The trail was what I expected and not expected at the same time. While the rocks were mentioned when I researched the trail, the plethora of them was an eye-opener. The beginning of the trail, which started in Oklahoma, really slowed me down and made the hiking difficult with all the rocks and boulders in the trail. This was expected. The number of down trees on the trail didn’t help either. However, the rocks continuing throughout most of the rest of the trail was surprising. Certainly there were not as many or as big as the beginning of the trail, but nevertheless they were still there. I’ve never been good at walking on rocks, and I didn’t get any better on this trail.
Often I would lose the trail because of the obstructions caused by rocks and down trees. This was particularly troublesome when I had a long day, which stretched into after dark hours. A couple of times, I reached shelters in the dark. Their location was hard to find in the dark. I found myself using the navigation app, Far Out, to give me directions to the exact shelter spot. From this lesson, I learned to avoid reaching shelters late in the day to avoid navigating in the dark.
Another problem was of my own making. I had not properly compensated for the shorter days of late fall. In my planning stage for this hike, I consistently overestimated how much distance I could go during the day. As the first part of the hike shows, my distances were not that great as I went shelter the shelter.
The second part of the hike, which began after the town of Story, involved more distance between shelters in order to finish without running out of food. Running out of food did happen to me as I approached Story. It caused me to skip ahead about 25 miles which is the only part of the trail I did skip.
If I were to make a suggestion to the trail maintainers, it would be this. Please be consistent with the use of trail blaze paint. There were sections of the trail that had dark blue paint. That paint was difficult to see even during the day and impossible at night. Some sections had a nice bright, almost neon blue. Those blazes showed up well during the day and particularly at night when I had to hike after dark.
There were also sections of the trail that were not marked very well. I got pretty good at recognizing the trail even without the blazes. Still, there were times when I lost the trail when blazes were not visible on trees. I realize that it is a trail maintenance thing and maybe not the easiest to prioritize. Trail maintainers do a job that is not always appreciated. I certainly appreciate what they do and can’t fault any of them for what I perceive to be shortcomings in the blazes. Nevertheless, I hope that they standardize on the neon blue paint that I saw in certain sections when repainting the blazes.
And last but not least, anyone who hikes the Ouachita Trail, whether it be east or west, must do a better job than me of planning their exit at the end of the hike. I obviously did not plan very well; although the finish ended much better than it should have.
