Trail Guides and Maps
CLICK HERE for OT Maps and Profiles from recent Club hikes.
A recently discovered site that has great information about hiking in Arkansas and
surrounding states is The Compulsive Hiker. The site contains maps and detailed trail
information. The OT maps are of the download-and-print-yourself variety and are very
current. Click here for a direct link to the maps.
We are all familiar with the Tim Ernst trail guide books, because they are so good.
"Arkansas Hiking Trails" is a classic, and the detail in his separate books for the Ouachita
Trail, Ozark Highlands Trail, and Buffalo River Trail make them invaluable. There are lots of
other trail guides and information available, however. Arkansas State Parks publish trail
guides for the trails in each park. These are free and readily available at the parks. The
Ouachita National Forest publishes one page guides to most of the trails in the National
Forest. These are particularly good for trails systems with more than one route (such as the
Little Blakely or Brushy Creek) because they provide mileages for the individual segments.
National Forest guides can be obtained at any district ranger station, such as the Jessieville
Visitor's Center. Hot Springs National Park has a fairly detailed set of guides for the
twenty or so miles of trails in the park. These are "behind the counter" at the Fordyce Bath
House VC, however, and you have to know to ask for them. (Now you do).
Another guide book, published in late 2003, "Hiking Arkansas" covers 68 trails in the
state, and could be considered competition to Tim Ernst's "Arkansas Hiking Trails". The
new guide is written by Arkansans Janie and Wyatt Jones, is endorsed by the American
Hiking Society, and is published by Globe Pequot Press, as part of their "Falcon Guide"
series. The trails are presented in a geographic arrangement, with good emphasis on the
Ouachita Mountain region. Each trail description includes summary information including
description, distance, difficulty, trailhead amenities, map references, and "How to find the
trailhead". This summary is augmented by a page or two of narrative and good trail maps.
Watch out on the trail maps, however. Those of us used to seeing North at the top of the
page can be tripped up if not careful, as the authors don’t follow this convention.
Another source of trail information is the Arkansas "Adventure Guide", published by the
Arkansas Dept of Parks & Tourism. This book has over 80 pages of information on
Arkansas Hiking (and multi-use) Trails, many with maps. This book is published every year
or two, so be sure you get the latest edition.
There are also several web sites with information on Ouachita Mountain trails.
Tim Ernst’s www.hikearkansas has trail information and links to many other hiking related
sites.
The Ouachita National Forest site has some of their trail maps available. Go to the forest
home page: http://www.fs.usda.gov/ouachita, from the menus on left side look under
Recreation for 'Hiking,' then click ‘Day Hiking,’ then go to the trail of your choice.
Finally, one of the mountain bike groups we share trails with have put up a very useful site,
with trail information and scanned in copies of the Forest Service maps. See
http://www.ouachitaadventures.com and follow the links to 'trails'.
