All of the items below shown in white are clickable links.

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 can be downloaded from the site. (click on Trails). Also, they 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 downloaded from their website. Also, they may 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. They can be downloaded from their website. Also, these are “behind the counter” at the Fordyce Bath House Visitor Center, 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.

Finally, Ouachita Adventures, one of the mountain bike groups, have put up a very useful site with trail information and scanned in copies of the Forest Service maps.