Rain! Rain! Go Away! – Due to the heavy rains in area, we are cancelling work until next Monday January 30th. We are closing in on the US Forest Service machine team due to a very difficult area of rock outcroppings slowing their efforts.

LOViT Termination point near Lake Ouachita's Blakely Dam

Today we met with the Corp of Engineers at the Blakely Mt. Dam site office to determine the end point for the trail. After reviewing the area just south of the new office building just above the north face of the dam, we chose a site on a rock bluff that overlooks the intake tunnel for the power plant and the north face of the dam. After eight years of planning and seven years of construction, we are rapidly approaching the completion of the main trail. It is our plan to have a information kiosk at the termination point that will provide information about the trail and the history of the lake. Attached is a photo of the dam with the bluff just to the right and above the intake structure.

LOViT Section 7 Termination Point Near Old CCC Site

We also visited the termination of our current construction on section seven that terminates at Brady Mt. Rd. Unfortunately, this termination point is right in the middle of where last May’s tornado passed through, downing thousands of trees and thereby destroying the canopy we treasure. However, and fortunately, this end point is right at an old CCC improved spring site. The CCC folks built a stone walk and stairs down to the spring in the mid-1930’s. There is already a parking area there, making it a natural trailhead site. Attached is a photo of the old spring.

Next Monday we will again start at 8:30 am and rally at the Crystal Springs Café parking area. We will have the now-repaired US Corp of Engineers barge to ferry our volunteers to the base of the mountain. Pack you trail lunch and plenty of fluids and join us. If it is raining, we will not be working.

Jerry

Due to the heavy rain Jan. 25, also predicted for Thursday, Jan. 26, work is postponed until Friday, Jan. 27.  As usual, we will meet Friday at the Crystal Springs Cafe parking area.  The boat will leave at 8:30 sharp.

Tuesday, Jan. 24, was beautifully clear, giving the team terrific views of Lake Ouachita from the new Section 7.  The photo gallery here shares some of those views and gives you an idea of where we are along the proposed trail.

Here’s the current view of the Trail taken from where we quit for the day back to the boat. If you click on the photo, you will be taken to a Motion-X GPS page where you can play with the map, open it in Google Maps, or download .KMZ (for Google Earth) or .GPX files.

It's officially a > 2 mile hike from the boat to the current construction site on Bear Mountain.

Hope to see you on the Trail,

Dan

Beautiful January weather and a crew of seven made for a great day on the trail.  Those of us who started on this trail seven years ago have often talked of what we thought the trail on Big Bear Mountain would be like.  We were afraid that the foliage would block the view or that the terrain would be to steep but neither has occurred.  The views from the mountain are just amazing as we keep pushing the trail east just below the summit of Big Bear Mt.

Today we could clearly see Bird Island directly north of where we were working.  At this elevation it clear how the USACE chose this valley to create this beautiful lake.  The Lake sits between two ridges of low mountains that make a perfect bowl, without levis, that allowed the lake to form once the dam was in place. We continue to be amazed at how consistent the mountain face is making the trail construction so much easier without having to constantly find ways around deep valleys and steep drainages.

The new tread is excellent with a great deal of red clay that once it is packed will provide a very smooth durable trail.  We are planning another work day tomorrow starting at 8:30 and again meeting at the Crystal Springs Café parking lot where we will load into the boat to be ferried across to where we moor at the base of the mountain.  It is almost an hour hike up the mountain to our construction site but as you reach the summit which is about half way you begin see why we built this sections as the mountain falls away revealing the beauty of Lake Ouachita.

Pack a trail lunch and plenty of fluids and join us tomorrow as the weather looks very good. Attached are photos from today’s adventure.

Jerry

Friday, the old adage of “When the going gets tough the tough get going” fit our volunteers as we gathered at the Crystal Springs Marina in a dense wet fog that had descending on the area overnight.  Cold weather in a dense fog are not ideal trail building conditions as we motored slowly across the water for the long hike up to our work site.  Our seven years of trail building in all manner of weather conditions told us this would a “Mudder”, meaning the freshly dug soil would stick like molasses to our tools and would quickly make each boot feel like it weighed ten pounds. We reminded some of our new Traildogs before departure to add a plastic sheet or trash bag to their day packs to provide a place to sit for breaks and lunch.

