I explained that he had to squat over the hole and conduct his business. It was not easy to convince him it was OK, but his need overpowered his doubt. I held him up so there would be no messy incidences that would keep him out of the woods for the rest of his life. After all was said and done, I think he handled his first backcountry bathroom experience well. When we got back to camp, Madison said that she also had to go and gave me the same look that Carlton had pierced me with moments before. I gave her the roll of paper and pointed her uphill. She glanced back at me a few times, as if to question my sanity as she disappeared over the rise. Hopefully, I didn’t scar either of them for life.

After the drive that morning, the hike in, the exploring, and the running around camp, the kids were beat. I zipped us up in the tent around 9:00 and they were soon snoring, but I just couldn’t sleep. I have this “mother bear” thing and my mind kept going over possible reasons for me to be worried about the kids and camping with them. Every little noise made me sit up and stare in its direction in the dark. I think that I finally slipped off to sleep around 2:00.

I was up the next morning at 7:00 and made hot chocolate for us. As the kids enjoyed their chocolate and a banana for breakfast, I packed up the tent and camp. We had tried to sneak up to the lip of the grotto just before dark the night before to maybe catch a glimpse of a beaver, but no luck. That morning we tried again, telling a very talkative Carlton to be very quite if he wanted to maybe see one. Five feet sort of the lip of the grotto, he asked, in a hushed yell, if beavers were “good eating.” There were soft ripples in the water, but no beaver. We had seen a rabbit, a squirrel and a wild turkey that weekend, but the beaver in the grotto eluded us. We were on the trail soon after and made pretty good time on the way back. We had one water break midway back and Madison started talking about pancakes. Carlton couldn’t stand much of that sort of conversation and after two “are we there yet” questions, got grumpy and stopped on the trail between his sister and I, saying he wanted a happy meal in a very loud, whinny, and pleading voice. I could see where this path was going and I quickly turned around, knelt beside both of them and said that we were right by the car and that as soon as we hit town, I would by them some yummy breakfast food. I then asked my boy to describe all his favorite foods. He perked up and started talking about fries and ice cream and Madison joined in. We walked another three hundred yards before I spotted the car and you would have thought that we had spent forty years wondering the desert looking for the Promised Land by the look of fulfillment and salvation on Madison’s face. True to my word, two hours later we were eating toast and bacon and pancakes.

It was such an honor to be part of my kid’s first backpacking experience instead of leaving it to some scout troop leader with a big knife and bigger ego. I hope that the trip was just an introduction to a life full of wilderness, laughter around campfires, warm sleeping bags, and adventure for the both of them. I am planning to hike with them again this fall after the bugs die off in Arkansas – maybe along the Buffalo River or around Petit Jean Mountain. I eventually want to walk with both of them in Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Haute Route, and on a little hunk of the Appalachian Trail - scoring a few peaks, hot springs, cool streams, tall waterfalls, and scenic vistas along the way.