Hoping that the noon sun would burn off the fog or at least lift it off the mountain, we hiked the two miles up the mountain from where we moored the boat on Little Bear Creek. Talk was at minimum as we lugged our day packs and some new tools up the old road that serves as a short cut to the new tread, with the heavy fog quickly drenching our hooded outer wear.  Even our fit seasoned volunteers find breath a little shorter as we approach the summit after coming up over 500 feet in elevation in less than a mile.

At the summit the fog is a gray, wet curtain of silence; no wind, birds, or any normal deep woods sounds penetrate its sound dampening effect.  We are currently working in an area of ancient old hardwoods, cherries, white & red oaks and hickories who stand like silent sentinels in the dripping fog.  We are unable to see the crowns of the trees as visibility is only about 100 feet.  We passed through an area that is home to a small invasive shrub-like tree about an inch in diameter that grows in thickets of thousands mixed with the devil’s own “Thorny Walking Sticks”, making it difficult to disburse the downside construction debris. Attached are a couple of pictures of our crew at work in the fog.

Fortunately the tread is an old road bed; it is good deep soil and easy to work, except in the fog, helping us make great progress despite the conditions.  At the end of the day we could crow that we have now added over two new miles of completed tread to the LOViT’s now over 32 miles of trail.  The USFS’ hardy machine crew, about a half a mile of ahead of our crew, continues to claw out new tread through brush, boulders and rock ledges.  The USFS’ dedication to supporting this trail development can’t be overstated as they continue to dedicate scarce resources of men and machines from ever tightening budgets to this now seven year effort to drive this trail to the Blakeley Mountain Dam.

Next week we will be on the trail again and, hopefully, the fog will go back to Oregon where they are used to it.  We will rally at the Crystal Springs Café parking area at 8:30 for the ferry ride to the base of Big Bear Mountain.  Due to the length of our hike to the work site, we are starting at 8:30 am.  The forecast for Monday and Tuesday looks very inviting, so pack a trail lunch and join us on this great section of elevated trail.

Have a great weekend.

Jerry

Moderating weather and bright sunshine created a great environment for the Traildog volunteers today. We had eight volunteers today as we departed the dock for the mile long ride across the Crystal Bay. The mild wind created a slight ripple on the water that the bright morning sun turned into a pool of sparkling gems as we quietly motored into Little Bear Creek.

Two of our party hiked to the start of the new section, one, Dan, to GPS the 1.7 miles of completed trail, and the other, Robert, to apply the white blazes used to identify the trail’s route to new users. The balance of our pack hiked the 1.1 miles up the south slope to tool cache on the southern slope of Big Bear Mountain.

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Friday, Jan. 13, we had nine volunteers, including Bill Pell and Chris Ham of the US Forest Service, joining in the finish work on the seventh section.  The weather had improved significantly from Thursday with much calmer winds and a high of around 50 degrees. We are currently progressing through a relatively level area on the north slope of Big Bear Mountain. Because of Thursday night’s low temperatures, the ground was still frozen as we began work Friday and did not really thaw all day.

Lunch break was relatively short due to the cool temperatures and the light wind rising up off the lake.  We persevered and were able to complete the finish work all the way up to where the machines stopped last week.  The USFS machine team was unable to work any of this past week but will be back on the trail next Tuesday, January the 17th.

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This post consists of a series of articles that will chronicle work being done in January, 2012, on the “seventh section” of the Lake Ouachita Vista Trail (LOViT).

Click on the link below to read the full article, as each workday is chronicled by “Alpha Dog” Jerry Shields.

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Looking at the incoming rain today (Monday) we are canceling planned construction both Monday, Jan. 9, and Tuesday, Jan. 10.

We have also been informed by the Corp that the barge we have been utilizing is in for repairs.

The weather map shows heavy rain approaching from the south.  If we had to hike out suddenly, it is a six mile hike back to our vehicles.

We will further evaluate the weather on Tuesday and will let everyone know of any changes to the construction schedule.

Sorry for the delay.

Jerry

We will restart construction of the seventh section of the Vista Trail Monday January 9th at 9:00 am. We will meet at the Crystal Springs Resort Café located at the end of Crystal Springs Road. We will once again utilize a barge to ferry our volunteers to and from  the construction site just across the bay from the marina.

This is our seventh consecutive year of construction resulting in over thirty miles of new hiking and mountain biking trails.

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